Pre-Launch Pricing Research Kit: AI-Powered Code Review Tool

Executive Summary

Recommended pricing: $79-149/month per team (5-10 developers), positioning in mid-market range

Key findings:

• Static code analysis market valued at $1.45B in 2026, growing at 7.4% CAGR
• AI code generation creating 40% more review capacity needs
• Competitor pricing ranges from $15-40/developer/month; team-based pricing ($99-150/team) is emerging preferred model
• Your $99/month per team sits at lower-middle of market—headroom to $120-149/month with strong AI features
• Primary risk: GitHub Advanced Security at $19-30/developer could commoditize basic features

Next steps:

1. Conduct 7-10 customer interviews in weeks 1-3 using provided script
2. Calculate Van Westendorp optimal price point by week 4
3. Build differentiation messaging around AI review quality vs. GitHub/legacy tools
4. Finalize tier structure by week 6-7, soft launch week 8

1. Market Sizing

TAM: $980M - $1.45B

Global static code analysis market. North America represents 42% of deployments.

SAM: $245M - $350M

Companies with 5-100 employees, US market, teams using formal code review (70% of dev teams).

SOM (Year 1): $72K - $142K

Target: 60-120 teams at $99/month = $1,188/year per customer.

2. Competitor Pricing Analysis

Direct Competitors (AI-Powered Code Review)

Adjacent Competitors (Traditional SAST)

Your positioning at $99/month:

• Lower than Snyk ($125/mo for 5 devs)
• Lower than GitHub Advanced Security ($95-150/mo for 5 devs)
• Higher than DeepSource ($60-120/mo for 5 devs)
• Comparable to SonarQube Cloud entry point

3. Customer Interview Script (20 minutes)

Target: Engineering managers, tech leads at 5-100 person companies

Opening: “I’m researching how engineering teams handle code review processes. This isn’t a sales call—I want to understand your challenges.”

Current Situation (5 min):

1. “How many developers on your team? What’s your tech stack?”
2. “Walk me through what happens when someone opens a pull request.”
3. “How much time does your team spend on code reviews each week?”
4. “What automated tools are you using? GitHub Advanced Security, SonarQube, linters?”

Pain Exploration (5 min):
5. “What’s the most frustrating part of your code review process?”
6. “Has your review process ever caused bugs in production or delayed releases?”
7. “If you could fix one thing about code review, what would it be?”
8. “Are you using AI coding assistants like Copilot? Has that changed review needs?”

Van Westendorp Pricing (5 min):
“Imagine AI that automatically reviews every PR in real-time, catches bugs and security issues before human review, provides contextual feedback in PR comments, learns your team’s standards, and flags high-risk changes for mandatory human review.”

9a. “At what price would you consider this so cheap you’d question if it works?” $_____
9b. “At what price would this be a bargain?” $_____
9c. “At what price would it be expensive but still worth considering?” $_____
9d. “At what price would it be too expensive—you’d never buy it?” $_____

10. “Would you pay $99/month per team (up to 10 developers) for this?” Yes / No / Depends

4. Launch Pricing Recommendation

Option A: Single-Tier Launch (Recommended)

Option B: Two-Tier Structure

Launch Strategy:

• Early adopter discount: First 100 customers get $74/month forever (25% off)
• Annual option: $999/year (2 months free)
• Money-back guarantee: 30 days

Risk Mitigation:

• If price too high (conversion <10%): Add more value or introduce $79 starter tier
• If price too low (conversion >35%): Raise to $119/mo for new customers, grandfather existing

5. Action Plan (8-Week Timeline)