Project Overview

Client: TigerData
Industry: Software Development (Developer Tools, Cloud Data Infrastructure)
Timeline: 8 months (2024)
My Role: Product Designer

Tiger Cloud provides cloud-based database infrastructure and management tools, helping teams deploy, monitor, and scale their databases with ease. This project focused on introducing a structured pricing tier system to better segment users and tailor features to their needs.

The Problem

Before this project, Tiger Cloud did not have a structured pricing system. All users shared the same feature set, which created several challenges:

• Users could not be segmented by needs or behaviour, making it hard to prioritize features or target upsells effectively

• There was no clear distinction in value between basic and Enterprise users, which caused confusion and limited growth opportunities.

• Without tiered options, introducing advanced features risked overwhelming or alienating users

The goal of this project was to create a transparent, scalable pricing tier system that delivered clear value differentiation, supported business goals, and maintained trust with existing users.

My Role

I led the design of the pricing tier system, collaborating closely with my PM and engineers to create a solution that balanced business needs and user experience. My responsibilities included:

• Designing user flows for upgrading, downgrading, and managing plans

• Partnering with a front-end engineer to design and implement screens in parallel with development

• QA and testing the flows to ensure accuracy, usability, and edge-case handling

• Iterating on the experience based on internal feedback and early post-launch insights

Solution

We began by conducting user research to segment customers into personas and define feature sets for each pricing tier. These insights were translated into detailed user flows, which were iterated on with cross-functional feedback to ensure all edge cases and migration scenarios were considered.

To implement the new pricing structure, we integrated a third-party billing engine to manage backend functionality and streamline finance operations. The front-end was designed and developed in parallel, allowing for rapid iteration.

The final system provides:

• Clear differentiation of value across pricing tiers

• Flexible and scalable UX for both new and existing users

• Transparent upgrade and downgrade flows

Below is a short demo of the upgrade and downgrade flow:

Impact

Within the first few months after launch, we saw a 75% month-over-month increase in customers adopting the Scale plan (i.e. the "Pro" paid plan). Overall reception has been positive. Post-launch feedback revealed that the downgrade flow required too many steps, which were originally intended to gather user insights. Based on this feedback, we streamlined the process to reduce friction and improve the overall experience.