Bunny RevOps principle #4 - Don't bifurcate PLG & SLG

The Problem with Separate Billing Streams

Many B2B SaaS companies begin with a straightforward billing model: customers sign up on the website, enter their credit card details, and receive monthly invoices through Stripe. This product-led growth (PLG) approach works well initially.

However, as the product gains market traction, deal sizes increase. Customers willing to commit $50,000-$100,000 annually expect negotiated pricing and alternative payment methods. When the first major enterprise deal closes, the existing Stripe-based infrastructure cannot accommodate non-standard pricing structures, forcing the accounting team to manually generate invoices through QuickBooks and manage payments outside the automated system.

The Consequences of Bifurcation

Once PLG and sales-led growth (SLG) revenue streams become separated, the organization faces compounding operational challenges:

• Reconciliation processes become manual and error-prone
• Dunning, renewals, and price changes require human intervention
• Customers with custom deals lose self-service capabilities
• A massive administrative paper trail accumulates

The real danger emerges when sales-led revenue eventually surpasses self-service revenue, yet everything remains manual. Transaction volume from existing customer renewals and upgrades outpaces new customer acquisitions, creating an unsustainable cost structure.

The Solution

The sooner you reel in this two-headed monster, the better you will be off. The recommendation is clear: implement unified billing infrastructure capable of handling both standard and non-standard pricing from the outset, or address this technical debt immediately before manual processes become entrenched across the organization.