In SaaS negotiations, keep price and contract terms linked. Once price is settled, the customer has no reason to stop asking for more terms, and you give concessions for nothing.
Short answer: telling your customers to back up their data, in the contract, in the product, and in your documentation, is a cheap and genuinely effective legal defense. A Utah Supreme Court case shows that those customer data backup warnings, combined with a disclaimer of indirect damages, can get a
Saying “no” well is a core software-negotiation skill. The move is William Ury’s “Yes, No, Yes”: name the interest behind your no, deliver the no clearly, then hand the other side a path to yes.
Do not let your RFP response get pulled into the contract. It was written as marketing, it is full of puffery, and embedding it creates both litigation risk and revenue-recognition problems.
The Harvard Program on Negotiation is the best available resource for software contract negotiation training, because it teaches a principled, collaborative methodology that fits the long-term, relationship-driven nature of software and SaaS deals.
The skills an FBI hostage negotiator uses, showing interest, building rapport, then influencing, work in software customer deals too.
A Software Lawyer’s Take on Forrester’s Software Licensee Bill of Rights. Short answer: Forrester’s “Software Licensee Bill of Rights” is a buyer wish list, and several items collide with a vendor’s legitimate right to set its own pricing and licensing model. Know your stance on each one, because these arguments
When a customer insists you sign their form agreement (their “paper”), do not just say yes to close faster.
The most important move in a software or SaaS negotiation is to educate the buyer about your model.
Respect costs nothing and closes deals. The person across the table is taking a career risk by choosing you, so treat them like a person, not a checkbox.
If you negotiate software or SaaS deals, two books will do more for you than any “closing tactic” ever will: Getting to Yes and Difficult Conversations. Both come out of the Harvard Program on Negotiation, and both work on real deals, not just in theory. One of the most important
Short answer: most software companies need more than one law firm, but far fewer big-firm hours than they think. The right structure is usually a specialist for each major area (commercial and SaaS contracts, IP, employment, litigation, and corporate) instead of one general firm that bills everything at a single
SaaS customers walk into a deal expecting clear answers on five things, data ownership and exit, security, uptime, price predictability, and liability.
Short answer: “Software Licensing Made Simple” is not just a blog title, it is how I practice. I write software and SaaS contracts in plain English so the people who have to live with them can actually understand them. Shorter, clearer agreements close faster, survive procurement review, and hold up
Short answer: a software or SaaS deal is not done until there is a signed written agreement. Business people often treat an oral or email “yes” as the close. Protect yourself by stating clearly, in writing, that nothing binds until both sides sign a definitive contract. There is too often