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Alakris — Discount Policy 2026
| Version | v1.0 |
| Date | 2026-07-12 |
| Status | APPROVED — published 2026-07-12 |
| Contract | MKT-030-9 (PARENT: MKT-030) |
| References | Pricing Strategy (MKT-030-2), Pricing Book (pricing-book-2026.md, MKT-030-3), Financial Model (financial-model-2026.xlsx, MKT-030-11) |
Principle
Discount is not a tool for closing a weak deal, but a deliberate management decision. The policy exists to prevent arbitrary manager concessions and protect platform unit economics (see pricing-strategy-2026.md, section 1.3: "never apologize for price, never give a discount immediately").
Financial floor (hard lower bound, not a working guide): the maximum discount is bounded below by the threshold at which LTV:CAC does not fall below 3:1 (healthy range per financial-model-2026.xlsx, Metrics sheet, comment on cell B10: "Healthy range ≥ 3:1, alert < 1:1").
- Self-service segment (Lite/Self-Service/Managed): current LTV:CAC = 14.9:1 (Metrics!B10, live formula
=IFERROR(B9/B8,0), recalculated 2026-07-12). Because discount reduces LTV proportionally to ARPU (CAC does not change from a one-time discount to a specific customer), the theoretical discount ceiling at which LTV:CAC still does not drop below 3:1 is ≈80% (1 − 3/14.9). - Enterprise segment (Growth/Scale/Performance): current LTV:CAC = 14:1 (Metrics!B22). Theoretical ceiling — ≈78% (1 − 3/14).
Practical limits below ("Approval matrix" section) are set MUCH more conservatively than this theoretical ceiling — 80%/78% is a backstop check of "we are definitely not approaching the danger zone," not a working guide for managers. Real limits are defined by market practice (~15% on annual contract without escalation) and premium product positioning, not by LTV:CAC headroom.
Approval Matrix
Self-service tiers (Lite / Self-Service / Managed)
| Discount | Who approves | Condition |
|---|---|---|
| 0–10% | Sales manager independently, no escalation | Only with annual prepay — see "Special terms" below. Discount on monthly payment is not provided by default. |
| 10–15% | Sales manager, with notification to owner (no approval wait, post-factum log) | Annual prepay + additional justification (e.g., referral from an existing customer). |
| 15%+ | Owner only, explicit approval BEFORE promising to customer | Requires documented economic justification — see "Escalation above maximum" section. |
Managed — additional condition
Managed includes a dedicated specialist (allocated fixed cost, see pricing-strategy-2026.md section 3.2) — discounts above 10% on Managed require confirmation that the specialist's allocated cost is still covered after the discount (sanity check with owner, not a separate formula in this document).
Enterprise (Growth / Scale / Performance)
Enterprise has no fixed base price from which a discount percentage is calculated — discount here means positioning the price in the lower part of the published range (Pricing Book, Enterprise Pricing Policy) or reducing the onboarding fee, not a percentage off.
| Action | Who approves |
|---|---|
| Price within the published sub-tier range (Growth $900–1500 / Scale $2500–4000 / Performance $5000–10000) | Sales manager independently |
| Price below the lower bound of the sub-tier range | Owner only |
| Reducing/waiving onboarding fee | Owner only |
| Non-standard SLA cheaper than the standard package | Owner + technical effort assessment |
(This table duplicates the Approval matrix from Pricing Book, Enterprise Pricing Policy — single source of truth; reproduced here for discount-context completeness, not to override it.)
Special terms
Annual prepay
Standard market practice (already mentioned in Alakris_Price_List_2026.pdf, Terms section: "Annual prepay discount available upon request"). 10% discount off the 12-month total for a single annual prepayment — available to the sales manager independently for self-service tiers (see Approval Matrix above, 0–10% range). For Enterprise — discussed individually within the custom quote.
Term: Indefinite as a standard policy condition (not a promotion with an expiration date). Cancelled/reviewed only by explicit update of this document.
Pilot / promotional terms
As of 2026-07-12, no separate pilot or temporary promotional programs are approved. If the owner launches a promotion (e.g., "first month free" for a specific segment), it is documented in a separate section here with an explicit validity period and cancellation condition BEFORE managers apply it, not retroactively.
Exceptions (documented list — not "at discretion")
| Category | Condition | Who approves |
|---|---|---|
| Non-profit / NGO | Confirmed non-profit status | Owner, individual discount outside the standard approval matrix |
| Partner deals | Customer brought through an official Alakris partner/reseller (if such a program is active) | Owner, terms per partner agreement, not this document |
| Reference customer | Customer agrees to be a public case study (approved case study, logo use) | Owner — may justify a discount above 15% in exchange for marketing value (see escalation below) |
Any discount outside these three categories and outside the approval matrix above is not provided without an explicit new precedent documented as an exception (section below).
Escalation above maximum
If a customer requests a discount above the published maximum (15% self-service, below the range for Enterprise) without clearly falling into the exceptions above:
- Do not promise anything on the call. Record the request and escalate to the owner with details (volume, contract term, customer justification).
- The customer must provide one of:
- Multi-year commitment (2+ years) — compensates for lower margin through retention;
- Permission to use the customer as a public case study (case study, logo, quote);
- Large volume (for Enterprise — upper part of Performance range and above).
- The owner decides individually — not by formula, but with explicit tie to one of the points above, not "just because the customer insisted."
Mandatory rule: one-time exception ≠ precedent
If a discount above the standard maximum was approved by the owner once (escalation above), it must be documented as a one-time exception (who the customer was, what discount, why approved, date). Managers may not cite this precedent when working with future customers ("we gave discount X to customer Y") — every case above the maximum goes through escalation again. Grandfathering (automatic extension of a one-time exception to future deals) is explicitly prohibited by this policy.
Document maintained under task MKT-030-9. Changes to maximum percentages are made only by updating this file with recalculation of the LTV:CAC threshold against the current financial-model-2026.xlsx, not at the manager's discretion.