Decision
The Studio tier is $5,000/mo for both JOLT! and Megaphone, replacing $3,995/mo. Megaphone’s Studio stays a FROM price scoped at the Deploy day-60 review, so it reads “from $5,000/mo”. JOLT! Studio remains the optional post-Deploy retainer, never required.
Context
$3,995/mo had been the Studio number since 2026-08-06 for JOLT (Jolt System Definition, Deploy Funnel, and Studio Price, which itself superseded a $3,495 brief and an earlier “~$2-3k" figure) and since launch for Megaphone, where 2026-09-02 converted it from a flat hold into a FROM price (Megaphone Studio becomes the recurring expansion model after Deploy). The charm-priced $3,995 sat just under the round number while the comparable anchor, storyarb, runs $7,000+/mo. $5,000 is a cleaner number to say on a call, still under that anchor.
Options considered
- Hold at $3,995. Lost: the number was set before the embed was proven and the price had not moved through two rounds of delivery evidence.
- Raise only new logos, grandfather existing. Not decided here. Existing subscriptions are unchanged by this ruling; nothing in billing was touched.
- Go to the storyarb anchor ($7,000+). Lost for now: further increases were already tied to renewal data at the first Season, and that data is not in yet.
Consequences
- Both brands now quote the same Studio number, so cross-brand pitch language matches for the first time.
- Lore’s Engine+Video at $3,990/mo was deliberately priced just under the old $3,995 Studio. That gap is now $1,010 rather than $5. Lore pricing itself is unchanged; the positioning note in Lore pricing model (Foundation + Engine + Video upsell) now reads against a stale reference point and is worth revisiting.
- The Company Brain retainer ($2,495/mo) was positioned "below Studio $3,995”. Still true, with more room.
- Megaphone’s public surfaces (Deploy page day-60 FAQ, canon.ts, three blog posts whose payback arithmetic is derived from the retainer) were swept the same day. First-year math moves from $50,955 to $60,000, and the breakeven against the $24,266 SaaS Capital median ACV moves from 2.1 to 2.5 influenced deals.
- JOLT’s public site does not publish a Studio number at all (Studio is “custom-priced” there), so no JOLT public copy changed.
- Existing client billing records and historical prospect quotes were deliberately NOT rewritten: they record what was actually charged and said at the time.
Follow-ups
- Flag the new number to Tatem (JOLT) and Blake (Megaphone) so call language matches the site.
- Not yet published to the public decision log: the
public:block is unset because that needs Michael’s approval and wording sign-off. - Open: whether existing Studio subscribers move to $5,000 at renewal or are grandfathered.
Follow-up (2026-10-01 monthly synthesis)
No record found that Tatem or Blake were actually told the new number (no meeting or Slack capture references it after Sep 22). The grandfather-vs-renewal question is still open at month end, and the Sep 30 Pally proposal correctly quoted Megaphone/Jolt at the new figures, so the number is in live use even though the two people who say it on calls have no confirmed notification. Worth a quick explicit check before the next sales call either of them runs.