Designing for Revenue: Turning Ajar into a Self-Onboarding SaaS Product
Ajar started as a transaction-based rent collection platform in the GCC. But relying solely on transaction fees wasn’t sustainable. To unlock growth and create more stable revenue, we introduced a SaaS model. Over time, this evolved from a manual sales-driven process into a fully self-serve experience where clients could choose a plan and pay online — all without talking to Sales.
The Problem
We were facing two connected challenges:
Our transaction-based model wasn’t generating enough revenue to sustain or scale the business.
The introduction of SaaS pricing had no real mechanism behind it — clients could see the plans online, but there was no way to sign up or pay on their own.
At the time, Kuwait lacked a recurring payments infrastructure we could plug into. And our sales team was overwhelmed manually converting legacy users to paid plans. We needed to test if a subscription model would work and eventually reduce the load on Sales.
My Role
As Product Manager and Design Lead, I was responsible for:
Reframing the product experience for SaaS
Designing the onboarding and billing flows
Coordinating with engineering to find local payment workarounds
Validating whether clients would pay without direct sales involvement
Research & Insights
We learned:
Property managers understood subscription pricing, but expected hands-on support to get started
Many of our clients had never paid for a digital tool before — trust and value had to be visible upfront
Kuwait-based payment tools didn’t support recurring billing, which forced us to think creatively
Takeaway: We couldn’t rely on Stripe-style automation. We needed to use our own tools to simulate it — and design an experience that felt trustworthy, local, and effortless.
User Flow
We moved from “contact sales to upgrade” to a guided self-onboarding journey:
Website Pricing Page: Clear breakdown of plans and what’s included
Signup & Property Creation: Users could onboard directly into a free trial
Upgrade CTA in-app: Nudged users with usage-based prompts (“You’ve hit your unit limit”)
Billing & Invoicing:
We used Ajar’s own property management invoicing tool as a workaround to create and send subscription invoices
Clients could pay one-time, upfront for their plan (monthly or annually)
Access Unlocked: Plan features activated immediately upon payment
Core Features
Local Billing Workaround: No external subscriptions API, so we used our own invoicing tool
In-app Upgrade Flow: Clients could upgrade inside the product without calling Sales
Usage-based Nudges: Feature limitations encouraged natural plan upgrades
Website Integration: Connected pricing page with signup and upgrade journeys
Trial Period & Feature Gating: Let users explore before committing
What I Learned
You don’t need Stripe to build SaaS. You just need a billing experience that works for your market.
Sales dependency is a bottleneck. Self-serve isn’t just convenient for clients—it’s necessary for internal scale.
Trust is a product feature. We had to make clients feel safe paying online in a region still warming up to SaaS tools.
Outcome
We successfully launched a self-onboarding SaaS experience that worked without live Sales involvement
Over time, this proved that our users were willing to pay for the value the platform delivered
We validated the SaaS model with actual revenue, even before we had subscription infrastructure
Sales team focus shifted to enterprise deals and support, instead of onboarding
