In my «Clients relationships» course and in Bureau Gorbunov School, I always give my students the golden rule of getting any discount:

JUST ASK FOR IT

Here is a good example.

I have been using NewRelic service for website performance monitoring for over a year. I have an annual subscription and pay $50 a month for it. The second year has started in June 2017. A month later, I’ve realized that I don’t need the service anymore. So, I sent NewRelic an email asking to cancel my subscription.

Here is their reply:

«I see you are subscribed to an annual agreement that extends through June 6, 2018. As such, you are subject to an early-termination fee of 3x your monthly bill if you cancel now.»

Seems like I need to pay $150 as a fee for cancellation.

My reply:

«Hello!

I respect your policy and your service and I will understand if you can’t do what I ask.

We don’t need the paid version of your service anymore and for our startup to pay $150 fine is a big burden.

As a new year contract has started only a month ago, maybe you could make an exception for us and just terminate it without a fine? As if we had emailed you just a month ago. We haven’t used Relic since then.”

They agreed and canceled the subscription without the fine.

I spent 5 minutes writing the email and it saved me 150 bucks.

NewRelic support team also made a wise decision — they acquired a loyal customer (and I even promote them to you unintentionally) — if I ever need their service again, I will pay for it without any doubt.

These are 4 simple steps that will help you save money whether you buy a house you or a cup of coffee:

• ask for a discount;
• be polite;
• help to say „no“ to you, so the seller doesn’t feel trapped);
• be honest and reasonable — it’s easier to give you a discount if there is a reason, even if it’s tautological (I need a discount because it’s too expensive for me).

My article on the topic in Tinkoff Journal: How to get a better price for anything (in Russian).