Customer vs. user: Why the difference matters in product decisions

When designing and building products, we often use the terms ‘user’ and ‘customer’ interchangeably. That’s a big problem.

The distinction might not matter much for simple B2C products — the user and customer are, in most cases, the same person — but as the product’s complexity grows, the distinction between a user and a customer matters more.

Let’s take a deeper look at why.

Definition of a user

A user is a person who — you’ve guessed it — uses your product. That’s the person for whom the product is dedicated in the first place.

Your product’s main job is to solve users’ pain points and make their lives easier.

Definition of a customer

A customer is a person who pays for your product.

I’d differentiate three types of customers depending on how they interact with the product:

Customer/user: Same use case

When a customer uses the product in the same way as a normal user.

For example, a listener using Spotify Premium is both a user and a customer at the same time.

Customer/user: Different use case

When a customer uses your product in a different way than non-paying users.

For example, the workplace owner on Slack uses and values different features and capabilities than normal employees using the communicator.

Customer non-user

When the person who pays doesn’t directly use the product themselves.

For example, a parent paying for their children’s Quizlet subscription is a non-user customer.

Why does the distinction matter

It’s essential to have a clear understanding of who your users and customers are; otherwise, you will run into issues sooner or later.

A few key reasons why the distinction matters include:

Internal communication

Mismatched definitions are the fastest way to misalignment and the various issues that stem from it.

If someone says that the research showed that customers hate feature X, everyone in the room must understand what it means, and that customers hating feature X doesn’t contradict users potentially loving it.

Without a clear distinction, half of the room might understand the same message in a different way than the second half.

Clarity

Do you even know who your customer is? What do they need? What do they fear?

Having a clear distinction between users and customers forces the team to get that clarity. Be it in the form of a separate user persona, journey map, and so on.

Way too many teams focus solely on users, without really knowing much about the people who ultimately pay their salaries.

Perspective

Understanding who pays for the product adds another dimension to prioritization and planning efforts.

For example, at Brainly, after we discovered that in most cases teenagers don’t subscribe themselves; instead, their parents do it with their own CC card, everything changed. The way we looked at features, communication, or even the checkout page changed dramatically.

Different needs

When different, users and customers often have their distinct needs and priorities. If you don’t differentiate them, you run into a risk of either focusing too heavily on only one of them or, worse, mixing their feedback together into confusing, often conflicting insights.

Examples of customer vs user differentiation

Let’s take a look at a few examples of customer vs user differentiations and how they impact the product development:

B2B context

B2B is where the distinction between customers and users is often the clearest. One company bill, multiple employees using it.

Take Salesforce, for example. Salespeople are the users, while the VP Sales or their equivalent foots the bill, hoping to get better results in the end.

The core principle doesn’t change. User comes first. If salespeople can’t make more sales with the tool, then what’s the tool for?

But then we must also design managerial views, reports, etc., to consistently demonstrate to the customer that paying is a worthwhile investment; otherwise, it doesn’t matter how great an impact the tool has if the person who pays doesn’t see it.

B2B2C context

B2B2C context is trickier because both sides are usually equally important.

Let’s take Booksy, for example.

People who book their appointments are the primary users of the app. However, beauty providers are the actual customers – they are the ones paying via commission.

This is a delicate balancing act similar to most marketplaces.

More value to customers = more salons available = more reasons for users to join.

More value to users = more demand for salons = more reasons for salons to join.

You need to balance the needs of both in the long run.

B2C context

As we have already established, although users and customers are often the same person in B2C products, it’s not always the case.

I encourage you to always challenge that belief.

You can’t imagine how long it took us to realize that parents are the main buyers of our products. We had every reason to believe kids pay themselves.

Whenever a parent is a payer for the product, you must ensure that the way you communicate your value resonates with them, not just with their kids. For more advanced products, you might even consider a dedicated set of features and capabilities, making customers (parents in this case) an acquisition moat for users (parents telling kids to use a particular app).

Closing thoughts

Initially, I couldn’t believe I was writing an article about user vs customer in 2026. But it seems like it’s an evergreen issue in product development. It’s understandable; these terms are very similar, and in many cases, they can be used interchangeably.

The problem appears when they can’t.

That’s a fast-track way towards misalignment, flawed priorities, and poor decisions. Don’t think I’m dramatic. I’ve been there too, confusing our users with our customers and neglecting the latter completely.

I encourage you to always challenge whether you truly understand who is footing the bill for your product – even if you think you already know. Then make sure everyone in the organization knows who your user is versus who your customer truly is. You can visualize this with dedicated user personas for each, or with any other artifact you prefer. Make sure you take both into consideration whenever making decisions.

Even though the words we use are a small thing, they can have a tremendous impact.

Great products don’t start with great user research. They start with a team that actually speaks the same language.

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