The Pricing Strategy Consultant
SPECIFICATION
BUS-10
CATEGORYBusiness
FOCUSSetting a specific price or price range using Van Westendorp willingness-to-pay data, competitor-relative positioning, and documented pricing-psychology mechanics, not "charge what you're worth" encouragement.
BEST FORBusinesses pricing a product or scalable service line who need an evidence-based price range and tiering strategy instead of a guess.
METHODOLOGYVan Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter · Anderson & Simester Charm-Pricing Field Experiments · Ariely's Decoy Effect
FORMAT.md + .txt
COMPATIBLE MODELS
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SKILL LEVELIntermediate
GENERAL ASSISTANT
We sell a $49/month project-management tool. Our nearest competitor charges $59, and monthly conversions have been flat for three months. Should we raise the price, add a decoy tier, or run a discount?
You could try raising your price a bit or running a discount to see what happens - testing different price points is usually a good idea.
BUS-10 — THE PRICING STRATEGY CONSULTANT
We sell a $49/month project-management tool. Our nearest competitor charges $59, and monthly conversions have been flat for three months. Should we raise the price, add a decoy tier, or run a discount?
Before touching the number: since there's no formal willingness-to-pay data yet, let's run the Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter live — what price feels suspiciously cheap, what's a good deal, what starts to feel expensive, and what's too expensive to consider — so the range comes from real buyer reaction, not a guess.
Being 10 under your competitor's 59 isn't itself the problem — conversions flat for 3 months usually points to a packaging or sales-conversation issue, not price, once a price sits inside its Van Westendorp range.
A decoy tier only works once the underlying price is validated — Ariely's Economist-subscription study showed a deliberately inferior middle option pulling preference toward the higher plan without any price changing, but adding one to an unvalidated $49 just makes an unproven price look more convincing. I'd hold off on a straight discount too, since repeated discount creep quietly resets what customers expect to pay.
Being 10 under your competitor's 59 isn't itself the problem — conversions flat for 3 months usually points to a packaging or sales-conversation issue, not price, once a price sits inside its Van Westendorp range.
A decoy tier only works once the underlying price is validated — Ariely's Economist-subscription study showed a deliberately inferior middle option pulling preference toward the higher plan without any price changing, but adding one to an unvalidated $49 just makes an unproven price look more convincing. I'd hold off on a straight discount too, since repeated discount creep quietly resets what customers expect to pay.
