Discover how to properly price your products, services, or events so you can drive both revenue and profit.
Written by: Allie DeckerDetermine the best pricing strategy for your business with this free calculator and template.
Pricing your products and services can be tough. Set prices too high, and you miss out on valuable sales. Set them too low, and you miss out on valuable revenue.
Thankfully, pricing doesn’t have to be a sacrifice or a shot in the dark. There are dozens of pricing models and strategies that can help you better understand how to set the right prices for your audience and revenue goals.
That’s why we’ve created this guide.
Whether you’re a business beginner or a pricing pro, the tactics and strategies in this guide will get you comfortable with pricing your products. Bookmark this guide for later and use the chapter links to jump around to sections of interest.
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Dynamic pricing is also known as surge pricing, demand pricing, or time-based pricing. It’s a flexible pricing strategy where prices fluctuate based on market and customer demand. Hotels, airlines, event venues, and utility companies use dynamic pricing by applying algorithms that consider competitor pricing, demand, and other factors. These algorithms allow companies to shift prices to match when and what the customer is willing to pay at the exact moment they’re ready to make a purchase.
Dynamic pricing can help keep your marketing plans on track. Your team can plan for promotions in advance and configure the pricing algorithm you use to launch the promotion price at the perfect time. You can even A/B test dynamic pricing in real-time to maximize your profits.
A high-low pricing strategy is when a company initially sells a product at a high price but lowers that price when the product drops in novelty or relevance. Discounts, clearance sections, and year-end sales are examples of high-low pricing in action — hence the reason why this strategy may also be called a discount pricing strategy. High-low pricing is commonly used by retail firms that sell seasonal items or products that change often, such as clothing, decor, and furniture. What makes a high/low pricing strategy appealing to sellers? Consumers enjoy anticipating sales and discounts, hence why Black Friday and other universal discount days are so popular.
If you want to keep the foot traffic steady in your stores year-round, a high-low pricing strategy can help. By evaluating the popularity of your products during particular periods throughout the year, you can leverage low pricing to increase sales during traditionally slow months.
Contrasted with skimming pricing, a penetration pricing strategy is when companies enter the market with an extremely low price, effectively drawing attention (and revenue) away from higher-priced competitors. Penetration pricing isn’t sustainable in the long run, however, and is typically applied for a short time. This pricing method works best for brand new businesses looking for customers or for businesses that are breaking into an existing, competitive market. The strategy is all about disruption and temporary loss … and hoping that your initial customers stick around as you eventually raise prices. (Another tangential strategy is loss leader pricing, where retailers attract customers with intentionally low-priced items in hopes that they’ll buy other, higher-priced products, too. This is precisely how stores like Target get you — and me.)
Penetration pricing has similar implications as freemium pricing — the money won’t come in overnight. But with enough value and a great product or service, you could continue to make money and scale your business as you increase prices. One tip for this pricing strategy is to market the value of the products you sell and let price be a secondary point.
A skimming pricing strategy is when companies charge the highest possible price for a new product and then lower the price over time as the product becomes less and less popular. Skimming is different from high-low pricing in that prices are lowered gradually over time. Technology products, such as DVD players, video game consoles, and smartphones, are typically priced using this strategy as they become less relevant over time. A skimming pricing strategy helps recover sunk costs and sell products well beyond their novelty, but the strategy can also annoy consumers who bought at full price and attract competitors who recognize the “fake” pricing margin as prices are lowered.
Skimming pricing strategy can work well if you sell products that have products with varying life cycle lengths. One product may come in and out of popularity quickly so you have a short time to skim your profits in the beginning stages of the life cycle. On the flip side, a product that has a longer life cycle can stay at a higher price for more time. You’ll be able to maintain your marketing efforts for each product more effectively without constantly adjusting your pricing across every product you sell.
A value-based pricing strategy is when companies price their products or services based on what the customer is willing to pay. Even if it can charge more for a product, the company decides to set its prices based on customer interest and data. If used accurately, value-based pricing can boost your customer sentiment and loyalty. It can also help you prioritize your customers in other facets of your business, like marketing and service. On the flip side, value-based pricing requires you to constantly be in tune with your various customer profiles and buyer personas and possibly vary your prices based on those differences.
Marketing to your customers should always lead with value, so having a value-based pricing model should help strengthen the demand for your products and services. Just be sure that your audiences are distinct enough in what they’re willing to pay for — you don’t want to run into trouble by charging more or less based on off-limits criteria.
Psychological pricing is what it sounds like — it targets human psychology to boost your sales. For example, according to the "9-digit effect", even though a product that costs $99.99 is essentially $100, customers may see this as a good deal simply because of the "9" in the price. Another way to use psychological pricing would be to place a more expensive item directly next to (either, in-store or online) the one you're most focused on selling. Or offer a "buy one, get one 50% off (or free)" deal that makes customers feel as though the circumstances are too good to pass up on. And lastly, changing the font, size, and color of your pricing information on and around your products has also been proven, in various instances, to boost sales.
Psychological pricing strategy requires an intimate understanding of your target market to yield the best results. If your customers are inclined to discounts and coupons, appealing to this desire through your marketing can help this product meet their psychological need to save money. If paying for quality is important to your audience, having the lowest price on the shelf might not help you reach your sales goals. Regardless of the motivations your customers have for paying a certain price for a product, your pricing and marketing should appeal to those motivations.
Geographic pricing is when products or services are priced differently depending on geographical location or market. This strategy may be used if a customer from another country is making a purchase or if there are disparities in factors like the economy or wages (from the location in which you're selling a good to the location of the person it is being sold to).
Marketing a geographically priced product or service is easy thanks to paid social media advertising. Segmenting by zip code, city, or even region can be accomplished at a low cost with accurate results. Even as specific customers travel or permanently move, your pricing model will remain the same which helps you maintain your marketing costs. Download our free guide to creating buyer personas to easily organize your audience segments and make your marketing stronger. Like we said above, these strategies aren’t necessarily meant to stand alone. We encourage you to mix and match these methods as needed. Below, we cover more specific pricing models for individual products.
While your pricing strategy may determine how your company sets fees for its offerings overall, the below pricing models can help you set prices for specific product lines. Let's take a look.
