Use Pricing Strategy Prover with your AI.

Validate pricing strategy

You must: (1) VALUE METRIC. identify the unit that scales with customer success. Not per-seat unless seats = value. API calls, events, storage, revenue processed, active contacts, (2) WTP RESEARCH. Van Westendorp, Gabor-Granger, or customer interviews with N= sample size. Not "competitor charges $X." Your customers are not their customers, (3) SEGMENTATION. different prices for segments with different value perception. Feature fencing to prevent cross-segment arbitrage. Freelancer ≠ Enterprise, (4) UNIT ECONOMICS. CAC by channel, LTV ADJUSTED FOR GROSS MARGIN, LTV/CAC ≥ 3x, payback ≤ 12 months, gross margin ≥ 70%. Raw LTV without gross margin adjustment is fiction, (5) PACKAGING. tiers with natural upgrade triggers. Zero anti-patterns: no generous free, no minor premium, no "call us" enterprise. If rejected, the pricing has a revenue-killing structural flaw. Fix before launching. Structured reflection capability for pricing strategy validation. forces value metric identification, willingness-to-pay research with named methodology, segment-specific pricing with fencing, unit economics verification at each tier, and packaging design with natural upgrade triggers before any pricing decision ships. Grounded in Van Westendorp PSM, Gabor-Granger, Simon-Kucher methodology, and SaaS benchmarks. Catches Value Metric Misalignment (pricing on a unit that does not scale with customer value. "We charge per seat." The product is a monitoring dashboard. One engineer monitors 500 servers. same value whether 1 seat or 50. Per-seat pricing: the customer adds 1 seat ($29/month) to monitor $2M in infrastructure. Value delivered: $2M in uptime protection. Price captured: $29. Value capture ratio: 0.0015%. Correct value metric: per server monitored, or per alert resolved, or per incident prevented. At $5/server/month × 500 servers = $2,500/month. Value capture: 1.5%. still low but 100x better. The value metric must grow AS the customer gets more value. not as they hire more people), WTP Guesswork (setting prices based on competitor pricing or founder intuition instead of research. "Our competitor charges $29, so we will charge $25." This assumes: (1) the competitor researched their price (they probably did not), (2) your segments have the same WTP (they probably do not), (3) lower price wins (it often does not. it signals lower quality). Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter with N=200 from target segment: Too Cheap: $15 (below this, quality is suspect). Bargain: $35. Expensive: $65. Too Expensive: $95. Optimal Price Point: $49 (intersection of too-cheap and too-expensive curves). Acceptable Range: $35-$65. The competitor at $25 is BELOW the too-cheap threshold. they are losing revenue AND credibility), Segment Blindness (one price for all customers regardless of value perception. a project management capability charges $10/user/month for everyone. Freelancer: manages 3 projects, value delivered ≈ $50/month in time saved. $10 is appropriate. Enterprise team of 200: manages 500 projects, value delivered ≈ $50,000/month in coordination savings. $10/user × 200 = $2,000/month. Value capture: 4%. The enterprise is a 50x better customer being charged 1x. Correct: Freelancer tier $10/user. Team tier $25/user (includes integrations, reporting). Enterprise tier: custom pricing based on value delivered + SLA. Fencing: feature gates (SSO, audit logs, API access) that enterprises need but freelancers do not), Phantom Unit Economics (showing LTV/CAC ratio without adjusting for gross margin. "LTV/CAC = 5x! We are very efficient." CAC: $500. LTV: $2,500 (average lifetime × ARPU). But gross margin is 40% (heavy compute costs). Adjusted LTV: $2,500 × 0.40 = $1,000. Adjusted LTV/CAC: 2.0x. Below the 3x threshold. The business appears healthy but is actually unprofitable at unit level. LTV must ALWAYS be adjusted for gross margin. SaaS benchmark: gross margin ≥ 70%. Below 60% = structural problem. Payback period at 40% margin: $500 / (ARPU × 0.40) = much longer than expected), and Packaging Anti-Patterns (tier design that blocks upgrades or leaves money on the table. Anti-Pattern 1: "Generous Free". free tier includes 95% of features. Result: 98% of users stay free. Conversion rate: 2%. Fix: free tier demonstrates value but creates friction at the natural expansion point (e.g., 3 projects free, paid at project 4. when the user has invested enough to feel switching cost). Anti-Pattern 2: "Minor Premium". premium adds only 1-2 features over free. Result: upgrade feels like a donation, not a value exchange. Fix: premium must unlock a workflow the user NEEDS as they grow (collaboration, integrations, reporting). Anti-Pattern 3: "Call Us Enterprise". no price listed, forces a sales call. Modern buyers (especially developers) abandon at "Contact Sales." Fix: list enterprise starting price or price calculator + self-serve option). Call once per pricing decision, model change, or tier restructuring