| name | pricing-strategy |
| description | Design, optimize, and communicate SaaS pricing — tier structure, value metrics, pricing pages, and price increase strategy. Use when building a pricing model from scratch, redesigning existing pricing, planning a price increase, or improving a pricing page. Trigger keywords: pricing tiers, pricing page, price increase, packaging, value metric, per seat pricing, usage-based pricing, freemium, good-better-best, pricing strategy, monetization, pricing page conversion, Van Westendorp. NOT for broader product strategy — use product-strategist for that. NOT for customer success or renewals — use customer-success-manager for expansion revenue. |
| license | MIT |
| metadata | {"version":"1.0.0","author":"Alireza Rezvani","category":"marketing","updated":"2026-03-06T00:00:00.000Z"} |
Pricing Strategy
Use this skill to design, audit, optimize, and communicate SaaS pricing: value metric, packaging, tier structure, price points, price increases, and pricing-page conversion.
Pricing is positioning. Price should sit between the next-best alternative and the value customers believe they receive; do not reduce pricing work to cost-plus math.
Required Input Contract
Check marketing-context.md first. Gather or infer:
- Current pricing: plans, price points, billing model, free/trial model, conversion rate, ARPC/ARPU, churn.
- Business context: B2B/B2C, self-serve/sales-assisted, best customers, competitors, cost to serve.
- Goal: design from scratch, optimize existing pricing, plan an increase, improve pricing page, or research willingness to pay.
- Constraints: contracts, grandfathering, channel margins, compliance, customer promises, and data confidence.
Constraints
- Confidence-tag every number: verified benchmark, estimated, or assumed.
- Do not quote non-public competitor prices or unverified benchmarks.
- Do not recommend changes that violate contracts, grandfathering, annual commitments, or partner margin rules.
- Do not recommend illegal or deceptive pricing: price-fixing, fake discounts, unlawful discrimination, or dark patterns.
- Do not fabricate case studies, customer outcomes, conversion rates, or revenue impact.
- Disclose price changes honestly; 60-90 days notice is standard for B2B increases and 30 days is the minimum.
- Do not promise specific conversion or revenue outcomes; use scenario ranges and label assumptions.
- Prefer three-tier good/better/best packaging when applicable; flag single-tier pricing when it blocks anchoring and expansion.
Core Modes
- Design from scratch: choose value metric, tier structure, price-point research, and pricing-page design.
- Optimize existing: audit current model, benchmark, identify conversion or expansion gaps, and recommend specific changes.
- Plan a price increase: choose rollout strategy, customer messaging, risk model, and monitoring plan.
Core Workflow
- Clarify goal, context, constraints, and confidence level.
- Decide the value metric before packaging and price points.
- Design or audit tier structure using good/better/best anchoring.
- Use value-based pricing and research methods to justify numbers.
- Address price-increase or pricing-page needs if in scope.
- Provide clear recommendation, rationale, risks, and validation plan.
Pricing Axes
Every pricing decision has three axes:
- Packaging: what each tier includes.
- Value metric: what scales with customer value.
- Price point: the number customers pay.
Lock in the value metric first, then packaging, then test price point.
Decision Rules
- Use per-seat pricing for collaboration-heavy tools where users map to value.
- Use usage pricing for APIs, infrastructure, AI, and variable consumption.
- Use feature/tier gates for platform capabilities and admin/security value.
- Use flat pricing only when value variation is narrow or simplicity matters more than expansion.
- Use hybrid models when one metric cannot capture value cleanly.
- If churn is high, diagnose retention before recommending a broad price increase.
Output Expectations
- Pricing design: value metric, three-tier structure, feature grid, price points, and rationale.
- Pricing audit: scorecard, gap analysis, benchmarks, risks, and quick wins.
- Price increase: strategy, communication plan, risk model, and 90-day rollout.
- Pricing page: above-fold layout, feature table, CTA copy, FAQ copy, and proof needs.
- Pricing research: Van Westendorp, MaxDiff, or competitor benchmarking plan.
- Scenario modeling: inputs and assumptions for
scripts/pricing_modeler.py when relevant.
Use bottom-line-first communication. Every recommendation needs what, why, how, and a confidence tag.
Reference Map
