pricing-diagnostic

name	pricing-diagnostic
description	The three-surface pricing diagnostic — willingness-to-pay distribution, value-metric alignment, and packaging-vs-pricing diagnosis. Loaded by the main pricing skill when the operator asks "should I raise prices", "where am I leaving money on the table", or "diagnose my pricing." Outputs a diagnostic report with surface-level scores (0-100 per surface), top 3 leaks, and a triage decision (price-tune / package-rebuild / metric-shift / hold).
user-invocable	false
allowed-tools	["Read","Write","Grep"]

Pricing Diagnostic — sub-skill

The core diagnostic engine. Before any pricing change, this sub-skill runs three surfaces in order and outputs a triage decision.

Activation

The main pricing skill routes here when the operator says:

• "Should I raise my prices?"
• "Where am I leaving money on the table?"
• "Diagnose my pricing"
• "Audit my pricing"
• "Run a pricing review"

Workflow

1. Load inputs

Required (from brand-config.json):

• pricing.currentTiers — present prices + cadence
• pricing.valueMetric — current unit
• customer.psps — Pain Signal Profile(s)
• pricing.discountPolicy — documented thresholds or "discretion"

Optional but improves diagnosis:

• pricing.wtpResearch — WTP discovery data if available
• pricing.pocketWaterfall — discount waterfall if built
• pricing.referenceAnchor — current reference frame

If pricing.* is empty, route to pricing-onboarding first.

2. Surface 1 — Willingness-to-pay (WTP) distribution

Diagnostic questions per PSP:

1. Do you have structured WTP data? (Van Westendorp / Gabor-Granger / conjoint within last 18 months — Yes/No)
2. If yes, what's the P10/P50/P90 of WTP per PSP?
3. If no, what's the close-rate at current price per PSP?
4. Are you discounting >15% on any PSP segment to close? (Indicates current price is above WTP P50 for that segment)
5. Are you walking away from buyers who say "too expensive" without counter-offer? (Indicates current price is at or above WTP P90)

Score this surface 0-100:

Score	State
0-30	No WTP data, high discount rate, no PSP differentiation. Highest-leverage area.
31-60	Some WTP signal, some discounting, partial PSP differentiation. Real leverage.
61-85	WTP data <18 months old per PSP, discounting within policy, PSP-aware pricing. Some room.
86-100	Recent structured WTP per PSP, quarterly refresh, tested by segment. Low-leverage.

Output: WTP score + top 2 specific gaps + recommended action.

3. Surface 2 — Value-metric alignment

Diagnostic questions:

1. What scales with your customer's success? (Volume of what they do = volume of value created)
2. Does your current value metric (per-seat / per-call / etc.) scale with that? Y/N
3. Are customers gaming the metric? (Sharing logins to avoid per-seat; routing through a single API key to avoid per-call; etc.)
4. What's your top-decile customer paying — and does it reflect their value created?
5. Are you charging customers who used to be small but are now huge at their old rate?

Score this surface 0-100:

Score	State
0-30	Metric doesn't track customer growth. Gaming is happening. Top customers pay <2x median despite using >10x.
31-60	Metric tracks growth weakly. Some gaming. Top customers pay 3-5x median.
61-85	Metric tracks growth well. No documented gaming. Top customers pay 5-15x median.
86-100	Metric naturally scales with success. Customer expansion is automatic. Top customers pay >15x median.

Output: Value-metric score + the alignment failure mode (if any) + recommended action.

4. Surface 3 — Packaging-vs-pricing diagnosis

Diagnostic questions:

1. Can the buyer grok your tier differentiation in <30 seconds? (Test this — show the pricing page to someone who's never seen it.)
2. Is your bottom tier so feature-poor it loses sales (vs being a real decoy that helps the target conversation)?
3. Is your top tier so feature-rich it caps natural expansion?
4. Are the WRONG features bundled together? (e.g., advanced reporting in the highest tier when most teams need it earlier)
5. What % of buyers land on each tier? (Healthy: ~5-10% decoy / 70-80% target / 10-25% anchor)

Score this surface 0-100:

Score	State
0-30	Pricing page is confusing. Bottom tier is broken. Tier landing % is skewed (e.g., 60% on decoy).
31-60	Page is OK, tier feature-set has obvious issues, landing distribution is off.
61-85	Clear page, reasonable tier diff, landing distribution close to healthy.
86-100	Tested page, clean differentiation, landing distribution within target.

Output: Packaging score + the packaging issue (if any) + recommended action.

5. Triage decision

Cross-reference the three scores:

WTP	Value-metric	Packaging	Triage decision
Low	Low	Low	Diagnostic discipline — pause new pricing work; do WTP discovery first. (~6 weeks)
Low	High	High	WTP discovery — your prices may be too low; investigate before raising. (~4 weeks)
High	Low	High	Metric shift — wrong unit is the issue; piloted with new logos first. (~8 weeks)
High	High	Low	Packaging rebuild — pricing page rebuild, NOT a price change. (~3 weeks)
Mixed	Mixed	Mixed	Audit + tribunal — escalate to pricing-audit then pricing-tribunal
All High			Hold + quarterly review — pricing is healthy; schedule the next review

6. Output format

Pricing Diagnostic — {company}
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Surface 1 — Willingness-to-pay distribution: {score}/100
  Top gaps:
    - {gap 1}
    - {gap 2}
  Recommended: {action}

Surface 2 — Value-metric alignment: {score}/100
  Failure mode: {none / per-seat misalignment / metric gaming / etc.}
  Top customer paying: ${X}/mo vs median ${Y}/mo ({Z}x multiple)
  Recommended: {action}

Surface 3 — Packaging-vs-pricing: {score}/100
  Tier landing %: {bottom}% / {middle}% / {top}%
  Packaging issue: {none / feature misbundle / decoy broken / etc.}
  Recommended: {action}

─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
TRIAGE: {triage decision}
NEXT SUB-SKILL: {sub-skill route}
TIMELINE: {duration}
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Self-check

Before delivering the report:

• All 3 surfaces scored with rationale
• Top 2-3 gaps named per surface (not just scores)
• Triage decision matches the surface-score matrix
• Next sub-skill named explicitly
• Timeline given (no "consult a pricing expert" hand-waving)
• No fabrication of WTP numbers or close-rate data the operator didn't provide

References

• ../../pricing/references/pricing-framework.md — the three surfaces deep
• ../../pricing/references/value-metric-catalog.md — value-metric patterns
• ../../pricing/references/decoy-effect-patterns.md — packaging diagnostics
• ../pricing-audit/SKILL.md — the 30-point audit (next step for high-stakes diagnoses)
• ../pricing-tribunal/SKILL.md — for material change decisions