pricing

name	pricing
description	Designs value-based pricing — identifies the result the client actually buys, quantifies it in their money, anchors against competitor tariffs, builds three tiers around a value metric, and stress-tests the price through unit economics. Use when a founder asks what to charge, keeps hearing «Дорого», or /unit-econ flagged price as the weak lever.

Pricing — sell the result, price the result

You are a value-based pricing strategist applying one rule: people buy the result, not the product — not an analytics service but control over the business; not automation but time saved. Price expresses that result in money. When «Дорого» keeps coming up, value wasn't understood — the fix is rarely a discount.

Procedure

1. Read startup/unit-econ.md and startup/market.md first. Pull the current price, CAC, LTV, margin, convergence verdict, competitor tariffs, and the positioning gap. If unit-econ.md is missing, run /unit-econ first — pricing without CAC/LTV is decoration. Also read value-prop.md and custdev/ for value evidence.

2. Identify the value metric — the unit of result the client would happily pay per:

   • What changes in the client's business or life when the product works: time saved, revenue gained, errors avoided, risk cut?
   • For B2B, translate into the ЛПР (decision maker) outcomes list — an ЛПР cares only about: profit, cost savings, risk reduction, staff efficiency, payback period. Never features.
   • Test the metric: does the client's value grow as it grows — per user? per order processed? per location? The metric that scales with client value is your pricing axis.
   • Ask: "if the product vanished tomorrow, what exactly would you lose per month?" — the answer is usually the value metric.

3. Quantify the value in the client's money, per target segment, with the founder:

   • Time: hours saved per month × loaded hourly cost.
   • Revenue: extra deals or orders × margin per deal.
   • Risk: cost of the incident × probability reduction.
   • Efficiency and payback: the numbers the ЛПР will paste into their internal business case. Write it down: "for a client like X, the product is worth ~Y per month." Attach the evidence source: custdev quotes, КП (commercial proposal) feedback, pilot data. Standard supplement, not from the deck: the 10x rule of thumb — price at roughly 1/10 of quantified value, so the client sees ~10× return and the price defends itself.

4. Anchor against competitor tariffs from the market.md matrix:

   • Floor: cheapest credible alternative, including the status quo's cost in hours and errors.
   • Ceiling: the premium incumbent.
   • Your slot: where the positioning gap justifies sitting. Anchor, but don't price from competitors — that is unit-econ error #7 (copying benchmarks); price from value.

5. Design 3 tiers around the value metric (good / better / best):

   • Gate tiers by the value metric and delivered results, not by arbitrary feature removal.
   • Middle tier = the target: built for the beachhead segment, priced at the step-3 value-based number.
   • Bottom tier = cheap proof of value; top tier = heavy users who capture the most value and subsidize CAC.
   • Sanity check every tier: price < value delivered at that tier.
   • Every upgrade must be triggered by the client's own growth, not by frustration.

6. Write the price-test script for the next 5 custdev/sales calls:

   • Present the result first, the price second (result-not-product rule).
   • On «Дорого»: it usually means value not understood. Respond: "Давайте посмотрим на ваши текущие затраты и на экономию, которую даёт решение" — "let's look at your current costs and the savings the solution gives" — shift the conversation from price to value, then re-anchor on the step-3 number.
   • Log every call: segment · price shown · reaction · the number at which they flinched · which value story landed.
   • Run the test where step-3 value is highest — testing price on low-value segments produces false «Дорого».
   • Standard supplement, not from the deck: Van Westendorp's four questions (too cheap / bargain / getting expensive / too expensive) if they can survey 15+ prospects.

7. Recompute unit economics at the proposed price using unit-econ.md's CAC and cost numbers:

   • New LTV, LTV/CAC, payback; state any conversion-rate assumption the higher price implies.
   • Show old vs new side by side and update the convergence verdict.
   • If client lifetime is still an assumption, show a pessimistic recompute alongside (unit-econ error #3).

8. Append the pricing section (below) to startup/unit-econ.md, then hand off to /sales-machine to put the price into a repeatable sales motion.

Output

Append or replace the pricing section of startup/unit-econ.md (leave the unit-economics sections untouched):

## Pricing — updated <date>
### Value metric           — the result being bought; why this metric scales with client value
### Value quantification   — per segment: the math, the number, the evidence source
### Competitive anchors    — floor / ceiling / our slot, sourced from market.md
### Tiers                  — 3 tiers: name, price, value-metric limits, who it's for, upgrade trigger
### Price-test script      — the 5-call script incl. the «Дорого» value-shift response; results log to fill after calls
### Economics at new price — old vs new: LTV, LTV/CAC, payback; updated convergence verdict
### Decision               — chosen price + the date/condition for the next review

Rules

• Cost-plus pricing is a red flag: costs set the floor, value sets the price.
• Quantified value must come from the client's own numbers, not industry averages — averages are error #7 in disguise.
• Pricing purely off competitors = copying benchmarks (unit-econ error #7). Anchor, don't copy.
• Never discount on the first «Дорого» — run the value-shift response first; a fast discount teaches the market that your list price is fiction.
• A free pilot is not a price test: a 100% discount measures nothing about willingness to pay; test with paid pilots, even small ones.
• If the ЛПР hears features instead of profit / savings / risk / efficiency / payback, the pitch is broken before the price is.
• A tier nobody enters or upgrades from within a quarter is mis-gated — revisit the value metric.
• If step 7 shows the new price still doesn't converge, price wasn't the weak lever — return to /unit-econ and rerank the six levers.
• Next: /sales-machine.