# Pricing strategy designer Human Guide

## What This Is For
Designs pricing strategies for products and services. It gives the agent a clearer input/output frame for go-to-market work: what context to ask for, what decisions to make, and what usable artifact to return.

Use this as a human-readable version of the Pricing strategy designer agent skill. It is meant for marketers, operators, founders, and other non-coders who want the workflow without reading agent-specific implementation instructions.

## When To Use This
- Use this when you need a repeatable process for pricing strategy designer.
- Use this when the task needs judgment, examples, constraints, or a clear output format rather than a one-off prompt.
- Use this when you want to hand an AI assistant enough context to produce a usable marketing artifact.

## When Not To Use This
- Do not use this when you only need a quick factual answer.
- Do not use this when the work depends on private data you cannot share with the assistant.
- Do not use this as a replacement for legal, compliance, financial, or medical review.

## What You Need Before Starting
- The goal or business outcome you want.
- The audience, customer segment, or market context.
- Any source material the assistant should respect, such as notes, briefs, examples, URLs, or brand guidance.
- Constraints such as tone, length, channel, deadline, region, or approval requirements.
- A clear definition of what a good final answer should look like.

## Step-By-Step Workflow
1. State the job clearly: "Use the Pricing strategy designer guide to help me with..."
2. Add context: audience, goal, offer, channel, source material, and constraints.
3. Ask the assistant to identify missing inputs before producing the final output.
4. Have the assistant follow the skill-specific guidance below.
5. Review the result against the final checklist and ask for revisions where needed.

## Skill-Specific Guidance
- `references/required-inputs.md` -- Inputs to gather before starting (product, market, competition, business context).
- `references/analysis-framework.md` -- The five pricing models to evaluate (cost-plus, value-based, competitor-based, penetration, premium).
- `references/output-template.md` -- Full `pricing-strategy.md` structure to populate.
- `references/best-practices.md` -- Best practices, trigger phrases, and a worked example.
- Gather inputs. Collect product, cost, market, and competitor information. See `references/required-inputs.md`. If anything is missing, ask before proceeding.
- Analyze the market. Determine where the product sits in the competitive landscape using market reports, analyst commentary, and customer reviews that mention pricing.
- Build the cost model. Fill in the cost structure with the user. When exact numbers are unavailable, use industry benchmarks and note the assumptions.
- Design the tier structure. Create tiers that align with customer segments, create natural upgrade paths, and maximize expansion revenue.
- Model the financials. Project revenue, churn, expansion, and cash flow under multiple scenarios.
- Write the strategy document. Generate the full `pricing-strategy.md` following `references/output-template.md`. Use real numbers from the research, not placeholders.
- Cost sets the floor, value sets the ceiling, competitor pricing sets the context; the optimal price sits between floor and ceiling.
- Design for expansion: build seat, usage, feature, and compliance upgrade triggers into the tier structure.

## Decision Points And Nuance
The original skill emphasizes: Contents, Workflow, Key Principles, Supporting file: references/analysis-framework.md, Cost-Plus Pricing Analysis, Value-Based Pricing Analysis, Competitor-Based Pricing Analysis, Penetration Pricing Analysis, Premium/Skimming Pricing Analysis, Supporting file: references/best-practices.md.

Use these questions to steer the work:
- What is the intended audience or buyer?
- What source material must be preserved?
- What should the assistant optimize for: clarity, persuasion, accuracy, speed, creativity, or conversion?
- What examples represent the desired quality bar?
- What should the assistant avoid?

## Common Mistakes
- `references/required-inputs.md` -- Inputs to gather before starting (product, market, competition, business context).
- Gather inputs. Collect product, cost, market, and competitor information. See `references/required-inputs.md`. If anything is missing, ask before proceeding.
- Work through each model and evaluate its fit for the specific product and market. Do not skip a model; even when one is obviously wrong, document why.
- Avoid metrics that create friction or penalize adoption
- Support and service levels required to justify premium
- **Always ground recommendations in data**: Use competitor prices, industry benchmarks, and cost analysis to justify every recommendation. Never guess.
- **Never race to the bottom**: Competing on price alone is a losing strategy unless there is a structural cost advantage. Compete on value.
- Generate a comprehensive `pricing-strategy.md` file with the structure below. Populate every section with real numbers from research; never leave placeholders in the delivered document.

## Copy-And-Paste Prompt
```text
Use the Pricing strategy designer human guide.

My goal:
[Describe the business outcome]

Audience:
[Describe who this is for]

Context and source material:
[Paste notes, examples, links, or existing copy]

Constraints:
[Tone, length, channel, timeline, must-include items, must-avoid items]

Before producing the final output, ask me for any missing information that would materially improve the result.
```

## Final Checklist
- [ ] The output matches the original goal.
- [ ] The audience and context are reflected in the answer.
- [ ] Important constraints and source material were preserved.
- [ ] The assistant made the relevant decisions explicit.
- [ ] The final artifact is ready to use, review, or hand to the next person.

## Source
This guide was generated from the onewave-ai/claude-skills skill entry for `pricing-strategy`.

## Source Skill Notes
These notes preserve the nuance from the original skill. Use them as supporting reference when the workflow above feels too generic.

# Pricing Strategy Designer

Design data-driven pricing strategies that maximize revenue, align with market positioning, and scale with the business across B2B SaaS, consumer products, services, marketplaces, and physical goods.

## Contents

- `references/required-inputs.md` -- Inputs to gather before starting (product, market, competition, business context).
- `references/analysis-framework.md` -- The five pricing models to evaluate (cost-plus, value-based, competitor-based, penetration, premium).
- `references/output-template.md` -- Full `pricing-strategy.md` structure to populate.
- `references/best-practices.md` -- Best practices, trigger phrases, and a worked example.

## Workflow

1. Gather inputs. Collect product, cost, market, and competitor information. See `references/required-inputs.md`. If anything is missing, ask before proceeding.

2. Research competitors. Use WebSearch and WebFetch to find current competitor pricing. Look for official pricing pages (search "[competitor] pricing"), G2/Capterra/TrustRadius comparisons, recent blog posts or press releases about pricing changes, and Crunchbase for funding and growth signals.

3. Analyze the market. Determine where the product sits in the competitive landscape using market reports, analyst commentary, and customer reviews that mention pricing.

4. Build the cost model. Fill in the cost structure with the user. When exact numbers are unavailable, use industry benchmarks and note the assumptions.

5. Evaluate all five pricing models. Score each model against the specific product and market context using the framework in `references/analysis-framework.md`. Do not skip a model; even when one is obviously wrong, explain why.

6. Design the tier structure. Create tiers that align with customer segments, create natural upgrade paths, and maximize expansion revenue.

7. Model the financials. Project revenue, churn, expansion, and cash flow under multiple scenarios.

8. Write the strategy document. Generate the full `pricing-strategy.md` following `references/output-template.md`. Use real numbers from the research, not placeholders.

## Key Principles

- Cost sets the floor, value sets the ceiling, competitor pricing sets the context; the optimal price sits between floor and ceiling.
- Design for expansion: build seat, usage, feature, and compliance upgrade triggers into the tier structure.
- Incentivize annual contracts: they reduce churn, improve cash flow, and smooth forecasting.
- Price to retain: a 1% improvement in monthly churn often beats a 10% lift in acquisition.

For full best practices, trigger phrases, and a worked example, see `references/best-practices.md`.

---

## Supporting file: references/analysis-framework.md

# Analysis Framework: Five Pricing Models

Work through each model and evaluate its fit for the specific product and market. Do not skip a model; even when one is obviously wrong, document why.

## 1. Cost-Plus Pricing Analysis

Calculate the floor price based on all costs:

- Direct costs (COGS, infrastructure, hosting, third-party APIs)
- Indirect costs (support, onboarding, account management)
- Overhead allocation (engineering, G&A, sales and marketing)
- Target gross margin (typically 70-85% for SaaS, 40-60% for services, 30-50% for physical goods)
- Break-even analysis at various price points and customer volumes

Determine:

- Minimum viable price (covers direct costs + target margin)
- Price floor (below this you lose money on every customer)
- Cost structure sensitivity (impact if costs change by 10%, 25%, 50%)

## 2. Value-Based Pricing Analysis

Quantify the economic value delivered to the customer:

- Calculate the customer's current cost of the problem (time, money, risk, opportunity cost)
- Estimate the value the solution creates (revenue increase, cost reduction, risk mitigation, time savings)
- Determine the value ratio (price as a percentage of value delivered)
- Industry benchmark: most B2B SaaS captures 10-20% of value delivered
- Identify value metrics that correlate with customer success

Build a value model:

- Economic Value to Customer (EVC): Total quantifiable benefit minus total cost of switching
- Reference Value: What the customer pays for the next-best alternative
- Differentiation Value: Premium or discount justified by unique capabilities
- Total Economic Value: Reference Value + Differentiation Value

Map value metrics to pricing metrics: