3 checks · 10 min · free
Where does your pricing honestly stand?
On our modelling of a typical business, lifting the price you actually get by one per cent adds about seven per cent to operating profit. Ten minutes shows where yours leaks.
Start the check now →No email before your result · no sales call after
- LaggingPrices come from a formula, cost-plus or last year plus a percentage, and nobody has said what pricing is for.
- BasicA pricing approach exists in someone's head, but it is not written down anywhere a new hire could find.
- CompetentA one-page pricing strategy exists, names target segments and says how we price relative to competitors.
- AdvancedThe pricing strategy is refreshed annually, linked to the business strategy, and sales leaders can recite its three main points.
- LeadingPricing strategy integrates with portfolio, segment and channel choices, and the board reviews pricing performance against strategy.
What the check covers
Twenty-five to thirty practices across five dimensions, one screen each. Pick the sentence that is true today.
Strategy and value foundations
Whether there is a pricing strategy and evidence of what customers will pay.
Price setting and architecture
How list prices, increases and contract terms are decided.
Price getting and discount control
Who can move a price, by how much, and whether anyone can see the leak.
Governance and organisation
Who owns pricing, and what the sales incentive rewards.
Data, analytics and performance
Whether the numbers exist to know any of the above.
Promotions, markdowns and leakage
How promotions, markdowns and vouchers are planned and measured.
Trade terms and promotional investment
How trade terms, rebates and promotion spend are set, and what each dollar buys.
- 65%NZ firms that price at cost plus a margin
In 2022, 65% of New Zealand firms with six or more staff that set their own prices did it by adding a margin to cost.
Source: Stats NZ, Business Operations Survey 2022. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Ask your leadership team too. Set up a team poll: each colleague answers alone, and you see where your views differ.
Sample report · your profile
What you get
Your profile
Stage names across every area.
Two or three moves
Each one step right, with what good looks like.
A one-page PDF
Written to put in front of your board, leadership or team.
Each move in the report has a guide, with what to do and a worked example. Read the pricing move guides.
Four questions
How long does it take?
About ten minutes. One dimension per screen, and you can stop and come back.
Who sees my answers?
You. In a team poll with individual answers visible, the person who set it up also sees each answer against level and function, never a name. Only anonymised figures go into benchmarks. A comparison appears only once enough similar businesses have taken the check.
Is this advice?
No. You assess yourself against practices built from more than 30 years of strategy consulting and over 1,000 engagements, including over 300 engagements involving pricing. What you do with it is yours.
What happens after?
Your report opens on screen as soon as you finish, with no email asked for. If you want a copy, there is a field on the report to send yourself the link, once. Nobody calls. If you want to talk, there is a button on your report. Nobody will contact you otherwise. No email before your result, no sales call after it, no list, and delete on request.
More about this check
Price moves profit more than any other lever. Most businesses never manage it. Our modelling of typical business economics shows lifting the price you actually get by one per cent adds about seven per cent to operating profit. In process industries the gain is around double.
Most firms sit one stage above the bottom, as the pricing reference page says. A price list and a discount policy exist. Anything urgent bypasses the policy. Nobody can say what a given customer pays once the rebates and terms are in.
In our experience the early moves need discipline, not software. The archive behind this check holds over 300 engagements involving pricing.
What the check covers
There are three pricing checks, one for each way a business sells. Each covers five areas. Four are the same in all three: strategy and value, price setting, governance, and data. The fifth depends on how you sell, so seven areas are listed below.
| How you sell | The check | The area only this check covers |
|---|---|---|
| Business to business, with negotiated or tendered prices | B2B | Price getting and discount control |
| Direct to consumers, at your own list price | Consumer direct | Promotions, markdowns and leakage |
| To consumers through retailers, distributors or agents | Through the trade | Trade terms and promotional investment |
Sentences from the check:
Each of these is the lowest of five sentences on its question, from how the practice goes wrong to how it goes well. If one of them is true of your business, the check says so. Then it shows you the next sentence up: what one step better looks like.
What you get
Your profile across the five dimensions, in stage names. The pattern you match, if you match one. The two or three moves that take you one step right, each with what good looks like. A one-page version written to be put in front of your board, your leadership or your team.
Questions people ask
Start the check
One question first: is your pricing B2B or B2C? B2B, negotiated or tendered, takes the B2B check. B2C direct, where end customers pay your list price, takes the consumer-direct check. B2C through the trade, where retailers, distributors or agents set the shelf price, takes the brand pricing check.
Mixed businesses answer for the largest revenue stream. They are invited to take a second check afterwards.
Ten minutes. Private. Your report on screen.
Two minutes first? Try the six-question version.
See the price rises businesses announced, by year and sector.