Pricing survey: what it is and how to conduct one (+ template)

What is a pricing survey?

A pricing survey is a survey designed to help you determine the appropriate pricing for your product. A pricing survey will help you better understand your market, the correct price and appropriate features for your product. As such it can be a core part of new product development.

Why is pricing important?

Getting the price right for your product can be the difference between failure and success in product development.

Price your product too high and people won’t buy it, and you’ll lose market share to competitors.

Price your product too low and you’re leaving money on the table! Not to mention that it can adversely affect consumer perceptions of your brand and harm profit margins to the point that you’re unable to invest sufficiently in the future.

In other words, pricing is a delicate balance that you have to get just right.

How to find the optimal price for your product

You know you’re priced right when your customers complain—but buy anyway.

John Harrison, Clockmaker

Nobody wants to pay more than they have to, so it’s hard to establish the right price simply by asking people, isn’t it?

Not necessarily.

Dutch economist Peter van Westendorp introduced a model, called the Pricing Sensitivity Meter, that’s been in wide use since 1976.

It works by asking four straightforward pricing research questions.

• At what price would you consider the product to be so expensive that you would not consider buying it? (Too expensive)
• At what price would you consider the product to be priced so low that you would feel the quality couldn’t be very good? (Too cheap)
• At what price would you consider the product starting to get expensive, so that it is not out of the question, but you would have to give some thought to buying it? (Expensive/High Side)
• At what price would you consider the product to be a bargain—a great buy for the money? (Cheap/Good Value)

Other pricing considerations

While turning van Westendorp’s Pricing Sensitivity Meter is a great start and will help form a basis for your pricing considerations, it’s important to note that pricing is a complex decision, and not one to be taken lightly.

If you’re about to embark on a consumer intelligence project, get the ins and outs by reading our Complete Guide to Survey Creation.