更智能的产品定价可以释放更大的利润

Gartner Research Debug Your PricingModel to ReduceFriction andIncrease Revenue John Santoro, Mike Tucciarone, Ron Burns,Laurie Wurster 26 February 2024 Debug Your Pricing Model to Reduce Friction andIncrease Revenue 26 February 2024 - ID G00803102 - 12 min readBy Analyst(s): John Santoro, Mike Tucciarone, Ron Burns, Laurie WursterInitiatives:Product/Service Introduction and Delivery; Product and Services Strategy forTech CEOs Undetected problems with pricing models create buying friction,inhibit revenue growth and lower retention. Just as developersdebug code, product managers must debug pricing models toidentify misaligned value, unlimited entitlements, unpredictable billsand impediments to long-term commitments. Overview Key Findings Pricing models can contradict product positioning when the features and units ofmeasure do not appear to align with customer value.■Undefined or unlimited product entitlements can threaten profits when customerconsumption exceeds provider expectations. For example, modeling consumption onproduct access by human beings can lead to considerable operational cost and riskwhen providing API access.■Buyer pessimism is at a multiyear high due to risks such as perceived overpaying,inadequate performance and support, and significant and unpredicted priceincreases.■ Recommendations Confirm that the pricing model aligns with product positioning and goals byeliminating contradictory value stories, poor customer ROI and competitivevulnerabilities.■ Protect profits by analyzing product entitlements across a range of consumptionlevels, looking for pricing inconsistencies, overpriced upsells and uncompensatedexpenses.■ Reduce buying friction and increase long-term customer satisfaction by proactivelyaddressing customer concerns about overages, implicit service-level agreements(SLAs) and future price increases.■ In Gartner’s experience with clients, issues often go unnoticed because product leadershave not tested the pricing models or commercial terms associated with them. Just asdevelopers are responsible for debugging erroneous code and tuning for performance,product leaders should “debug” ineffective pricing. This research demonstrates howproduct leaders can debug pricing to uncover and resolve the most common pricingproblems to increase product revenue and reduce buying friction to shorten sales cyclesand improve adoption (see Figure 1). Figure 1: Debug Pricing to Uncover Unexpected Results Introduction Customers seek predictability, flexibility and scalability in product pricing, but they oftendo not find it. Pricing models that do not align with customer value may cause customersto use less of the product or to evaluate competitors’ solutions that offer a fairer orsimpler model. According to the 2023 Gartner End User Buying Behavior Survey, “pricingsurprises,” such as price increases or overuse charges, was the No. 1 source of renewaldelays (34% included it in their top three factors). “Issues with contract terms/SLAs” wasclose behind, with 32% of respondents including it in their top three factors, ascustomersdelay closing a deal or jeopardize a renewal in order to resolve these issues. Analysis Debug the Pricing Model’s Positioning Alignment The basic test a pricing model should pass is alignment between positioning andpackaging; that is, the story a provider tells about a product should correspond to what thecustomers buys. In addition, the amount the provider charges should represent acompelling ROI to customers while offering a competitive advantage and generating adesirable profit. Product managers must debug their pricing model to meet the followingrequirements (see Table 1 in the Notes section for debugging objectives, expected resultsand examples): Correlate to customer business value—The primary metric of consumption is theactivity that most closely aligns with product value. However, many products stillcharge based on the number of users, and the price is often based on a markup ofthe provider’s cost rather than based on how much it is worth to the customer. User-based pricing can be simple and predictable, but it can be difficult to justify andmanage when customers employ nonhuman-based access, such as through APIs orrobotic process automation (RPA). Increases in consumption or additional featuresshould be consistent with incremental value. For example, if the higher tier costs$500 per month more to get generative AI (GenAI)-enabled features, are thosefeatures worth at least $500 to the customer?■ Package for customer outcomes—When packaging in tiers by feature, volume or acombination of the two, each package should correlate with a story of customervalue. Packages can include professional services, such as quarterly reviews, 24/7support or advisory services to provide additional protections that value is achieved(as long as the services have a clearly defined entitlement). Providing total cost ofownership (TCO) estimates or tools for customers to estim