Books about pricing as a business decision

A price is attached to something the business has promised to supply. Changing the number while leaving the offer unclear can move the difficulty into delivery, a later charge or an unhappy customer conversation.

Infinite Upside is our first recommendation for keeping that promise visible. Confessions of the Pricing Man offers a wider pricing perspective; Monetizing Innovation places pricing inside product development.

1. Infinite Upside: pricing the promise you intend to keep

   By Vijay Sheth.

   Chapter 5 of Infinite Upside: Building Wealth With Room to Live connects the rental price with what the company must do to deliver the agreed service. An appealing vehicle is only part of the offer; the customer also needs availability, clear terms and a dependable response.

   Choose the memoir when the useful starting point is the owner's understanding of what is being sold. If something necessary is omitted from the price, somebody still has to supply it, renegotiate it or face the consequence.

   Imagine an invented repair service quoting an attractive standard price while leaving collection arrangements unresolved. The price looks clear until the customer asks what happens next. Read the memoir for attention to the commercial promise, rather than a pricing method or a claim that higher prices are always better.

2. Confessions of the Pricing Man: widening your view of price

   By Hermann Simon.

   Confessions of the Pricing Man: How Price Affects Everything spans the psychology and economics of pricing. Springer's description presents perspectives involving both producers and consumers.

   Investigate it when price has become a routine markup in your thinking and you want to examine the subject more broadly. The invented repair owner may understand costs yet have barely considered how the quoted offer is understood or compared.

   This broad pricing perspective is the reason to choose the book. It is not a source of a ready-made answer for your next quote. Look at available material for whether its questions help you investigate the customer and offer you actually have. General pricing anecdotes cannot establish the price this customer will accept.

3. Monetizing Innovation: bringing price into product design

   By Madhavan Ramanujam and Georg Tacke.

   Monetizing Innovation: How Smart Companies Design the Product Around the Price makes pricing part of the development discussion. The authors' company page presents its concern as innovations that companies struggle to monetize.

   Consider it when your question begins before the offer is finished. An invented equipment maker may have built an elaborate new version and only afterward ask whether customers will pay enough for it. That creates a different reading need from adjusting the price of an established service.

   Choose this title for the product-development emphasis. Compare the available material with the stage and type of work you are considering. A reason to investigate a pricing approach is not evidence that a particular innovation has demand or will meet a financial target.

Choose the pricing question

Start with the delivery promise, a broader understanding of price or the way price enters development. Choose the purpose that matches the part of the offer still unresolved.

If you already plan a price change, use the practical price-change explanation. If you are comparing a fixed price with an hourly estimate, see the quote comparison.