Price testing:where acceptance breaks

    Most prices are set by looking at competitors, adding a margin and hoping. A price test replaces the hoping with a read: put the price to a weighted cross-section of the market and watch which part of it stops accepting it, and at which number.

    The question a price test can answer

    Not 'what should this cost'. Nothing can tell you that, and anything claiming to is selling a curve fitted to assumptions you cannot inspect.

    The answerable question is narrower and more useful: at this number, who is out, and what reason do they give? A price does not fail evenly across a population. It fails at a specific point for a specific group, usually with a specific complaint that has more to do with what the price implies about the product than with the amount.

    Run the same offer at two or three prices and the useful thing is not the score at each one but the order in which segments drop away, and where the reasoning changes from 'too expensive' to 'that seems wrong for what it is'. Those are different objections and only one of them is about money.

    How to run it, in three steps

    1. 1

      Write the offer plainly, with the price in it

      What it is, what it replaces, what it costs and on what basis — one-off, monthly, per unit. Price read out of context tells you nothing; a price attached to a claim about value tells you something.

    2. 2

      Run each price as a separate check

      Two or three separate runs at different numbers, everything else identical. Comparing across runs is the point; asking the panel to pick between prices inside one run just measures which number is smaller.

    3. 3

      Read the order of the drop-off

      Look at which segment stops accepting first, and read its quotes rather than its score. The reasoning tells you whether the price is too high, or the value is under-explained at that price.

    What the report answers

    • Which segments accept the price and which reject it, weighted to population share.
    • The reason each segment gives, in its own words.
    • Where the objection is about the amount, and where it is about what the amount implies.
    • How the acceptance pattern shifts between two or three price points run separately.
    • Which region or income band moves first, and how far ahead of the rest it moves.

    What this explicitly is not

    This does not produce a willingness-to-pay curve. A curve requires measured behaviour across a range from real people, and there is none here.

    It does not produce an optimal price point. No number comes out the other end with a recommendation attached, and if one did you should not trust it.

    It does not model elasticity, and it says nothing about how demand would respond to a change over time, or about what competitors would do in response.

    Reynard is a simulation. It is not fieldwork, it carries no statistical significance, and it cannot replace talking to a customer. Treat it as a fast, structured second opinion that tells you where to look — not as evidence.

    What it costs

    The first check is free and needs no account. After that a run costs $12, $25 or $39 one-off in dollar markets, and €9, €19 or €29 in euro markets, one-time, with no subscription. Testing three price points is three runs.

    Keep reading

    Run the free check first

    One check costs nothing and needs no account. You see the format of the output before you decide whether it is worth paying for a full run.

    Start the free check