The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing
by Thomas T. Nagle, Reed K. Holden, John Hogan · first published 1987
100% recommend
Why HN recommends it
Covers the mechanics of pricing: setting prices, differentiating them across customer segments, estimating value, and building price structures. A dense but thorough reference for people who price products seriously.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
This entire book is a practical guide loaded with topical examples. As in the first edition, The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing: A Guide to Profitable Decision Making, Second Edition shows how sound analysis could have prevented some well-known pricing failures and, in other cases, has pointed the way to profitable successes!. Nagle and Holden offer a conceptual approach that helps readers learn how to THINK about pricing, and include step-by-step formulas and procedures that show readers HOW to analyze a pricing problem and formulate a pricing strategy. A sampling of topics includes advice
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What Hacker News says
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This reminds me of The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing[1], in a funny way (bear with me). In pricing, if you have features in common with other vendors then those features are commodities and basically valueless. But the features you have that no one else…
on “The Ronco Principle” ↗…extracted "9 Rules for Monetizing Innovation" at https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2016/11/16/nine-rules-from-mon... There are better books on pricing: for a straight up analysis of product pricing "The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing” by Thomas Nagle is the best book that I have read. It's on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Strategy-Tactics-Pricing-Profitable-De...
on “Pricing Your Product” ↗I can heartily recommend the book The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0136106811/ It's pretty expensive as far as books go, but very much worth it. It not only explains how to set a price, but also how to set different prices across segments,…
on “Ask HN: The Price is Right.. or is it?” ↗This is a better article than it sounds from the title. It sums up the most important principles I read in pricing books (of which I recommend The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing: http://www.amazon.com/The-Strategy-Tactics-Pricing-Edition/d... ) Just copying the pricing mistakes from the subheadings (parens are mine): * You’re pricing based on costs (but costs change with volume…
on “Pricing: Why you're doing it wrong” ↗…pricing -- which is as much science as it is art -- than can be covered in an article. For those interested, I would suggest an approachable, but comprehensive text on pricing theory and analytics. "The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing" by Nagle, Hogan and Zale is a great resource. (And speaking of pricing: buy it used, if possible; like most textbooks, it's fairly expensive). One word of caution: tiered and freemium models are, once…
on “Pricing Principles” ↗For what it's worth, Seth Godin's book All Marketers Are Liars also covers the material in your specific example. It probably doesn't cover most of what's in the rest of The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing, though imho the idea of 'going to the extremes' is so important that it's really worth reading an entire book just on that idea.
on “The Ronco Principle” ↗This is a complex question. Pricing is how you capture the value that your product creates for your customers. Probably the best book on pricing is Thomas Nagle's "Strategy and Tactics of Pricing Profitably. https://www.amazon.com/Strategy-Tactics-Pricing-Growing-Prof... Mark Stiving's Impact Pricing is also quite good https://www.amazon.com/Impact-Pricing-Blueprint-Driving-Prof... You have not…
on “Need help: Pricing strategy for a developer tool with 400000 users” ↗I will join the book recommendations with THE book on pricing - The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing http://www.amazon.com/Strategy-Tactics-Pricing-5th/dp/013610... I'm reading it for a second time right now and it's stuffed with actionable information on pricing, value communication (aka marketing),…
on “The Dark Art of Pricing” ↗There are entire books written on pricing. I recommend Strategy and Tactics of Pricing. It's a short, focused textbook and very illuminating. I reviewed it last year[1]. Remember: all passionate arguments about technology are close to being total irrelevancies in the face of the leverage…
on “How to handle Hacker News feedback on your beloved app” ↗I think Patrick McKenzie / patio11 once threw out a recommendation for The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing. I'll add my voice, it's one of the better business books I've ever read. I reviewed it at my blog -- http://chester.id.au/2012/09/12/review-the-strategy-and-tact... Essentially, the core insight is…
on “How I Earned A Lot More on Projects by Changing My Pricing Strategy” ↗This jives with the overall process advocated in one of my favourite books -- The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing. Identify value to the customer first.
on “How to Convince Investors” ↗Don't just make a price up. Buy Strategy and Tactics of Pricing immediately, it's a relatively short textbook that will teach you what you need to know. The headline here is that you're not selling to consumers. You are selling to businesses; if you can demonstrate…
on “Visualise the structure of a spreadsheet” ↗I urge you to purchase and read The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing [0]. You are making a number of mistakes, not the least of which is to use low pricing as a differentiator. Bad idea. You've landed yourself on a potential slippery slope that can be devastating.…
on “The Pricing Model That Increased Our Free Trial Signups by 358%” ↗…at their peril. In fact, the usual reason for corporate failure is their costs exceeded their revenue. Pricing can be very complex topics, people have written whole books about it, like the classic "Strategy and Tactics of Pricing" by Nagle.
on “How to Slash the Cost of Drug Development” ↗Pricing can be one of the most complex topics in business. About twenty years ago I read through what I consider to be THE book on the subject, "The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing": https://www.amazon.com/Strategy-Tactics-Pricing-Growing-Prof... What I learned was invaluable. I do have to warn you, the book lays it all out. This is excellent, of course. However, what happens…
on “Ask HN: How do you set prices?” ↗