Here's a neat trick I've used a few times when facing this exact issue.
First, set up a survey on Google Surveys (https://www.google.com/analytics/surveys/) and select the most appropriate audience for your concept. Set the first question as a screener of who you think this product is for. So if your business wants to sell to pet stores, you might set the audience to "Small Business / SMB owners" and have the screener question be "Do you own a pet store?" and screen out anyone who says "no."
Then, briefly describe your product and ask a straightforward question about how much they would pay for it. So, something like "What is the maximum you would pay for a service that handled the logistics of mailing pet food to your customers?" Then make the answers to that question your possible price points - "$9.99/month", "$19.99/month", etc. Make sure to include a "I would not pay for the service" or "$0" option - this is an excellent gauge of whether or not your service is actually something people will pay for. If you run a pricing survey like this and 95% of people say $0, that's pretty telling.
When you look at the results, you'll see a clear curve from the higher prices to the lower prices / not interested option, but you'll be able to see what a relatively targeted group would pay. So if 40% of people would pay $9.99/month, and 10% would pay $79.99/month, that tells a story you can interpret into a basic pricing strategy.
Depending on your budget, run 3-5 of these with different prices, different pricing anchors, different wordings, etc. - get as much data as you can.
I used this method for my last startup, when we were trying to figure out how much a specific niche would pay for our product. The pricing research we did through these surveys led us to a conclusion of about $29 per product, which was actually much higher than we had anticipated (we were going to sell it for $9), so we priced it 3x higher than we were going to. Very long story short, we made the right choice - people bought it and we had very few complaints about pricing too high. We even raised prices eventually after adding new features.
Now obviously, there is a delta between what people say they will pay and what they will actually pay, but this method might help get to a starting point, or add a layer to your existing research.
Admittedly, I do this sometimes when I have random dumb ideas for companies and I want to see if there's a market for it without really committing anything.
this advice runs against a lot of the usual recommendations about ignoring what people say and focusing on what they do. It may well be that basing price on what people say they'd pay results in leaving money on the table.
Sure, we ran real pricing tests and adjusted accordingly once we were launched. This exercise was useful pre-launch, when we had a lot of ideas, but no clear picture of what our potential customer base would pay.
At the same time - never forget that a lot of the "usual recommendations" are wrong :)
of course, but I was thinking more towards the A/B testing approach to finding the demand curve that's commonly touted and follows reasonably scientific principles. My concern with customer-driven pricing is that customers will not be able to fully envisage what your offer will be and the effects it would have on their business, or might suggest a lower price than they would realistically pay. I'm glad it worked out well for you though :)
First, set up a survey on Google Surveys (https://www.google.com/analytics/surveys/) and select the most appropriate audience for your concept. Set the first question as a screener of who you think this product is for. So if your business wants to sell to pet stores, you might set the audience to "Small Business / SMB owners" and have the screener question be "Do you own a pet store?" and screen out anyone who says "no."
Then, briefly describe your product and ask a straightforward question about how much they would pay for it. So, something like "What is the maximum you would pay for a service that handled the logistics of mailing pet food to your customers?" Then make the answers to that question your possible price points - "$9.99/month", "$19.99/month", etc. Make sure to include a "I would not pay for the service" or "$0" option - this is an excellent gauge of whether or not your service is actually something people will pay for. If you run a pricing survey like this and 95% of people say $0, that's pretty telling.
When you look at the results, you'll see a clear curve from the higher prices to the lower prices / not interested option, but you'll be able to see what a relatively targeted group would pay. So if 40% of people would pay $9.99/month, and 10% would pay $79.99/month, that tells a story you can interpret into a basic pricing strategy.
Depending on your budget, run 3-5 of these with different prices, different pricing anchors, different wordings, etc. - get as much data as you can.
I used this method for my last startup, when we were trying to figure out how much a specific niche would pay for our product. The pricing research we did through these surveys led us to a conclusion of about $29 per product, which was actually much higher than we had anticipated (we were going to sell it for $9), so we priced it 3x higher than we were going to. Very long story short, we made the right choice - people bought it and we had very few complaints about pricing too high. We even raised prices eventually after adding new features.
Now obviously, there is a delta between what people say they will pay and what they will actually pay, but this method might help get to a starting point, or add a layer to your existing research.
Admittedly, I do this sometimes when I have random dumb ideas for companies and I want to see if there's a market for it without really committing anything.