Why Many Pricing Reviews Fail - And How High-Performing Organisations Get It Right
Most pricing reviews focus on the wrong things. Discover what truly drives pricing power - and why the best organisations treat pricing as a system, not a tactic.
Pricing has become the most misunderstood lever in the executive toolkit. For many mid-market organisations, pricing reviews begin with optimism - and end in underwhelming results, internal resistance, or customer pushback.
The problem? Most pricing work is tactical when it needs to be systemic.
Real pricing power doesn't come from spreadsheets, sensitivity analysis, or competitor benchmarking. It comes from the clarity of your value, the discipline of your model, and the confidence of your organisation to hold its ground.
Why Traditional Pricing Reviews Miss the Mark
Pricing reviews often start with a margin issue and end with a price increase - only to see:
Sales teams applying discounts to preserve relationships
Customers pushing back, citing perceived value
Internally, new prices quietly eroding - as well as margins
This isn’t a pricing failure. It’s a system failure. Most reviews treat pricing as a downstream fix, not an upstream strategic decision. They fail to align the three pillars of pricing excellence: value clarity, revenue architecture, and commercial discipline.
Pricing Power Is Not a Number - It’s a System
High-performing firms design pricing as an integral part of their commercial system:
Value clarity. Does the customer see and feel the value that supports your pricing?
Revenue architecture. Is the structure of your pricing aligned to how customers use or benefit from your offering?
Commercial discipline. Do teams understand and defend pricing, with governance and enablement in place?
Customer psychology. Is pricing transparent, fair, and defensible in the customer's eyes?
Pricing isn’t just numbers—it’s the result of interconnected strategic choices.
Example: In October 2023, Box launched Box AI with a credit-based pricing model - 20 credits per user per month, plus a shared enterprise pool. If usage exceeded those limits, additional credits could be purchased. This shifted value from per-seat licensing to usage-based consumption - a strategic response to surging generative AI costs and customer value perception.
What High-Performing Organisations Do Differently
Top-tier companies treat pricing like an architectural system, not a price-tag tweak:
They start pricing strategy by defining differentiated value, not responding to margin pressure
They move beyond benchmarking and conduct willingness-to-pay research
Instead of flat price hikes, they deploy tiered models by usage, value, or outcome
They avoid sales overrides by embedding governance and margin accountability at leadership levels
They build pricing into commercial rhythm, not one-off reviews
Example: Starbucks operates over 35,000 stores in 86 markets, yet pricing is not uniform. The company applies localized premium pricing, adjusting costs based on local economics while maintaining brand positioning. In affluent markets, prices reinforce premium perception; in price-sensitive ones, adjusted formats keep the product accessible without diluting value .
Studies show that firms with pricing discipline can achieve margin gains of 5–8 percentage points over three years.
The CEO and Board-Level Conversation
Chief Executives and Boards we speak with are asking materially different questions today:
Does our pricing reflect what makes us different - or merely what others charge?
Are we pricing the outcome we deliver, or just the features we provide?
Under what conditions could we command more with less effort and resistance?
These shift the conversation from price points to positioning, psychology, and strategic power.
Final Thought
Pricing isn’t a complementary step in strategy - it’s where strategy meets reality. In volatile markets, pricing becomes a critical lever, not a fallback. The organisations that succeed aren’t always the ones that charge most - they’re the ones who thoughtfully design how they charge. Pricing is not the endpoint of strategy. It’s where your strategy earns its keep in the real world.
At bdxp, we especially help mid-market organisations architect pricing systems that scale - without compromising value or trust. If this way of thinking resonates, let’s have a conversation or explore our Pricing Strategy services further.