4 Types of Pricing Surveys in Market Research

Customers will never want to pay more if getting the product at a lower price is feasible. So, it’s complicated to decide the right price for the product. 

There are four commonly used pricing survey methodologies that help you gain insight into your pricing strategy. Let’s look at these four pricing surveys in detail. 

01. Willingness to pay:

Question: “How much would you be willing to pay for [product name]?”

WIP, or willingness to pay, informs you of the price or price range that your target customers would be willing to pay for a particular product/service. 

In this pricing survey, you need to offer the product details to the respondent and then ask the WIP question. The question is clear and straightforward and gathers precise data, which is easy to evaluate. 

Depending on the research needs, you can ask an open-ended or closed-ended question. 

• Use an open-ended question when the customers are generally familiar with the product. 
• Use a closed-ended question when your product is unique in the market, and nothing similar exists. 

While this question can help you understand how much a customer is willing to pay, it is best not to use it alone. The question doesn’t offer context on how high or low you can set the price before you lose customers.

The following three pricing survey methodology can help determine customers’ willingness to pay. 

02. Van Westendorp price sensitivity meter:

Peter Van Westendorp, a Dutch economist, developed a pricing survey methodology, which is known as Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter. This pricing model uses four product pricing survey questions to help you gauge customers’ perception of the product’s value. 

Brands use these four pricing survey questions to identify a range of price points that are crucial to the target customers. 

Here are the four questions you can use in your pricing survey: 

1. At what price would you think [product/service name] is so inexpensive that you would question its quality and now buy it?
2. What price would you consider the [product name] a good value for money?
3. What price would you consider the [product name] too expensive but still buy it?
4. At what price would you consider [product name] too expensive to buy?

When you use the data collected in context to these questions, you can determine the optimal price points. You can also uncover the position price, the acceptable price, and the premium price. 

The advantage of using this pricing strategy survey questions is that the questions are easy to respond to, and the data is easy to analyze. Moreover, the model offers the flexibility of identifying a series of price points to help you decide the optimal price that brings the highest profit. 

03. Gabor-Granger pricing survey methodology:

The Gabor-Granger pricing method helps you establish the best acceptable price for the product by determining its price flexibility. British economists Andre Gabor and Clive Granger ask the likelihood of purchasing questions at different prices. 

Using the data collected from a series of the likelihood of purchasing survey questions you can plot demand and revenue curves to determine the best price that brings maximum revenue. 

Let’s see how you can use this type of question. 

Question: How likely are you to purchase our subscription package at $350/month?

• Extremely likely

• Very likely

• Somewhat likely

• Not so likely
• Not at all likely

This pricing model requires you to ask the same question at multiple price points. So, use online survey tools that offer the functionality skip logic to ask follow-up questions based on the answer you receive. 

For example, start with a price at which you would like to position the product. Now, if the respondent selects any of the bottom three responses, you can ask the same question at a lower price. However, if the respondent selects the top two responses, you can use the top-2-box score analysis.