Pricing maturity self-assessment

1. How are your prices set today?

Deal by deal — history and gut feel decideWe take our costs and add a marginWe position against competitors, segment by segment, with data we can trustPrices reflect what each segment is really willing to pay — with proofThe system suggests the right price for every quote and learns from every deal; we step in only where judgment is needed

2. When your costs go up, what happens to your prices?

We absorb it until margins hurt, then react lateAn annual increase round, case by caseStructured campaigns with targets and follow-upKey accounts adjust by agreed formulas — increases stickWithin days we know which prices to move, where, by how much — margins protected, customers keptⓘ What is cost pass-through?

How much of a cost increase you pass on to customers, and how fast. Every month of delay and every percent absorbed is eating your profit — and your ability to invest in your growth.

3. When a customer pushes for a bigger discount, what happens?

Salespeople decide; we hear about it later, if at allAbove a certain deal size, they ask the bossA clear discount ladder with approval levelsNothing is approved without seeing what the deal really earns usEvery deal has a target and a walk-away price; salespeople see what the team's best achieve on similar deals — and negotiate like themⓘ What is peer pricing?

Salespeople see what the team's best achieve on similar deals. No name and shame — a healthy emulation that works: everyone learns what is possible, and the whole team negotiates with more confidence.

4. What are your salespeople paid on?

Revenue or volume onlyRevenue, with margin “considered”Margin is part of the bonusDefending price pays salespeople better than dropping it — visibly, deal by dealOur salespeople earn more by selling what it is worth than by moving boxes

If a discount costs your salesperson nothing, you will keep paying for it.

5. Do you know your true net price — how much you really earn — after every discount, rebate, bonus and payment term?

We see list or invoice price onlyRoughly, for the biggest customersFor most customers, reviewed a few times a yearFor every customer and product — including services like delivery, which we could price instead of give awayLive, with alerts when a customer drifts — and every service, even freight, is a deliberate pricing decision: offered, charged, or tradedⓘ What is a price waterfall?

The map of everything given away between your list price and the money that lands in your bank. It shows where the biggest buckets are — and which ones swing wildly from customer to customer. That variability is where the savings hide. The money is rarely where leaders think it is.

6. How do you price a new product or service at launch?

Like the old one, plus a bitCost plus a marginBenchmarked against the closest alternativesWe know what customers are willing to pay before launch — the price is a decision made through the customer's eyes, not a guessThe price is designed before the product: we build what customers will pay for, and test it before launch

7. How do you know what your competitors charge?

We don't know, reallySales mentions it when we lose a dealPrice data routinely collected from the field, cross-checked, kept in one placeTracked systematically, every win and loss analyzed — we know where we can charge moreWhen a competitor moves, we know within days — and we already know how to answer

8. Do you know which customers actually make you money?

We know our customer revenue, not profitGross margin per customer, when we dig painfullyRegular margin reports by customer and productWe know the full cost of serving each customer — and use it at the negotiation tableBefore touching any price, we can simulate what it does to profit, customer by customerⓘ What is cost-to-serve?

What a customer really costs you in your profit beyond the product: delivery, small orders, returns, payment delays, service time. Two customers with the same revenue can differ wildly in real profit.

9. Who owns pricing in your company?

Nobody — it happens inside sales conversationsThe CEO (or founder) decides the big onesA named owner, part-time, with clear rulesOne clear owner, with sales, marketing, finance and operations working to the same price rulesPricing is watched like cash: one owner, a weekly look at the numbers — a platform does the analysis and reporting; no big pricing department needed

10. Where do your prices live?

In people's heads and old quotesSpreadsheets — several versions of themOne maintained master price list, enforced in our systemPrice rules feed our quoting — the right price appears by itselfOne source of truth: approved prices flow into quotes, orders and invoices without retyping — what world-class companies achieve, made seamless by optional system integrationⓘ What are ERP and CRM?

The systems that run your company: orders, invoices, customer records. The real question is simple — are your prices managed in there, tuned product by product and customer by customer? Or retyped in spreadsheets on the side? Tuned prices compound into profit. Spreadsheet prices leak.

11. What analysis runs on your sales transactions?

NoneExcel, when a problem blows upStandard monthly price and margin reportsWe see where margin leaks, which discounts actually work, and which prices are too low — refreshed without anyone building itThe system tests every price point, ranks every discount and condition by impact, and shows where to act — it does the heavy data work; we make better decisions, fasterⓘ What can modern pricing analytics find?

Your transactions already contain the answers: which prices are set too low, which discounts and rebates actually create sales, which client conditions pay back — and which quietly give margin away. Analytics reads all of it and points at the money. Most SMEs have never been able to ask these questions of their own data. Now the answers come looking for you.

Refine your result — optional, 30 seconds

Every customer × product × deal is a price point — a decision where money is either captured or quietly given away. The more price points your business runs, the more is on the table. Four quick questions, and your estimate sharpens to match your reality.

Product differentiation vs your key competitors

Invoiced (billed-to) customers

Active products (SKUs)

Salespeople in your sales team

Optional — leave any field blank and your report shows the full range for your level.

Your report (PDF — your language + English)

Your pricing maturity

Your top priorities

Prioritized by speed to impact and position in the pricing flow — a weakness early in the chain (strategy, setting, execution, monitoring) throttles everything downstream.

No pricing headcount? The platform does the heavy lifting for whoever owns pricing alongside their day job.
Already have a pricing leader? A platform like Takuven multiplies their impact — automation does the heavy data work, your leader drives the decisions.

Based on the Takuven Pricing Excellence Model — indicative ranges from Takuven's benchmark experience.

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