As of 13 August 2026, AI can choose between cost-plus and value-based pricing.

What to actually do

1. Use a tool built for this

   The route this page recommends

2. Do it yourself

   Second choice

   A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open your current price list, cost spreadsheet and recent sales records, then gather the figures for direct costs, overheads, discounts, sales volumes and any required margin.
   2. Collect verified customer evidence such as purchase reasons, renewal notes, quantified savings, time saved, risk reduced and objections about price, keeping each item linked to its source.
   3. Write down the customer segments, buying process, alternatives, capacity limits and commercial constraints, and separate known facts from assumptions.
   4. Paste the collected information into the prompt and ask the chatbot to produce the comparison, scenarios and evidence gaps without filling missing figures.
   5. Copy the model's calculations into your spreadsheet and compare every input, formula and output against your records and current price list.
   6. Ask several relevant customers or sales colleagues which outcomes they value, what alternatives they considered and how they judge price, then update the evidence rather than treating the model's assumptions as proof.
   7. Run the recommended starting option through a limited quote, proposal or pricing test, record objections and conversion results, and decide whether to adopt or revise the pricing method.

   Prompt

   Help me decide whether cost-plus pricing or value-based pricing is more suitable for my business. Use only the information I provide and label every assumption clearly. Do not invent market prices, customer willingness to pay, competitor facts or financial figures.
   
   Business and offer: [describe the product or service, customer segments, and what is included]
   Current costs: [list direct costs, allocated overheads, delivery costs and any other relevant costs]
   Current prices and sales evidence: [provide prices, volumes, conversion information, renewals and discounts if known]
   Customer value evidence: [describe the measurable financial, operational or emotional outcomes customers get, with evidence where available]
   Customer and buying context: [describe who buys, who approves, buying frequency, alternatives and switching barriers]
   Commercial constraints: [state required margin, capacity limits, positioning, contractual limits and any minimum price]
   Competitor information: [paste verified information only, or write 'none']
   
   First, summarise the evidence and identify missing information. Then compare cost-plus and value-based pricing against margin protection, customer value, ease of explaining the price, sales effort, scalability, fairness between customer segments and risk. Show the arithmetic for any calculations using my figures only. Give me three scenarios: a conservative option, a value-led option and a practical starting option. For each, state the assumptions, what evidence would support it, what could make it fail and how I could test it without committing the whole business. End with a recommendation between the two methods, or say that the evidence is insufficient, and list the next three questions I should answer before setting the price. Do not present the recommendation as professional advice or as a fact about what customers will pay.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.

3. Hand it to a person

   The distant third

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.