Pricing isn’t just a financial decision – it’s a strategic one. And without understanding your customers’ preferences, behavior, and willingness to pay, even well-thought-out pricing strategies can miss the mark. That’s where market research becomes essential.

Reduce Pricing Risk with Real Customer Input

Setting prices based only on internal costs or competitor benchmarks can put brands at risk. Market research offers a way to validate pricing assumptions with real data from your target audience. Through pricing surveys and customer feedback, you can uncover:

• What features or benefits justify a higher price point
• How price-sensitive your customers are
• What price ranges are likely to be accepted or rejected

This kind of insight helps avoid two common mistakes – underpricing (and leaving money on the table) or overpricing (and losing customers).

Support Product Positioning and Value Communication

Your pricing sends a message. A premium price suggests quality or exclusivity, while a lower price may signal value or accessibility. Research helps align pricing with the value customers perceive. It allows teams to understand what matters most to customers – and tailor the pricing strategy accordingly. This is especially valuable when launching a new product, repositioning an existing one, or expanding to new markets.

Build Internal Confidence Around Pricing Decisions

Having clear, data-backed customer insights elevates pricing discussions across teams. It provides a shared foundation for decision-making among product, marketing, sales, and finance. Market research also ensures that pricing recommendations aren’t just based on gut feel – they’re grounded in evidence, which can reduce internal debates and speed up alignment.

Examples of How Market Research Helps Pricing

• Understanding which product features users will pay more for
• Testing alternative pricing tiers or packaging strategies
• Comparing willingness to pay across customer segments

Ultimately, using market research for pricing strategy decisions doesn’t just improve revenue outcomes – it leads to stronger confidence, more clarity, and a better understanding of your customers. And when additional support is needed, solutions like On Demand Talent at SIVO can supplement your team with experienced researchers who specialize in pricing studies across industries and business models.

Conjoint Analysis is one of the most powerful methods in product pricing research – yet it’s also one of the most misunderstood. At its core, conjoint is about understanding how customers make choices when faced with multiple product options. It helps answer a critical question: What features really drive value in the eyes of your customers – and how much are they willing to pay for them?

How Conjoint Analysis Works

In a typical Conjoint Analysis, participants are shown different versions of a product or service, each with varying features and prices. They are asked to choose their preferred option in each set. Over time, these choices reveal which attributes are more important – and how much each feature impacts the customer's perception of value and price sensitivity.

For example, imagine you’re launching a new fitness tracker. In your conjoint study, you might test combinations of:

• Battery life (3 days vs. 7 days)
• Heart rate monitoring (included or not)
• Water resistance
• Price levels ($99, $129, $159)

By analyzing how consumers trade off these features and prices, you can determine which combinations create the most value – and what people are truly willing to pay for certain enhancements.

When to Use Conjoint Analysis

Conjoint is especially useful when:

• You’re introducing a product with multiple feature or price combinations
• You want to identify which features to include in different price tiers
• You need to forecast demand at different price points

It’s considered one of the best research methods for pricing when you have a complex product with several variables and need reliable data on feature preferences and pricing tradeoffs.

Benefits of Conjoint for Pricing Strategy

Using Conjoint Analysis as a form of price testing allows businesses to:

• Find the ideal price point based on total value perception
• Create packaging or tiered plans based on what matters most to customers
• Quantify willingness to pay for individual features

It provides a high level of detail and confidence, especially when used in combination with other pricing methods like Gabor Granger pricing tests or follow-up pricing surveys for refinement.

While Conjoint Analysis requires thoughtful design and statistical modeling, many insights teams rely on expert support to get it right. SIVO’s On Demand Talent includes seasoned pricing specialists who can help plan, execute, and interpret a Conjoint study tailored to your business goals – without the complexity of building it all from scratch.

If you're beginning to explore advanced pricing methods or want to learn how to apply market research for pricing optimization, Conjoint is a strong place to start.

Understanding how much your customers are truly willing to pay is essential to setting a successful pricing strategy. One commonly used method in market research for measuring this is the Gabor-Granger pricing technique. It's especially helpful when you're looking to price a new product, test price sensitivity, or fine-tune an existing price based on customer expectations and perceived value.

What is Gabor-Granger pricing?

In simple terms, Gabor-Granger pricing is a survey-based method where participants are shown a series of price points for a product and asked whether they would purchase the item at each price. The goal is to identify the highest price at which the majority would still buy – revealing your customer's willingness to pay.

How it works

Here's a basic example: Say you're launching an eco-friendly water bottle. In a Gabor-Granger survey, respondents might be sequentially shown prices such as $8, $10, $12, and $14. After each price, they're asked a simple yes/no question: “Would you buy at this price?”

By analyzing their responses, you can:

• Spot the price point where purchase intent begins to drop
• Uncover price thresholds or sensitivity zones
• Gauge price elasticity – how demand changes with price shifts

This pricing method is relatively easy to deploy and works well across many industries, including consumer goods, technology, and services. It also gives quick, directional data that’s grounded in real-world decision-making behavior.

Gabor-Granger vs. Conjoint Analysis

A common question is the difference between Conjoint Analysis and Gabor-Granger. While both are valuable pricing research tools, Gabor-Granger focuses on testing a range of individual price points for a single product or service. In contrast, Conjoint analysis explores how customers make tradeoffs between product features and price as part of a more complex choice.

If you’re looking for straightforward price testing to understand optimal pricing or price sensitivity, Gabor-Granger is often the faster and more cost-effective tool.

When should you use Gabor-Granger?

Gabor-Granger is particularly useful when:

• You already have a product concept defined
• You want to test realistic price points in a short time frame
• You’re launching into a new market and need early pricing guidance

While it’s not as nuanced as Conjoint, Gabor-Granger delivers valuable customer pricing insights – especially when your goal is to set a price quickly with moderate complexity and budget.

Used correctly, Gabor-Granger can help reduce risk and build pricing confidence by grounding pricing strategy in how real customers respond to real prices.

In fast-moving markets, product teams and business leaders often need pricing insights yesterday. That’s where quick pricing surveys shine. These targeted, easily deployed surveys are designed to give you fast feedback on pricing decisions – without the time and cost of a full research project.

What is a quick pricing survey?

A quick pricing survey is a short, focused questionnaire sent to a sample of your target audience. It typically includes questions to test perceived value, price acceptability, and purchase likelihood across different levels. This gives teams a solid read on how your market feels about the proposed price or product concept.

When to use fast pricing research methods

Quick pricing surveys are ideal when:

• You need directional pricing data to support internal decisions
• You’re short on time but want consumer feedback
• You’re A/B testing price points ahead of a launch
• You're updating pricing due to inflation, competition, or value adjustments

What kinds of insights can you get from these surveys?

While not as deep as Conjoint or Gabor-Granger, quick surveys can still deliver actionable consumer insights for price optimization. With the right questions, you can:

• Identify the acceptable price range for your offering
• Gauge customer expectations and willingness to pay
• Explore perceived fairness and pricing confidence

Quick surveys can also include simple van Westendorp questions (e.g., what price is too cheap, too expensive, and just right) or limited option exercises to simulate real-world decisions.

Keeping low-friction research high-impact

The beauty of this approach lies in its simplicity. With today’s online tools and panels, you can deploy and analyze a quick pricing study in just a few days. Whether you're fine-tuning retail pricing or exploring a tiered model for a SaaS product, a quick survey can guide your next move.

And when paired with expert guidance, even simple pricing research becomes a reliable input into your larger pricing strategy. It's an affordable, efficient way to test product pricing with real users before committing to major changes.

Sometimes, even with the right tools and ideas, executing your pricing research plan can feel overwhelming. Maybe your internal team is stretched thin. Or perhaps you’re launching a high-stakes product where pricing will make or break success. That’s when it makes sense to consider additional support – like SIVO’s On Demand Talent solution.

Why bring in expert help?

Pricing strategy often crosses multiple departments – marketing, finance, product, sales – and navigating these conversations requires more than just numbers. You need seasoned insights professionals who understand how to connect customer data with stakeholder needs.

Bringing in external market research professionals can help when:

• You need to stand up a pricing project quickly, but lack the internal bandwidth
• You want high-quality, unbiased pricing insights to share with leadership
• You don’t have in-house expertise in methods like Gabor Granger or Conjoint Analysis
• You’re scaling fast and need experienced researchers to guide smart, data-driven decisions

Whether it's a one-off study or a short-term engagement, SIVO’s On Demand Talent model gives you access to experienced talent within days – not months. No lengthy hiring cycles, no need to train someone up from scratch.

What makes SIVO’s On Demand Talent different?

Unlike general freelance platforms or outsourced agencies, our On Demand solution connects you to insights professionals with deep experience in product pricing research and market strategy. These aren’t junior hires – they’re trusted extensions of your team who understand the expectations of commercial decision-makers.

From designing pricing surveys to running Conjoint models and summarizing findings for executives, our talent gets your research working harder – and smarter.

Flexible support that scales with you

Whether you need help selecting the best research methods for pricing, or someone to execute fast-track survey research, we’re here to plug in where you need us most. With SIVO, you gain a partner who’s committed to delivering pricing insights that reduce risk, boost confidence, and drive business performance.

As your goals grow, so can our support. And because we offer both On Demand Talent and full-service research capabilities, SIVO can support everything from quick questions to complete pricing frameworks.