The Pricing Guys

S3E10 - The Kevin Mitchell Interview

In this special episode of The Pricing Guys, Avy and Michael welcome Kevin Mitchell, President of the Professional Pricing Society (PPS), for a candid conversation about the past, present, and future of pricing.
Kevin traces the roots of PPS back to his father Eric Mitchell, who did pricing work for Ford, Xerox, and Intel before launching the society out of a newsletter Kevin used to print and mail as a kid. Nearly 20 years after rejoining the family business, Kevin now leads the world's largest community of pricing professionals and has a front-row seat to how the discipline is evolving.
The conversation covers the classic 1% pricing rule and why most executives still underestimate it, how BOGO promotions in consumer goods erode long-term price integrity, and where AI fits into the pricing toolkit today. Kevin shares memorable examples of algorithmic pricing spiraling out of control and makes a strong case for keeping humans in the loop on decisions that matter.
He also draws an unexpected parallel between the music industry and pricing strategy, and closes with a straightforward challenge to anyone looking to grow as a pricing leader: get out of the silo, learn the language of every department, and be a generalist with specialist knowledge.
A thoughtful and energizing episode for anyone in pricing, revenue management, or commercial strategy.

S3E9 - The Big Slice

What can a New York City dollar slice teach you about pricing strategy? Quite a bit, it turns out.
In this episode, Michael and Avy use pizza as a lens to explore real-world pricing dynamics: the volume game behind the dollar slice, how atmosphere and customer segments justify price gaps, and why brands have to commit to a single pricing identity. They also make the case that Dave Portnoy's One Bite Reviews are missing a critical data point.
If you think about price, value, and what customers are really paying for, this episode will give you a few new ways to think about it. Plus, a future episode rating pizza on a price-adjusted scale may be coming.

S3E8 - Heinz Proved It. Can You?

What does ketchup have to do with brand value? More than you'd think.
Michael and Avy dig into one of the most underrated questions in pricing: when you strip away the logo, the mascot, and the packaging redesign, what is your brand actually worth? The Heinz story out of Turkey is the jumping off point, but this episode goes much deeper into why so many companies are spending millions to justify their existence instead of their value.
In this episode, Michael and Avy get into how Heinz drove a 23% sales increase without a price hike or a new product, why brands confuse logo refreshes and flavor adds with actual value creation, the slotting fee trap that CPG companies keep falling into and why the payback math almost never works, what base velocity actually tells you about whether your marketing spend did anything, why the brand is the product and not the color of your label, and how Coca-Cola quietly gets this right while everyone else chases shiny objects.
Also, keep your eyes open for the new RML website dropping in early May. Drop your thoughts in the comments.
What brands do you think have done the best job justifying their premium? Subscribe for Season 3, new episodes dropping regularly. #PricingStrategy #BrandValue #CPGPricing #ThePricingGuys #PricingPodcast #MarketingROI #FMCG #BrandEquity #RevenueStrategy #PricingTrends ‪@heinz‬

S3E7 - Is Your Grocery App Spying On Your Wallet?

Is your grocery app charging you more than your neighbor? Welcome to surveillance pricing.Avy Punwasee and Michael Stanisz break down the pricing practice that's got Ontario Premier Doug Ford talking and consumers quietly fuming. Surveillance pricing (aka AI-powered price discrimination) is already happening on grocery apps, and the debate over whether to ban it is heating up.But here's the thing: dynamic pricing has existed in airlines, hotels, and B2B for years. So why does seeing different banana prices on Instacart feel different?In this episode, Avy and Michael get into what surveillance pricing actually is and why it sounds scarier than it might be, Doug Ford's free market take on whether government should even get involved, why airlines have done this forever and nobody bats an eye, the grocery app paradox of whether you're paying more for the bananas or just the convenience, how AI shopping agents are about to flip the dynamic on sellers, B2B's dirty secret that discretionary discounts are just surveillance pricing with a friendlier name, and where Michael and Avy actually land on free market vs. regulation.
Learn more - revenueml.com

S3E6 - The Future of Pricing in an AI World

What does "price" even mean in a world run by AI?
In this episode, Michael and Avy skip the near-term AI hype and fast-forward 10 to 15 years to ask the big questions. Are promotions obsolete? Will brands live or die by their ability to communicate value to an algorithm? And is B2B pricing about to go completely underground?
From shopper bots that buy your toilet paper at the optimal moment, to the NVIDIA CEO's take on the true cost of an AI-powered engineer, this is a wide-ranging and thought-provoking look at the long game of pricing in an AI-saturated world. Come for the predictions, stay for the debate, and check back in Season 15 to see how right they were.
#PricingStrategy #AIAndPricing #FutureOfPricing #ThePricingGuys #PricingPodcast #ArtificialIntelligence #B2BPricing #PricingTrends

S3E5 - The Change Management Problem in Pricing

Are pricing teams their own worst enemy? 
In this episode of The Pricing Guys, Michael and Avy are calling out a growing trend in the pricing community: a victim mentality showing up all over LinkedIn, where pricing professionals feel undervalued, ignored, and like they're the only ones driving results in their organizations.
But here's the hot take: if no one's listening to you, that might be on you.
Michael and Avy break down why the best pricing professionals aren't just Excel wizards. They're change agents, relationship builders, and communicators who bring their stakeholders along for the journey from day one. They share real-world consulting experiences, the powerful "seven times rule," and lessons from a fireside chat at a major private equity conference on why trust-building is the real unlock for organizational change.
Whether you're a pricing veteran or just getting started, this episode will challenge your mindset and give you a fresh playbook for making real impact.
What's covered:
The LinkedIn "pricing victim" trend and the hot take you might not want to hear
Change management vs. spreadsheet perfection
Getting stakeholders involved early (and why it matters)
Relationship-first leadership lessons
How to shift from victim to change agent
Have a topic you want us to cover? Send it in!
#ThePricingGuys #Pricing #PricingStrategy #RevenueManagement #ChangeManagement #B2B #CommercialExcellence #RML
 

S3E4 – Why Did Target Remove Prices From Tags?

Have you ever picked up a piece of clothing in a store and noticed the price tag was... blank? Target made headlines when they quietly removed price points from tags on select clothing items, and the guys are unpacking what's really going on.
In this episode, we dig into the operational reasoning Target offered (spoiler: it involves tariffs and cost volatility), and why that explanation doesn't fully add up. We explore the real cost of price tag labor, the friction this creates for shoppers, and whether removing visible pricing is actually a slippery slope toward full dynamic pricing in brick-and-mortar retail.
We also draw parallels to the world of B2B and software pricing, from "contact sales" enterprise deals to distributors who hide their list prices from the open market, and ask the bigger question: when you hide your price, what signal does that send to your customer?
Key topics covered:
Target and Walmart's removal of price points from clothing tags
Price transparency and the customer shopping journey
Dynamic pricing in retail: is this where we're headed?
The hidden cost of creating friction at the shelf
B2B pricing opacity: commodity markets vs. value-added products
Digital price tags and what the future of in-store pricing could look like
Whether you're in retail, B2B, or SaaS, the core lesson is the same: before you hide your price, make sure you've weighed the operational savings against what it costs you in customer trust and lost sales.
#PricingStrategy #RetailPricing #DynamicPricing #PriceTransparency #Target #Retail #B2BPricing #SaaS #ThePricingGuys #Podcast #Ecommerce #PricingPodcastMore pricing insights can be found here - https://revenueml.com/insights

S3E3 - The New iPhone Pricing Strategy

In this episode of The Pricing Guys, Avy and Michael unpack ‬Apple's latest iPhone pricing move and why holding price flat while adding value is more strategic than it looks.
What starts as a discussion about the new iPhone and iPad turns into a broader conversation about price-volume tradeoffs, consumer caution, and what it means when a category leader decides not to take price. They explore whether Apple is responding to softer demand, a broader flight to value, or a more mature, replacement-driven market where upgrades are no longer automatic.
Subscribe to The Pricing Guys Podcast for more conversations on pricing, competition, and revenue management.
More info - revenueml.cm

S3E2 - The Death of Seat Based SaaS

Seat-based SaaS pricing helped fuel the software boom for more than a decade. But that model is starting to show cracks.
In this episode of The Pricing Guys, Michael and Avy unpack why many technology companies are moving away from traditional seat-based subscriptions and exploring usage-based or hybrid pricing models. Ironically, the same industry that popularized subscription pricing is now leading the shift away from it.
AI is a major driver. As companies automate work and reduce headcount, the number of seats they need for tools like development platforms, HR systems, and productivity software is shrinking. That creates real pressure on SaaS revenue models that were built around charging per user.
The conversation digs into what companies are doing in response. Should they move fully to usage-based pricing? Should they combine fixed and variable components? And how do they ensure the pricing metric actually grows with the customer rather than encouraging behaviors that reduce revenue?
Michael and Avy also explore one of the most overlooked issues in pricing design: expandability. The best pricing metrics encourage customers to naturally use more of the product over time. The wrong metrics can do the opposite, pushing customers to game the system or limit usage.
They also discuss why simplicity matters. Many companies introduce too many pricing metrics, which confuses both customers and their own sales teams.
Seat-based pricing may not be dead, but it is clearly evolving. The challenge for SaaS companies now is designing models that reflect real customer value while remaining simple, scalable, and aligned with how products are actually used.
 
Learn more - revenueml.com

S3E1 - The Price Guess Challenge

Michael and Avy are back for Season 3 of The Pricing Guys.
To kick things off, we’re testing a simple question. Do pricing experts actually know the price of everyday products? From hotel water bottles to Hugo Boss t-shirts, baby formula, marinara sauce, and Excel gum, we put our instincts to the test in a rapid-fire guessing game. Some answers are close. Others not so much.
It’s a good reminder of something pricing professionals know well. Price perception is rarely as clear as we think.
Watch to see who ends up the champ of price guessing.
revenueml.com