What a customer would actually hand over, as opposed to what they say. Every pre-launch method is imperfect — some considerably less so than others.
Willingness to pay is what a specific customer would actually hand over, as opposed to what they say they would. Every method for finding it before launch is imperfect. Some are considerably less imperfect than others.
Methods 2 and 3 are what most solo founders should use. Method 1 if you can get it.
This page is about research method. For setting the actual number once you have the evidence, pricing with no customers covers it.
Three reasons, and they compound rather than cancel out.
People are bad at predicting their own spending. A hypothetical purchase costs nothing to agree to. The version of your customer who answers a survey is not the version who reaches for a card at 4pm on a busy Thursday.
They anchor on whatever you show them. Mention a number and every subsequent answer orbits it. Mention none and they anchor on the cheapest software they can think of.
They are being kind. Once someone knows you built the thing, the answer becomes partly social. This is the same failure the Mom Test exists to prevent, applied to price rather than to problem.
The most practical method for a solo founder, and the one that requires no survey design.
Ask ten prospects a single question: what do you currently pay for anything related to this? You are looking for a competitor subscription, a freelancer, an agency retainer, or a line item in a tools budget.
That number is a floor rather than a ceiling. It proves budget exists and that this category of spending is already approved, which removes the hardest objection in any purchase — creating a new budget line.
| What they pay today | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Nothing at all | You would be creating a budget line. Hard, slow, sometimes fatal. |
| A cheap generic tool | Budget exists. Price at or above it if you fit better. |
| A freelancer or agency | Ceiling far higher than most founders assume |
| Staff hours | Convert with method 3 |
When nobody pays money, they usually pay in hours. Multiply the hours the task takes each month by what an hour is worth to them — their rate, not yours — and you have the cost of the status quo.
Two disciplines make this reliable. Ask them to walk through the last specific time they did the task rather than estimating in general, because estimates omit the checking and the fixing. And use their billing rate, since a consultant at $150 an hour values a recovered hour very differently from how you value yours.
Software typically captures a tenth to a third of the value it creates. The pricing calculator runs this arithmetic, including the guard that your result should not fall below existing tool spend.
The only method where the answer costs the person something, which is what makes it reliable.
Ask for one of four things: a pre-order at your intended price, a paid pilot, a deposit, or a signed intent with a date. Three commitments from ten conversations is a strong signal. Ten enthusiastic conversations with zero commitments is a negative result, not a neutral one.
Most solo founders skip this because it risks a clear no. That is precisely its value — every other method lets both parties stay comfortable.
Run the commitment test at a price higher than you intend to charge. If people say yes, you learn something valuable and can honour the lower price at launch. If they say no, you have found the ceiling cheaply.
Different customers will pay very different amounts for the same product, and the spread is usually wider than founders expect.
A freelancer and a ten-person agency using an identical tool have different budgets, different alternatives and different consequences of the problem. Averaging them produces a price that is too high for one and leaves money on the table with the other.
The practical response is not three tiers on day one — it is choosing which segment you are pricing for and saying so. Tier packaging covers when a second tier earns its place, which is later than most people think.
Ten conversations gives you a range rather than a number. Pick from the upper half of it, because the estimation errors in every method above push in the same direction — founders undercount hours, undervalue the hour, and overstate what they replace.
Then commit and ship. A price you can correct beats a research project that delays launch — and once you have customers the method changes entirely, because you can ask what they actually replaced. The pricing framework covers that transition, which happens at around twenty customers.
Five methods, ranked by reliability: a real commitment such as a pre-order or paid pilot, existing spend on the alternative, the time cost of the current process, a structured survey, and asking directly what someone would pay. The last is close to worthless.
People are poor at predicting their own spending, they anchor on any number you show them, and once they know you built the product the answer becomes partly social. A hypothetical purchase costs nothing to agree to.
Asking ten prospects what they currently pay for anything related. Existing spend proves budget exists and that this category is already approved, which removes the hardest objection in any purchase — creating a new budget line.
They usually pay in hours instead. Multiply the monthly time the task takes by what an hour is worth to them, using their billing rate rather than yours. If they genuinely spend neither money nor meaningful time, the problem may not be painful enough.
No, and the spread is wider than founders expect. A freelancer and a ten-person agency have different budgets and different alternatives for the same tool. Choose which segment you are pricing for rather than averaging across them.
Bring what your prospects told you they spend today. Marcus gives you a specific price and the reasoning behind it.
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