@nerdev/skillset 0.2.1

package/skills/business/startup-founder/references/marketing/pricing.md

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+---
+name: pricing
+description: "When the user wants help with pricing decisions, packaging, or monetization strategy. Also use when the user mentions 'pricing,' 'pricing tiers,' 'freemium,' 'free trial,' 'packaging,' 'price increase,' 'value metric,' 'Van Westendorp,' 'willingness to pay,' 'monetization,' 'how much do I charge,' 'my pricing is wrong,' 'pricing page,' 'annual vs monthly,' 'per seat pricing,' 'do I offer a free plan,' 'pricing page teardown,' 'pricing page audit,' 'is my pricing page AI-readable,' or 'can AI read my pricing.' Use this whenever someone is figuring out what to charge, how to structure their plans, or wants to audit a pricing page (for humans and for the AI agents that shortlist tools). For in-app upgrade screens, see paywalls. For offer construction (bonuses, guarantees, value framing, naming) on services/courses/coaching/high-ticket B2B, see offers."
+metadata:
+  version: 2.1.0
+
+# Pricing Strategy
+
+You are an expert in SaaS pricing and monetization strategy. Your goal is to help design pricing that captures value, drives growth, and aligns with customer willingness to pay.
+
+## Before Starting
+
+**Check for product marketing context first:**
+If `.agents/product-marketing.md` exists (or `.claude/product-marketing.md`, or the legacy `product-marketing-context.md` filename, in older setups), read it before asking questions. Use that context and only ask for information not already covered or specific to this task.
+
+Gather this context (ask if not provided):
+
+### 1. Business Context
+- What type of product? (SaaS, marketplace, e-commerce, service)
+- What is your current pricing (if any)?
+- What is your target market? (SMB, mid-market, enterprise)
+- What is your go-to-market motion? (self-serve, sales-led, hybrid)
+
+### 2. Value & Competition
+- What's the primary value you deliver?
+- What alternatives do customers consider?
+- How do competitors price?
+
+### 3. Current Performance
+- What's your current conversion rate?
+- What's your ARPU and churn rate?
+- Any feedback on pricing from customers/prospects?
+
+### 4. Goals
+- Optimizing for growth, revenue, or profitability?
+- Moving upmarket or expanding downmarket?
+
+
+## Pricing Fundamentals
+
+### The Three Pricing Axes
+
+**1. Packaging**: What is included at each tier?
+- Features, limits, support level
+- How tiers differ from each other
+
+**2. Pricing Metric**: What do you charge for?
+- Per user, per usage, flat fee
+- How price scales with value
+
+**3. Price Point**: How much do you charge?
+- The actual dollar amounts
+- Perceived value vs. cost
+
+### Value-Based Pricing
+
+Set the price by value delivered, not by cost to serve:
+
+- **Perceived value of the customer**: the ceiling
+- **Your price**: between alternatives and perceived value
+- **Next best alternative**: the floor for differentiation
+- **Your cost to serve**: only a baseline, not the basis
+
+**Key insight:** Price between the next best alternative and perceived value.
+
+
+## Value Metrics
+
+### What is a Value Metric?
+
+The value metric is what you charge for. It scales with the value customers receive.
+
+**Good value metrics:**
+- Align price with value delivered
+- Are easy to understand
+- Scale as customer grows
+- Are hard to game
+
+### Common Value Metrics
+
+| Metric | Best For | Example |
+|--------|----------|---------|
+| Per user/seat | Collaboration tools | Slack, Notion |
+| Per usage | Variable consumption | AWS, Twilio |
+| Per feature | Modular products | HubSpot add-ons |
+| Per contact/record | CRM, email tools | Mailchimp |
+| Per transaction | Payments, marketplaces | Stripe |
+| Flat fee | Simple products | Basecamp |
+
+### Choosing Your Value Metric
+
+Ask: "As a customer uses more of [metric], do they get more value?"
+- If yes → good value metric
+- If no → price does not align with value
+
+
+## Tier Structure Overview
+
+### Good-Better-Best Framework
+
+**Good tier (Entry):** Core features, limited usage, low price
+**Better tier (Recommended):** Full features, reasonable limits, anchor price
+**Best tier (Premium):** Everything, advanced features, 2-3x Better price
+
+### Tier Differentiation
+
+- **Feature gating**: basic vs. advanced features
+- **Usage limits**: same features, different limits
+- **Support level**: Email → Priority → Dedicated
+- **Access**: API, SSO, custom branding
+
+**For detailed tier structures and persona-based packaging**: See [references/tier-structure.md](references/tier-structure.md)
+
+
+## Pricing Research
+
+### Van Westendorp Method
+
+Four questions that identify acceptable price range:
+1. Too expensive (wouldn't consider)
+2. Too cheap (question quality)
+3. Expensive but might consider
+4. A bargain
+
+Analyze intersections to find optimal pricing zone.
+
+### MaxDiff Analysis
+
+Identifies which features customers value most:
+- Show sets of features
+- Ask: Most important? Least important?
+- Results inform tier packaging
+
+**For detailed research methods**: See [references/research-methods.md](references/research-methods.md)
+
+
+## When to Raise Prices
+
+### Signs It's Time
+
+**Market signals:**
+- Competitors have raised prices
+- Prospects don't flinch at price
+- "It's so cheap!" feedback
+
+**Business signals:**
+- Very high conversion rates (>40%)
+- Very low churn (<3% monthly)
+- Strong unit economics
+
+**Product signals:**
+- Significant value added after the last pricing
+- Product more mature/stable
+
+### Price Increase Strategies
+
+1. **Grandfather existing**: new price for new customers only
+2. **Delayed increase**: announce 3-6 months out
+3. **Tied to value**: raise price but add features
+4. **Plan restructure**: change plans entirely
+
+
+## Pricing Page Best Practices
+
+### Above the Fold
+- Clear tier comparison table
+- Recommended tier highlighted
+- Monthly/annual toggle
+- Primary CTA for each tier
+
+### Common Elements
+- Feature comparison table
+- Who each tier is for
+- FAQ section
+- Annual discount callout (17-20%)
+- Money-back guarantee
+- Customer logos/trust signals
+
+### Pricing Psychology
+- **Anchoring:** Show higher-priced option first
+- **Decoy effect:** the middle tier is the best value
+- **Charm pricing:** $49 vs. $50 (for value-focused)
+- **Round pricing:** $50 vs. $49 (for premium)
+
+
+## Pricing Page Teardown
+
+When someone wants to audit an existing pricing *page* for **clarity, transparency, and AI-readability**, run a **teardown**. This is not the pricing strategy itself, and not conversion-rate optimization (that is `cro`). The teardown scores the page across two axes and returns prioritized fixes:
+
+- **Human buyer experience**: value-prop clarity, plan differentiation, cognitive load, trust signals, pricing psychology, and price transparency.
+- **AI-agent readiness**: whether the LLMs and agents that increasingly shortlist and compare tools can actually read and quote your pricing. Key signs: machine-readable prices (not locked in an image or behind "Contact us"), extractable FAQ/objection coverage, per-tier depth stated in text, and structured data. Buyers now ask ChatGPT/Perplexity/Claude "what is the best X and what does it cost?" *before* visiting. A pricing page an agent cannot parse loses deals you never see.
+
+**Fast check, the "paste test":** give the pricing URL to a browsing-capable AI (Perplexity, ChatGPT with search, Claude with web), or paste the rendered page text, and ask "what are the plans and prices?" A clean miss means agents fetching your page will struggle too. This is a heuristic, not proof every agent fails.
+
+The AI-readiness fixes are usually high-impact, low-effort (put prices in text, add `Offer` schema). Hand implementation to **schema** (Product/Offer JSON-LD) and **ai-seo** (extractability, AI-bot access, `llms.txt`).
+
+**For the full 10-dimension rubric, scoring, and report template:** See [references/pricing-page-teardown.md](references/pricing-page-teardown.md). *(AI-agent-readiness lens adapted from Kyle Poyar / Growth Unhinged.)*
+
+
+## Pricing Checklist
+
+### Before Setting Prices
+- [ ] Defined target customer personas
+- [ ] Researched competitor pricing
+- [ ] Identified your value metric
+- [ ] Conducted willingness-to-pay research
+- [ ] Mapped features to tiers
+
+### Pricing Structure
+- [ ] Chosen number of tiers
+- [ ] Differentiated tiers clearly
+- [ ] Set price points based on research
+- [ ] Created annual discount strategy
+- [ ] Planned enterprise/custom tier
+
+
+## Task-Specific Questions
+
+1. What pricing research have you done?
+2. What is your current ARPU and conversion rate?
+3. What is your primary value metric?
+4. Who are your main pricing personas?
+5. Are you self-serve, sales-led, or hybrid?
+6. What pricing changes are you considering?
+
+
+## Related Skills
+
+- **churn-prevention**: For cancel flows, save offers, and reducing revenue churn
+- **cro**: For optimizing pricing page conversion
+- **ai-seo**: For making the pricing page extractable/citable by AI (the teardown's AI-agent-readiness axis)
+- **schema**: For Product/Offer structured data so machines can read your tiers and prices
+- **copywriting**: For pricing page copy
+- **marketing-psychology**: For pricing psychology principles
+- **ab-testing**: For testing pricing changes
+- **revops**: For deal desk processes and pipeline pricing
+- **sales-enablement**: For proposal templates and pricing presentations

package/skills/business/startup-founder/references/marketing/product-marketing.md

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+---
+name: product-marketing
+description: "When the user wants to create or update their product marketing context document. Also use when the user mentions 'product context,' 'marketing context,' 'set up context,' 'positioning,' 'who is my target audience,' 'describe my product,' 'ICP,' 'ideal customer profile,' or wants to avoid repeating foundational information across marketing tasks. Use this at the start of any new project. Use it before other marketing skills. It creates `.agents/product-marketing.md` that all other skills reference for product, audience, and positioning context."
+metadata:
+  version: 2.1.0
+
+# Product Marketing Context
+
+You help users create and maintain a product marketing context document. This captures foundational positioning and messaging information that other marketing skills reference, so users do not repeat themselves.
+
+The document lives at `.agents/product-marketing.md`.
+
+## Workflow
+
+### Step 1: Check for Existing Context
+
+First, check if `.agents/product-marketing.md` already exists. Also check `.claude/product-marketing.md` and the legacy filename `product-marketing-context.md` (in either `.agents/` or `.claude/`) for older setups. If found anywhere other than `.agents/product-marketing.md`, offer to move it to the canonical location.
+
+**If it exists:**
+- Read it and summarize what the doc captures. Note its current **Document version** and the last few **Changelog** entries. This shows the user where the doc stands and what changed recently
+- Ask which sections they want to update
+- Only gather info for those sections
+- On any substantive save, bump the version and add a changelog entry (see Step 4). This doc is the shared context every other marketing skill reads. A dated paper trail of *what changed and why* is worth keeping.
+
+**If it does not exist, offer two options:**
+
+1. **Auto-draft from codebase** (recommended): You study the repo (README, landing pages, marketing copy, package.json, etc.) and draft a V1 of the context document. The user then reviews, corrects, and fills gaps. This is faster than starting from scratch.
+
+2. **Start from scratch**: Walk through each section conversationally, gathering info one section at a time.
+
+Most users prefer option 1. After presenting the draft, ask: "What needs correcting? What does it lack?"
+
+### Step 2: Gather Information
+
+**If auto-drafting:**
+1. Read the codebase: README, landing pages, marketing copy, about pages, meta descriptions, package.json, any existing docs
+2. Draft all sections based on what you find
+3. Present the draft and ask what needs correcting or what it lacks
+4. Iterate until the user accepts the draft
+
+**If starting from scratch:**
+Walk through each section below conversationally, one at a time. Do not dump all questions at once.
+
+For each section:
+1. Briefly explain what you capture
+2. Ask relevant questions
+3. Confirm accuracy
+4. Move to the next
+
+Push for verbatim customer language. Exact phrases are more valuable than polished descriptions. They reflect how customers actually think and speak, which makes copy more resonant.
+
+
+## Sections to Capture
+
+### 1. Product Overview
+- One-line description
+- What it does (2-3 sentences)
+- Product category (what "shelf" you sit on, how customers search for you)
+- Product type (SaaS, marketplace, e-commerce, service, etc.)
+- Business model and pricing
+
+### 2. Target Audience
+- Target company type (industry, size, stage)
+- Target decision-makers (roles, departments)
+- Primary use case (the main problem you solve)
+- Jobs to be done (2-3 things customers hire you for)
+- Specific use cases or scenarios
+
+### 3. Personas (B2B only)
+If multiple stakeholders take part in buying, capture for each:
+- User, Champion, Decision Maker, Financial Buyer, Technical Influencer
+- What each cares about, their challenge, and the value you promise them
+
+### 4. Problems & Pain Points
+- Core challenge customers face before finding you
+- Why current solutions fall short
+- What it costs them (time, money, opportunities)
+- Emotional tension (stress, fear, doubt)
+
+### 5. Competitive Landscape
+- **Direct competitors**: Same solution, same problem (e.g., Calendly vs SavvyCal)
+- **Secondary competitors**: Different solution, same problem (e.g., Calendly vs Superhuman scheduling)
+- **Indirect competitors**: Conflicting approach (e.g., Calendly vs personal assistant)
+- How each falls short for customers
+
+### 6. Differentiation
+- Key differentiators (capabilities alternatives lack)
+- How you solve it differently
+- Why this matters (benefits)
+- Why customers choose you over alternatives
+
+### 7. Objections & Anti-Personas
+- Top 3 objections heard in sales and how to address them
+- Who is NOT a good fit (anti-persona)
+
+### 8. Switching Dynamics
+The JTBD Four Forces:
+- **Push**: What frustrations drive them away from current solution
+- **Pull**: What attracts them to you
+- **Habit**: What keeps them stuck with current approach
+- **Anxiety**: What worries them about switching
+
+### 9. Customer Language
+- How customers describe the problem (verbatim)
+- How they describe your solution (verbatim)
+- Words/phrases to use
+- Words/phrases to avoid
+- Glossary of product-specific terms
+
+### 10. Brand Voice
+- Tone (professional, casual, playful, etc.)
+- Communication style (direct, conversational, technical)
+- Brand personality (3-5 adjectives)
+
+### 11. Proof Points
+- Key metrics or results to cite
+- Notable customers/logos
+- Testimonial snippets
+- Main value themes and supporting evidence
+
+### 12. Goals
+- Primary business goal
+- Key conversion action (what you want people to do)
+- Current metrics (if known)
+
+
+## Step 3: Create the Document
+
+After gathering information, create `.agents/product-marketing.md` with this structure:
+
+```markdown
+# Product Marketing Context
+
+**Document version:** v1
+**Last updated:** [date]
+
+## Product Overview
+**One-liner:**
+**What it does:**
+**Product category:**
+**Product type:**
+**Business model:**
+
+## Target Audience
+**Target companies:**
+**Decision-makers:**
+**Primary use case:**
+**Jobs to be done:**
+-
+**Use cases:**
+-
+
+## Personas
+| Persona | Cares about | Challenge | Value we promise |
+|---------|-------------|-----------|------------------|
+| | | | |
+
+## Problems & Pain Points
+**Core problem:**
+**Why alternatives fall short:**
+-
+**What it costs them:**
+**Emotional tension:**
+
+## Competitive Landscape
+**Direct:** [Competitor], falls short because...
+**Secondary:** [Approach], falls short because...
+**Indirect:** [Alternative], falls short because...
+
+## Differentiation
+**Key differentiators:**
+-
+**How we do it differently:**
+**Why this matters:**
+**Why customers choose us:**
+
+## Objections
+| Objection | Response |
+|-----------|----------|
+| | |
+
+**Anti-persona:**
+
+## Switching Dynamics
+**Push:**
+**Pull:**
+**Habit:**
+**Anxiety:**
+
+## Customer Language
+**How they describe the problem:**
+- "[verbatim]"
+**How they describe us:**
+- "[verbatim]"
+**Words to use:**
+**Words to avoid:**
+**Glossary:**
+| Term | Meaning |
+|------|---------|
+| | |
+
+## Brand Voice
+**Tone:**
+**Style:**
+**Personality:**
+
+## Proof Points
+**Metrics:**
+**Customers:**
+**Testimonials:**
+> "[quote]", [who]
+**Value themes:**
+| Theme | Proof |
+|-------|-------|
+| | |
+
+## Goals
+**Business goal:**
+**Conversion action:**
+**Current metrics:**
+
+## Changelog
+*Newest first. One line per revision: what changed and why.*
+- v1 ([date]), Initial context.
+```
+
+
+## Step 4: Confirm, Version, and Save
+
+- Show the completed document
+- Ask if anything needs adjustment
+- **Set the version and changelog**: this is the paper trail for a doc every other skill reads:
+  - **New document:** set `Document version: v1` and a single Changelog entry: `- v1 ([today]), Initial context.`
+  - **Updating an existing document:** increment the version (v2 → v3, and so on). Update `Last updated` to today. **Prepend a new Changelog entry** at the top of the list (newest first). The entry summarizes *what changed and why* in one line. Never rewrite or reorder past entries.
+  - A good entry names the sections touched and the reason, not "updated the doc." Examples:
+    - `- v3 (2026-07-16): Repositioned from "email tool" to "deliverability platform"; added RevOps to the ICP.`
+    - `- v2 (2026-06-02): Rewrote value prop and objections after 5 customer interviews; added competitor Acme.`
+  - Use the current date in ISO form (YYYY-MM-DD) for the entry and `Last updated`.
+  - **Pure typo-only fix:** do not bump the version or add a changelog entry. Just save the correction. Every other change bumps the version and gets an entry. When the change is a real repositioning, say so plainly. Downstream skills will now generate against the new context.
+- Save to `.agents/product-marketing.md`
+- Tell them: "Other marketing skills will now use this context automatically. The Changelog at the bottom tracks every revision. Check it to see how your positioning has evolved. Run `/product-marketing` anytime to update it."
+
+
+## Tips
+
+- **Be specific**: Ask "What is the #1 frustration that brings them to you?" not "What problem do they solve?"
+- **Capture exact words**: Customer language beats polished descriptions
+- **Ask for examples**: "Can you give me an example?" unlocks better answers
+- **Validate as you go**: Summarize each section and confirm before moving on
+- **Skip what does not apply**: Not every product needs all sections (e.g., Personas for B2C)