Free Tool · Interactive

Value-Based Price Calculator

Cost-plus asks one question and stops. This asks all 3: what the product costs you, what it is worth to the customer, and where your differentiation puts you between the two. Enter your numbers and the answer updates as you type. Nothing is sent anywhere, the maths runs in your browser.

Your Cost, and Your Habit
The cost you would mark up, and the percentage you habitually add. Together these are your cost-plus price.
What the Market Says
The ceiling. What the product earns them, saves them, or what their next best alternative costs.
What a strong rival charges for the same function.
Where You Deserve to Sit
0% is a pure commodity sitting on the floor, 100% is capturing all the value. A differentiated product sits high. Add volume and you get the annual number too.
Reset to example numbers
Money left on the table
$46.00

Per unit, against the competitor's price.

The three anchors
Floor, your cost$60.00
Your cost-plus price$84.00
Competitor price$130.00
Ceiling, customer value$150.00

Your margin per unit $24.00
Competitor margin per unit, same cost $70.00
Where cost-plus put you, floor to ceiling 26.7%
Where the competitor sits 77.8%
A price set from value instead
At the position you set
$127.50

The thinking behind this tool: Cost-Plus Pricing Is a Confession →
It works through a component priced at cost plus 40%, giving $84, against a rival charging $130 for the same function and outselling it.

Estimating the ceiling is the hard part, and it is the part this tool takes as an input rather than answers. Working out what a product is genuinely worth to a customer, across a portfolio, is where the real work sits. Start a conversation →