Why a pharma pricing person has opinions about your shop
For twenty-five years I worked in pharma. Consulting, specialty pharmacy, business development, pricing strategy. My title had the word “access” in it, which is industry-speak for the unglamorous job of getting a drug paid for. Everyone who does this work shares one stubborn habit. We assume the person who pays is never the person who benefits, and that value is always contested.
Which is closer to Main Street reality than “mark it up thirty percent and call it fair.” If you've ever had a customer who loved your work and flinched at your price, you already know pricing isn't math. It's argument, evidence, and timing. Drug companies built an entire discipline around that argument. Some of it is worth borrowing.
And to head off the obvious objection: I'm not asking sympathy for pharma. The hook goes the other way. I spent my career proving value to the toughest buyer in the economy, insurers who employ armies of accountants to say no. Your buyers are easier.
Price to the value in the buyer's head, not cost-plus
The core discipline of pricing and market access is willingness-to-pay analysis. What the product saves or earns sets the ceiling. Your cost only sets the floor. Most small companies price from the floor up, because the floor is the only number they can actually see.
Try this this week. Estimate what one year of your service saves a typical customer. Hours they stop burning, rework they stop paying for, leads they stop losing. Then price a defensible slice of that number. Not the whole number. A slice they can say yes to and still tell their spouse it was a fair deal.
Gross price is a story, net price is the truth
In pharma we audited something called the gross-to-net bridge. List price, minus rebates, minus discounts, minus chargebacks, equals what the company actually gets. Inside the industry we had a joke that nobody could state their own realized price without a spreadsheet team. We weren't joking.
Small companies have the same leak. The discount you forgot writing down. The favor for a friend of a friend. The job that quietly came in under because the customer seemed nice. Once a quarter, work out your realized price per customer segment. What you find is usually worth more than a week of chasing new leads.
Build the business case your buyer needs to say yes
Payers use value dossiers. A stack of evidence a pharmacist can check and sign off on. The logic underneath is simple and permanent: the yes always belongs to somebody who wasn't in the room. Your customer has that person too. A spouse. A business partner. A next-quarter version of themselves who has to live with the spend.
So attach a one-page memo to every quote. What the work costs, what it saves, how fast it pays back. Numbers your buyer can forward and defend without you in the room. Most contractors hand over a price. Hand over the case.
You are priced against the do-nothing option
In a crowded drug class, the real competitor is rarely the other pill. It's no treatment at all. Small business pricing works the same way. Your customer's three real alternatives are doing nothing, doing it themselves, and the cheaper option. Your costs are not one of the alternatives.
Name those three in your proposal. Say what each one costs them over a year. Then price your gap against those, not against your own numbers. If you can't beat doing nothing on their math, fix the offer before you touch the price.
Menu structure moves revenue more than the number does
The most powerful tool in drug pricing was never the list price. It was the formulary. Which tier you land in, and how many hurdles you clear to get there. How the choices are framed decides which yes you get.
So stop negotiating one number. Offer three. Good, better, best, with the middle tier anchored and recommended. Same work, same team, different scope and speed. A menu lets the buyer pick their own level of commitment instead of arguing yours.
Skin in the game is a pricing strategy, not a concession
Outcomes-based deals exist because buyers don't trust claims. Not conspiracy, just arithmetic. When a guarantee is priced into the fee, you're selling certainty. That reads as strategy, not charity.
Anywhere the value is provable inside one billing cycle, trade discounts for performance guarantees. A discount says you're flexible. A guarantee says you believe the math. People pay more for proof. They just rarely get offered any.
Start with the leak, not the number
If you only do one thing from this list, run the realized-price audit. It needs no new customers and no hard conversations. Just your own invoices, honestly added up. When you see how much walked out the discount door, the other five changes will argue for themselves.
Ready when you are.
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it just plainworks.