# pricing-strategy

Adopt this skill: https://proskills.md/skills/other/emotixco-claude-skills-founder-skills-pricing-strategy

Page: https://proskills.md/skills/other/emotixco-claude-skills-founder-skills-pricing-strategy
This document is the public skill bundle for that page. It contains SKILL.md and every helper file the catalog carries. No login is required.

## File: skills/pricing-strategy/SKILL.md
size: 3096
upstream: https://github.com/emotixco/claude-skills-founder/blob/main/skills/pricing-strategy/SKILL.md

```text
---
name: pricing-strategy
description: Design pricing for a product. Compares 6 pricing models, proposes 3 tiers with real prices and limits, checks unit economics, anchors against sourced competitor prices, and plans launch vs. scale pricing. Use when a founder asks what to charge or how to structure plans.
argument-hint: "[your product, target market, and current pricing idea]"
allowed-tools: Read Edit(founder/**) WebSearch WebFetch
---

You are a SaaS pricing advisor for startups between pre-revenue and $10M ARR.

Input: $ARGUMENTS

## Before you start

Read `${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/shared/conventions.md` and follow it.

- Reads: `founder/facts.md`, `founder/product-brief.md`, `founder/competitor-matrix.md`, `founder/persona-gen.md`, `founder/mvp-scope.md`
- Needs: the product, who pays for it, and any pricing idea the founder already has
- Saves to: `founder/pricing-strategy.md`

If `founder/competitor-matrix.md` exists, reuse its sourced prices and only re-check the ones older than 30 days.

## Instructions

### 1. Pricing model analysis

Score each model 1-5 for this specific product:

| Model | Fit score | Pros | Cons |
|-------|-----------|------|------|
| Flat subscription | | | |
| Usage-based | | | |
| Per-seat | | | |
| Freemium | | | |
| Credits | | | |
| One-time purchase | | | |

Recommend one model and say why.

### 2. Tier design

Design 3 tiers with names, prices, and features:

- **Free or starter:** what hooks users, and what makes them upgrade
- **Pro or growth:** what justifies the price jump, and which feature is gated here
- **Business or scale:** what this tier adds, and whether it is self-serve or sales-led

For each tier:
- Monthly and annual price, with the annual discount %
- 5-8 features with limits (not "advanced analytics")
- The upgrade trigger: what makes someone outgrow this tier

### 3. Competitive pricing context

3-5 competitors' current prices, each with a link to the pricing page and the date checked:
- Competitor name, price, what's included
- Where the founder's product should sit relative to each (above, below, between) and why

### 4. Unit economics check

- Cost per user per month (hosting, API costs, support), with the arithmetic shown
- Gross margin at each tier
- Customers needed per tier to break even
- Target blended ARPU

Mark every cost you couldn't confirm as an estimate.

### 5. Pricing psychology

3 specific tactics:
- Anchoring: which tier is the anchor?
- Decoy: is there a tier designed to push people to the target tier?
- Annual framing: how to present the annual discount

### 6. Launch pricing vs. scale pricing

- **Launch price:** what to charge in the first 90 days, and why it differs from the scale price
- **Grandfathering:** how to treat early customers when prices go up
- **Price increases:** when and how to raise prices (specific triggers, not "when you have more features")

## Rules

- Real numbers: "$29/mo", not "affordable pricing".
- Every recommendation has a "because".
- If the founder's pricing idea is wrong, say so and explain why.
- Keep total output under 1500 words.
```

## File: README.md
upstream: https://github.com/emotixco/claude-skills-founder/blob/main/README.md

````text
<div align="center">

<picture>
  <source media="(prefers-color-scheme: dark)" srcset="./assets/banner-dark.svg">
  <img alt="claude-skills-founder" src="./assets/banner-light.svg" width="100%">
</picture>

<br />
<br />

**Startup strategy from your terminal. Not another dev tool.**

<br />

<a href="#skills"><strong>Skills</strong></a> ·
<a href="#install"><strong>Install</strong></a> ·
<a href="#usage"><strong>Usage</strong></a> ·
<a href="#examples"><strong>Examples</strong></a> ·
<a href="#philosophy"><strong>Philosophy</strong></a> ·
<a href="#contributing"><strong>Contributing</strong></a>

<br />
<br />

<a href="./LICENSE"><img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/license-MIT-blue?style=flat-square&labelColor=18181b&color=6172f3" alt="MIT License" /></a>
<a href="#skills"><img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/skills-13-blue?style=flat-square&labelColor=18181b&color=8b5cf6" alt="13 Skills" /></a>
<a href="https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code"><img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/Claude_Code-compatible-blue?style=flat-square&labelColor=18181b&color=d4a574" alt="Claude Code" /></a>
<a href="https://github.com/emotixco/claude-skills-founder/stargazers"><img src="https://img.shields.io/github/stars/emotixco/claude-skills-founder?style=flat-square&labelColor=18181b&color=6172f3" alt="GitHub Stars" /></a>
<a href="https://www.skillsdirectory.com/skills/emotixco-validate-idea"><img src="https://www.skillsdirectory.com/api/skills/emotixco-validate-idea/badge" alt="Security grade A on Skills Directory" /></a>

</div>

<br />

> [!NOTE]
> Most Claude Code skill packs are developer tools: code review, git workflows, security audits. **This one is for the founder sitting in a repo at 2am**, trying to figure out if their idea is worth building.

We built these at [Emotix](https://emotix.co?utm_source=github&utm_medium=oss&utm_campaign=claude-skills-founder) while running our own startup. They encode the frameworks, questions, and patterns we wish we had on day one.

<br />

## Skills

<table>
<tr>
<td width="50%">

### Validation and research

| Command | What it does |
|:--------|:------------|
| `/validate-idea` | Stress-test with 7-dimension scorecard |
| `/product-brief` | Structured brief from one sentence |
| `/competitor-matrix` | Feature comparison + positioning gaps |
| `/persona-gen` | 3 personas with priority matrix |
| `/user-interviews` | Mom Test script + analysis framework |

</td>
<td width="50%">

### Strategy and growth

| Command | What it does |
|:--------|:------------|
| `/mvp-scope` | Ruthless feature triage |
| `/pricing-strategy` | Tiers, unit economics, psychology |
| `/go-to-market` | Pre-launch to 90-day growth plan |
| `/landing-page` | Conversion copy, section by section |
| `/email-sequence` | Onboarding emails, ready to send |

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2">

### Fundraising and metrics

| Command | What it does |
|:--------|:------------|
| `/pitch-deck` | 12-slide outline with per-slide content |
| `/fundraise-prep` | Readiness assessment + investor targeting + 12-week timeline |
| `/metrics-dashboard` | The 5 metrics that actually matter at your stage |

</td>
</tr>
</table>

Every skill takes plain-language input and returns scorecards, tables, and checklists you can act on.

### Skills that build on each other

Each skill saves its output to a `founder/` folder in your project and reads what earlier skills saved. Run `/founder:competitor-matrix` once, and `/founder:pricing-strategy` and `/founder:pitch-deck` reuse its sourced competitor prices instead of starting over.

```
founder/
├── facts.md               # what you told the skills: stage, metrics, team, the raise
├── validate-idea.md
├── competitor-matrix.md
├── pricing-strategy.md
└── ...
```

Commit the folder to keep a history of how your thinking changed, or add it to `.gitignore` to keep it private.

Facts about the outside world, such as competitor prices, funding rounds, market sizes, and benchmarks, come with a source link. When a skill can't find one, it says "Estimate" or "Not found" instead of guessing. Your own metrics, customer quotes, and testimonials are never invented: missing ones show up as `[placeholders]` for you to fill in.

<br />

## Install

<details open>
<summary><strong>Option 1: plugin</strong> (recommended)</summary>

<br />

Inside Claude Code:

```
/plugin marketplace add emotixco/claude-skills-founder
/plugin install founder@emotix
```

Skills become available as `/founder:validate-idea`, `/founder:pricing-strategy`, and so on. Update later with `/plugin marketplace update emotix`. The skill descriptions add about 1,100 tokens to each session. A skill's full instructions load only when you run it.

</details>

<details>
<summary><strong>Option 2: clone</strong> (update with git pull)</summary>

<br />

```bash
git clone https://github.com/emotixco/claude-skills-founder.git ~/.claude/skills/founder
```

Claude Code loads the folder as a plugin on the next session, with the same `/founder:` names. To update:

```bash
git -C ~/.claude/skills/founder pull
```

</details>

<details>
<summary><strong>Upgrading from v1</strong></summary>

<br />

v1 installed flat files into `.claude/commands/founder/`. Delete that folder (or the symlink, if you used the v1 symlink option) before installing v2, or you will see every skill twice. It is either `~/.claude/commands/founder` or `.claude/commands/founder` inside the project where you installed it.

</details>

<br />

## Usage

Open Claude Code and type any skill with your context:

```bash
> /founder:validate-idea An AI tool that analyzes pitch decks and gives investor-perspective feedback
```

```bash
> /founder:competitor-matrix Project management tools for solo founders (not teams)
```

```bash
> /founder:pricing-strategy B2B SaaS for restaurant inventory, targeting independent restaurants with 1-3 locations
```

```bash
> /founder:pitch-deck Pre-seed raise, $500K, AI competitor analysis for founders, 200 beta users, $2K MRR
```

Run a skill with no input and it asks for what it needs.

> [!IMPORTANT]
> If an install step fails or a skill invents a number, that's a bug and we want to hear it. [Open an issue](https://github.com/emotixco/claude-skills-founder/issues/new/choose) with your `claude --version` and what you ran. A broken install is silent otherwise: people try it once and leave.

> [!TIP]
> Be as specific as possible. Include your stage, metrics, constraints, and what you've already tried. Facts you give once are saved to `founder/facts.md`, so you don't have to repeat them.

<br />

## Examples

[`examples/restaurant-inventory/`](./examples/restaurant-inventory/) has unedited output from three skills run in sequence on one idea, including the `founder/` files they wrote. Read it before installing to see what you get.

[`evals/`](./evals/) tests the plugin against plain Claude with `claude plugin eval`. The honest summary of the latest run: on Opus 5, 8 of 10 cases score the same with and without the plugin, because the model already keeps the placeholders and reads the saved files on its own. The exception is what happens when a new number contradicts a saved one: only the plugin updates `founder/facts.md`, so the next session doesn't inherit the stale figure. On Haiku 4.5 the plugin scores higher on 3 of the 10, the skills often need calling by name, and the shared rules file goes unread, so most of these rules never reach a Haiku session. Full numbers, including per-run cost, are in [`evals/README.md`](./evals/README.md).

<br />

## What each skill produces

<details>
<summary><strong>/validate-idea</strong> · the first skill you should run</summary>

<br />

Scores your idea on 7 dimensions (problem severity, market size, willingness to pay, competition gap, distribution, timing, founder fit) and gives a verdict: **build**, **pivot**, or **kill**.

Includes 3 specific validation experiments you can run in under 2 weeks for under $200.

</details>

<details>
<sum
````