Here is our list of the best pricing books.
Pricing books help you understand pricing strategies and establish the best price for your products and services. Most of these texts
also discuss factors affecting your business. These factors include brand positioning, target audience, and revenue. Examples of these books are Confession of A Pricing Man, Pricing for Profit, and The Pricing Advantage. These books help you set prices to maximize profit while keeping market demand and customer retention in mind.
These guides are a subset of business books and are similar to business finance books, business strategy books, and books for small businesses.
This list includes:
- books on pricing strategy
- pricing analytics books
- books on cost and pricing
- pricing books for beginners
Let’s get to it!
List of pricing books
From Priceless to Power Pricing, books on pricing will show you how to set the right product and service prices. Here is a list of the best books to help you with pricing.
1. No B.S. Price Strategy: The Ultimate No Holds Barred Kick Butt Take No Prisoner Guide to Profits, Power, and Prosperity by Dan S. Kennedy and Jason Marrs
No B.S. Price Strategy is one of the best books on pricing strategy for entrepreneurs.
Written by Dan S. Kennedy and Jason Marrs, No B.S. Price Strategy offers useful information about:
- ultimate price failures
- fundamentals of pricing
- price elasticity
- the secret of discounting without devaluing
- the trick behind the “free” goods strategy
Many small businesses think they must reduce their prices to compete with big companies. But No B.S. Price Strategy dares entrepreneurs to restrategize pricing and take control of their profit. The book also liberates entrepreneurs from common pricing fears. The authors encourage businesses to leverage price control for profitability.
Kennedy and Marrs’ knowledge is not theoretical. You can apply No B.S. Price Strategy‘s techniques to every facet of your business. From business newbies to business management coaches and students, this book will impact any reader.
Notable quote: ”The flaw in most businesses, that keeps them always in desperate need—which suppresses prices—is: too few lines cast in the ocean.”
2. Confessions of the Pricing Man: How Price Affects Everything by Hermann Simon
Written by Hermann Simon, Confessions of the Pricing Man is one of the best pricing analytics books. Simon discusses the effect of pricing and how to use price to maximize value. He reveals that customers decide whether to part with their money or time for valuable services all the time. According to him, price is a place where value and money meet.
Though pricing is a significant economic force, Simon argues it is the least understood. He mentions the misunderstanding stems from the recipe for successful pricing. This recipe includes a dash of psychology, math, economics, and people management.
Many entrepreneurs need more support and clarification with pricing and try to take shortcuts. Those shortcuts eventually result in disappointing business turnover. In this book, the author simplifies pricing as a consumer and businessperson.
Simon is famous for his excellent knowledge of value. This expertise has made him a distinguished academic, a management consultant, and a successful entrepreneur. His book has helped countless managers and business owners to:
- maximize price
- create value
- grow their businesses
- gain leverage
The gems in Confessions of the Pricing Man will leave you wanting to do more as an entrepreneur or consumer.
Notable quote: “Remember, the only fundamental driver of willingness to pay is the perceived value in the eyes of the customer.”
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3. The 1% Windfall: How Successful Companies Use Price to Profit and Grow by Rafi Mohammed
The 1% Windfall is one of the most effective pricing books for beginners. Many entrepreneurs have attested to the effectiveness of the concepts of this book. Many similar books talk about choosing prices to maximize profit. However, this book starts with the fundamentals of buying and selling.
The book reveals how the tiniest change in price can bring about significant value. Many companies increased their prices by 1% and recorded substantial revenue increases. For instance, a 1% price increase raised the profits of Sears by 155%, Tyson by 81%, and Whirlpool by 35%.
Each chapter of The 1% Windfall is rich with relevant examples. Applying each example can create more value for your growing business. Also, Rafi Mohammed creates a framework you can use as a bulletproof device for your business. The framework will teach you how to expand your business horizons and profit despite adverse conditions.
The 1% Windfall also provides gems that could protect your business in case of inflation, competition, and even recession. The book offers a clear, result-oriented blueprint for profit, value, and growth. This book is suitable for new entrepreneurs who need guidance on setting prices.
Notable quote: “One-on-one pricing is the most viable option when pricing a new product.”
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4. The Psychology of Price: How to use price to increase demand, profit and customer satisfaction by Leigh Caldwell
The Psychology of Price remains one of the best books on cost and pricing. The Psychology of Price will guide you on how to apply price psychology to your business. The book also provides tips on pricing and pricing your service or product for profit. You will also learn how to charge according to your market sector.
The book presents a series of pricing tactics that will help you work in tandem with, rather than against, your customers. Leigh Caldwell shares these gems using a fictional company, The Chocolate Teacup Company. This company uses several pricing strategies to produce a new product category. The company also uses those strategies to optimize for profit by understanding consumer psychology.
In The Psychology of Price, you will learn a great deal about the importance of price and how to use price to dictate the market. You will also understand how customers perceive values through your price and how to spin price into a revenue-generation tool.
You do not need to finish the book to get actionable lessons you can apply. You can read one chapter and apply the knowledge to your business before moving to the next. If you want to get into the mind of your customers and choose great prices for your offers, then this book is a must have.
Notable quote: “Buyers will not be denied what they truly desire; they will find the money if it’s important enough to them.”
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5. Contextual Pricing: The Death of List Price and the New Market Reality by Robert Docters, Michael Barzelay, John Hanson, and Cecilia Nguyen
Contextual Pricing discusses how contextual points create more impact than actual price levels. Products influence customers more if they are contextual or if they can compare the products to something else.
Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Coca-Cola understand and apply contextual market knowledge. Using that knowledge, these companies generate revenue at the best possible price. With various case studies, the authors show you how your clients make contextual buying decisions.
These easy-to-understand models describe an ideal pricing organization. The book also allows you to choose and apply a better pricing strategy using tools or tactics like hooks, bundling, and upselling. Contextual Pricing will prevent you from falling into little pricing traps when raising or lowering prices.
Notable quote: “The focus on context is growing. Leading firms such as Coca-Cola, Amazon, GE, IBM, Google, Hertz, Procter & Gamble, Standard & Poor’s, and AT&T have begun to use context to shape their offers.”
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6. How to Price Effectively: A Guide for Managers and Entrepreneurs by Utpal Dholakia
How to Price Effectively focuses on a value pricing framework. This framework is a highly effective method for making pricing decisions. The book x-rays the concepts of consumer behavior and organizational psychology. You will learn proven practices from leading experts and the latest academic research journals.
How to Price Effectively also discusses factors to consider when making pricing choices. These factors include reference prices, consumer value, costs, and value proposition. You will learn how these factors come together to generate more revenue.
Utpal Dholakia highlights the importance of price execution and how to assess the success of these executions. This book presents many pricing frameworks with real-life examples to help set you on the right track.
Notable quote: “A small increase in prices while maintaining the firm’s sales and cost levels generates a significant boost to its profit.”
7. The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing: New International Edition by Thomas T. Nagle, John Hogan, and Joseph Zale
The Strategies and Tactics of Pricing is one of the best books for new entrepreneurs or those venturing into a new business. The book’s layout helps new business owners grasp its creative insights.
The book explains, in plain terms, how to be strategic with the market and optimize that skill for more profit. The authors teach business owners to put themselves in consumers’ shoes. The book helps them understand the concept of discounts and how prices affect consumer behavior.
The Strategies and Tactics of Pricing discusses:
- the need for value creation
- managing value changes surrounding discounts
- increase in cost-based prices
- price reductions in the recession period
Finally, you will learn to communicate the value of your products through your prices. Many entrepreneurs face diverse challenges in this area. This book’s revelations will help you hone your entrepreneurial skills and compete with a razor-sharp edge.
Notable quote: “Price is the most effective lever for profit maximization.”
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8. The Art of Pricing: How to Find the Hidden Profits to Grow Your Business by Rafi Mohammed
The Art of Pricing expounds on the fundamentals of pricing and why it is such an important strategy. Many professionals and entrepreneurs testify to this book’s immediate impact. Rafi Mohammed filled this pricing book with gems you can use on the spot.
The Art of Pricing also highlights the difference between the perceived value of a product or service and its price. The book will also teach you how pricing can reorientate your customers about your products.
Finally, The Art of Pricing provides easy-to-use models that will let you find your target audience. One of its key lessons is how to declutter your dormant customer base. This book is useful for every pricing professional, entrepreneur, and business owner.
Notable quote: “Instead of looking for the ‘perfect’ price where consumer demand is optimised and your profits are maximised, try a more multi-dimensional approach instead.”
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9. Pricing with Confidence: Ten Rules for Increasing Profits and Staying Ahead of Inflation by Reed K. Holden and Jeet Mukherjee
The inability to set prices commensurate with the product’s worth affects brands. The problem also reduces the company’s revenue potential. Pricing with Confidence shows you the way out of pricing confusion. Reed Holden and Mark Burton offer a step-by-step guide to pricing your product without compromising its value.
Pricing with Confidence is an excellent, easy-to-understand pricing book. Compared to many books on pricing, the writing does not use sales jargon that could make its concepts hard to understand or apply.
Also, Pricing with Confidence is an actionable guide. You will find frameworks you can immediately apply even before you reach the end of the book.
Pricing can be complicated, but the authors go over and beyond to simplify the concept. Holden and Burton identify the assumptions and confusion associated with pricing.
The authors of Pricing with Confidence explore the following:
- marketing
- segmentation
- competition
- organizational culture
- processes
Notable quote: “Understand the value you offer to your customer. You can’t have confidence in your pricing until you have confidence in the financial value your offerings create for customers.”
10. Value-Based Pricing: Drive Sales and Boost Your Bottom Line by Creating, Communicating, and Capturing Customer Value by Harry Macdivitt and Mike Wilkinson
You may wonder why a consumer would choose a similar but pricier product over a less expensive one. The simple answer is value. Consumers prefer to pay more if they feel they will get more value from a product or service. Harry Macdivitt and Mike Wilkinson make this concept look as simple as it sounds.
The global market is full of cutthroat competitors, savvy consumers, and low-cost commodities. However, you can clear those challenges and outsell your competitors using these principles in Value-Based Pricing. The book shines a different light on buying and selling, helping you communicate the value of your offering to your customers.
Macdivitt and Wilkinson will help you see through your customer’s wants and needs. The authors will also help you focus on your company’s core values and build a value-based strategy. Now more than ever, you need to reassess the value you bring to your customers. This book will help you quantify the value of your business offering so you can set a fitting price.
Value-Based Pricing will also teach you how to set up a value-based distribution channel with minimal risk. Finally, this book shares the basics of emotional communication, cost reduction, and revenue gain and how to leverage them.
Notable quote: “Only put a price in front of a client when you fully understand what is motivating them.”
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11. Price Management: Strategy, Analysis, Decision, Implementation by Hermann Simon and Martin Fassnacht
Price Management shares the knowledge of two of the world’s foremost pricing experts. Herman Simon and Martin Fassnacht discuss the theoretical and practical aspects of price management. In essence, Price Management connects quantitative and qualitative approaches to pricing.
Price management is a holistic phrase that integrates pricing strategy and implementation. Price Management is a book for entrepreneurs who know that pricing does more than drive revenue in the short term. Pricing can also generate sustained income and growth. Price Management is a perfect read for business researchers, students, and entrepreneurs.
Notable quote: “Successful people in particular are susceptible to surges of anything-is-possible. They then plunge into new, seemingly attractive markets hoping to prove themselves to the world yet again.”
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12. Pricing Done Right: The Pricing Framework Proven Successful by the World’s Most Profitable Companies by Tim J. Smith
Pricing Done Right provides a brilliant framework for value-based pricing. Tim Smith offers a holistic strategy to the conversation of price, value, and revenue generation. The author shifts the attention from value-based pricing to how your pricing strategies must align with your brand goals.
Pricing Done Right teaches a valuable lesson. One of its lessons is that adjustments in price for any brand impact its bottom line in the long run. The real-life case studies illustrated in this book will show you how to make decisions, manage them, and assess their effect on your brand.
With this book’s in-depth insights, you will better understand your brand’s value. You will also realize how you can meet your target audience halfway. If you want to create a price template without any drawbacks, then you need to read this book to understand its dynamics.
Pricing Done Right provides an efficient template for better pricing methods and decisions. Newbies and experienced entrepreneurs alike will gain new pricing insights from this book.
Notable quote: “Pricing is so much more than putting numbers on quotes or associating them with products.”
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13. Pricing: The Third Business Skill: Principles of Price Management by Ernst-Jan Bouter
Conducting business often has two sides. The first side invents a product or service to create value. The other side is the salesman who sells the value. None is complete without the other. However, there is a third factor. That factor is pricing, which is often ignored or not done right. This book focuses on this last element, revealing how to set the right price to hit your business goals.
Pricing: The Third Business Skill shows you how to set the best prices to benefit you and your customers. With models and examples, this pricing book gives you the 12 Cs of price drivers and the frameworks for pricing. The book also espouses the secrets and mistakes of successful companies like Google, LinkedIn, BMW, and Gillette.
Notable quote: “The third business skill enables entrepreneurs and CEOs to realize growth and make the most of their company’s potential.”
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14. Power Pricing: How Managing Price Transforms the Bottom Line by Robert J. Dolan and Hermann Simon
Power Pricing defies popular sales conventions and advises setting your price and sticking with it. The book recommends against leaving your price to the market, the competitors, or your customers. The book focuses on companies’ mindsets about price and the need to reorient them. Power Pricing borders more on the theoretical than similar books.
The book reveals the right pricing mindset and the underlying principles. Power Pricing also draws examples from companies around the world. Thus, the book explores the rationale behind current power pricing practices. This approach enables you to analyze and develop pricing strategies on your own despite an ever-changing business landscape.
Notable quote: “Firms must view pricing as a key and highly manageable element in the profit equation, worthy of attention equal to that accorded to sales volume and costs.”
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15. The Price Advantage by Walter L. Baker, Michael V. Marn, and Craig C. Zawada
The Price Advantage focuses on pricing strategies for good and bad times. This book provides a pricing template to help create a product strategy and solve your pricing challenges. The Price Advantage also discusses all the pricing challenges you may encounter after a merger. Only a few books on pricing look at a tangential topic like mergers.
This book is a must have for economics students, entrepreneurs, or business owners.
The Price Advantage touches on the following:
- product pricing
- custom-figured pricing
- service pricing
- tiered products
The Price Advantage is also a must read for value creators that want more revenue, as this book will help you take that giant leap. The authors are pricing experts at McKinsey and Company, hence its reputation. Every copy of the book comes with a McKinsey pricing tool, a pocket price waterfall, and value maps.
Notable quote: “Why is it so vital to get pricing right? Because pricing right is the fastest and most effective way to grow profits.”
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16. Handbook on the Psychology of Pricing: 100+ effects on persuasion and influence every entrepreneur, marketer and pricing manager needs to know by Dr. Markus Husemann-Kopetzky
Many companies focus on their internal challenges and external competitors when setting prices. Sometimes, companies forget that consumers only seek the best value regardless of the price.
Handbook on the Psychology of Pricing takes on a consumer-centric perspective. The book offers tips on price psychology and how you can predict consumers.
Unlike most pricing texts, Dr. Markus Husemann-Kopetzky presents his data in a fascinating style. His voice makes the book a fun, memorable, and insightful read. Handbook on the Psychology of Pricing has many valuable tips to influence sales and increase profitability.
Notable quote: “Parameters, process, prediction and profit: the four ‘P’s’ that allow you to establish the price using logic.”
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17. Priceless: The Myth Of Fair Value (and How To Take Advantage Of It) by William Poundstone
Designer stores often put their most expensive items on display. This strategy makes all their other products look cheaper in comparison. In Priceless, William Poundstone explains the psychology behind this approach. He then shares how prices are usually a collective hallucination.
Priceless is an exciting and actionable book. The book takes you through recent research and explains money and prices. Priceless also shows you how pricing can influence behavior.
Notable quote: “When people are given three prices (think of those for small, medium, and large coffee), and they have no strong preference, they tend to pick the ‘middle’ price.”
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18. Negotiating With Backbone by Reed Holden
Negotiating With Backbone presents eight strategies for all types of pricing negotiations. The book also helps you see how negotiation can make or mar a deal or transaction. This book is an essential resource for executives or sales professionals who lead negotiations. You will learn to negotiate with price, relationship, and value buyers. In all cases, you will be able to defend your price and the value you are offering.
Negotiating With Backbone offers rare insights into knowing your customers better. Reed Holden also helps you to avoid mindless discounting and establish your foundation of value.
Notable quote: “Success in both customer negotiations and poker requires good information, steely nerves, patience, and, most of all, the ability to stay cool and bluff.”
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Conclusion
Pricing books are essential to you and your business and often discuss your business’s value to customers. The books then explore how to set a price that matches your value. The authors have experience setting prices across various industries and businesses, both small and enterprise. Hence, there is a pricing book for you regardless of your business model. Many successful entrepreneurs attribute some of their successes to these books. These books contain tips and real-life examples to help your brand take that giant leap to more profitability.
For more reading recommendations, check out franchise books and books on retirement.
