Who should own pricing? Product management or product marketing? And what role should each play?

I used to be very much on the side of "PMM should own pricing" but I will now caveat this with a couple considerations. First off, though, I think at a smaller company, say a startup where you're the only PMM, PMM should still own pricing. That's because there's both a strategic ("how should we set our suggested retail prices and package the product?") and tactical ("how much should we allow our reps to discount the product and on what basis?") element to pricing. At smaller companies, I've seen ...Read More

Pricing and packaging is typically a PMM function. P&P is typically a business decision. In general, PMMs own business and go-to-market decisions, while PMs own the user experience and the product roadmap. And P&P falls into the former.  Product should have a perspective on which features to build. Pricing and packaging refreshes typically happen because the composition of your existing product has changed materially (i.e. a lot of new features have been launched, new acquisitions, etc). ...Read More

Pricing is one of the most strategic—and often one of the most challenging—areas for both Product Management and Product Marketing. It sits at the intersection of product value, customer perception, market dynamics, and business strategy, which means it rarely belongs to a single function. In practice: Product Management contributes insight into the value being delivered—what the feature or product enables, how it solves real user problems, and what differentiates it in the market. PMs often hel ...Read More

This article from HackerNoon is really great at helping you determine how to price your digital product. I am not going to dictate the organizational ownership of who owns pricing, but I will say only the function that fully understands the following should own pricing: Usage or adoption metric that drives value - does the number of people using the product matter, or do customers value how much of a product feature they're using? Competitive dynamics - has someone else already established the r ...Read More

Pricing isn’t a solo sport. The PM has to make sure the number fits the bigger game plan, competitive landscape, cost structure, margins, the whole P&L. Meanwhile, the PMM worries about what that price says to customers: does it say premium, feel like a bargain, or line up with the positioning we’re blasting in our campaigns? They’re also the first to notice if users bail the moment they see the price tag. So the PM sets the financial guardrails and ensures the price works strategically; the ...Read More