Who should own pricing? Product marketing or product management? What is the ideal role of either?

I’ve seen pricing owned by PM, PMM, or finance at different companies. The world that has worked best for me is Product Management as overall directly responsible team or “owner” with PMM as a key stakeholder and part of the decision making group. This is likely because I’ve spent much of my career at product led growth companies where product’s decisions will always highly impact pricing and growth is a part of how the product is built. I essentially see it like this: PLG or product-led company ...Read More

I've been in both product marketing and product management and in both cases I have owned pricing so I can see it both ways for sure. But (and I admit I might be biased!) I strongly believe that product marketing should own pricing as PMM is often the most cross-functional team and also closest to all the outside influence factors. However, regardless of who owns it, both product management and product marketing should be involved.  While both teams often have conversations with customers, prosp ...Read More

I rarely see pricing owned by PMs.  The most common scenarios I see are  (a) Pricing is a separate function reporting to CPO, CMO, CRO, BU-head or CFO, and is a peer to product marketing. This is a model in mature companies  (b) Pricing reports to product marketing - true for late stage/growth stage companies (c) Nobody owns pricing and the work is fragmented between PMM, Rev-ops and Finance. These are usually startups/companies that haven't achieved PMF at scale. I am biased but i am a fan of P ...Read More

Pricing–and ownership of pricing–is often a loaded topic for companies. My view is that product marketing, not product management, should own pricing. (Of course I am biased because I am a product marketer!) Why? Product management’s primary focus should be on the vision for the product. Product marketing is responsible for bringing that product to market. Pricing is an integral part of a go-to-market strategy, one of the 4 P’s. At the highest level, pricing is driven by: Company: Marginal cost ...Read More