price-change-rollout

Skill: Price-Change Rollout

A price change is a migration of an installed base, not an edit to a price card. The new number is the easy part; grandfathering, sequencing, timing, and comms are the deliverable. A new price card with no migration plan is half an answer.

Step 0 — One opinion up front

Never migrate everyone at once. Sequence by cohort and renewal date so you can read the churn/contraction/leakage signal on the first cohort before you've committed the whole base.

Step 1 — Name the goal (it sets the mechanics)

Which change is this?

• Margin recovery (raise prices) — grandfathering + comms are the risk.
• Repackaging (move features between tiers) — contraction/upgrade paths are the risk.
• Model migration (e.g. per-seat → usage) — bill-shock + trust are the risk.
• Simplification (fewer tiers/SKUs) — orphaned customers are the risk.

Step 2 — Set the grandfathering policy

Decide who stays on the old price, for how long. A price increase that hits the loyal base first is how you manufacture churn. Common: existing customers grandfathered for a defined window (e.g. 12 months or until a major renewal), new customers on the new price immediately.

Step 3 — Sequence the cohorts

• Order by renewal date and by risk (start with a cohort you can afford to learn on).
• Change at renewal, not mid-term, to respect contracts and reduce surprise.
• Define the go/no-go between cohorts: what guardrail reading pauses the rollout.

Step 4 — Plan the comms

• The increase should never first appear on an invoice. Lead with the value narrative, then the change, then the bill.
• Give notice consistent with the contract and the relationship.
• Arm the team with the "why" and the concession ladder (see Step 6).

Step 5 — Instrument the guardrails

Watch on the changed cohort (definitions in ../../knowledge/monetization-metrics.md):

• GRR & contraction — are customers leaving or downgrading more than modeled?
• Discount leakage — is the new list price holding, or is the field discounting it back?
• Win-rate (new business) — did the new price dent acquisition? Set thresholds that trigger a pause/rollback before you start.

Step 6 — Prepare the rollback / concession plan

Have the concession ladder ready (what you'll offer a churning key account) and the rollback trigger defined. A change with no exit plan is a bet, not a plan.

Output

A price-change migration plan using ../../templates/price-change-rollout-plan.md: goal, grandfathering policy, cohort sequence + go/no-go, comms plan, guardrail metrics

• thresholds, and the rollback/concession plan. Hand the revenue/margin impact model to finance.