These days, marketing has one mantra: personalization. Personalized content. Personalized experiences. Personalized customer journeys. All good. But when it comes to pricing — suddenly, all that bragging about personalization goes silent. Why? Especially when dynamic pricing is the biggest lever you’ve got for boosting your margins. The answer’s simple. Actually, twofold.
First is because real personalization in pricing takes real data. Second: is because you need a platform that lets you orchestrate your direct communication — across all channels — in real time. Emails, SMS, your webshop, your app, ads, mobile wallets, Viber, WhatsApp…
Only then can you actually be consistent when showing a price that changes based on the person seeing it.
But let’s be honest: you’re not doing that if you’re sending emails through Klaviyo or Mailchimp, pushing SMS campaigns manually from some local tool, and updating webshop prices once a day from your ERP. There’s just no way to automate personalized pricing at scale if your whole stack is glued together like that.
Here’s the question no one in marketing really dares to ask: Why should we personalize prices in the first place? The answer?
Because the biggest profit lies in the one area we still pretend to keep “fair.” We love to believe we treat customers equally. That we’re fair.
But if you’re being honest: you make the most money off your most loyal customers. The quiet ones. The ones who don’t ask questions, don’t compare prices — they just buy. Subscription businesses love these customers. Sleeping beauties, just quietly paying. Meanwhile, the ones who barely know us — or are already halfway out the door — get the best deals. Discounts. Bonuses. Incentives. All just to hook them or keep them a bit longer.
Personally? I hate those ads from banks or internet providers offering half-price to new customers — while I get zero after 15 years of loyalty. That’s the unspoken paradox of pricing personalization: The more loyal you are, the less you get. The more flaky you are, the more we throw at you.
Makes no sense, right? Actually… it does. But it could be done way more subtly. With dynamic, personalized pricing — across direct channels.
|
Aspect |
Static Pricing |
Dynamic Pricing |
|
Who sets the price |
Marketing — same for everyone |
Algorithm — adjusts in real time |
|
Is it personalized? |
Nope — one price fits all |
Yep — everyone sees their own |
|
Channel consistency |
Often out of sync |
Fully aligned, across all touchpoints |
|
Margin control |
Limited |
High — tuned to context |
|
Perceived fairness |
Looks “fair” — everyone gets the same |
Feels exclusive — everyone gets their price |
|
Business impact |
Easy to manage, poor results |
Harder to pull off, but far more profitable |
If you want pricing that adapts to customer context, you need a few things locked in:
It’s not magic. It’s not some AI black box. It’s infrastructure. And most importantly: you stay in control, you set the limits. Who, when, why, how much. The platform just makes it happen — fast, consistent, traceable. That’s how you stop personalizing blindly — and start doing it based on actual data.
Dynamic pricing isn’t manipulation. It’s just smart business. If you can tailor your messaging, your content, your channel and timing — why not the price? It’s not trickery. It’s just using context in a way that makes sense — to offer the right price to the right person at the right time.
And if you’re not doing it yet, someone else probably is. Maybe already right now. Still not convinced? At least calculate how much your unnecessary discounts are costing you each year. Half that lost revenue could already fund a system that stops the bleeding. Pretty sure about that.
Need help running the numbers? My team’s happy to jump in.