9. Pricing hypothesis
9.1 Principles
- Price to the firm's economics, not the client's headcount. A firm prices a diagnostic by scope and outcome. If OrgDiagnostic charges only per end-client employee, it reads as HR software and competes with the firm's own fee.
- Platform cost should be 2–5% of a typical diagnostic fee. Enough to be taken seriously; small enough that a partner never debates it on a proposal.
- Meter what costs us money. Video minutes and very large populations have real marginal cost. Seats and engagements carry the value.
- Let the firm make margin on OrgDiagnostic. Retainer pulses are resold by the firm under its brand.
9.2 Structure
Four levers.
| Lever | Unit | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Firm platform fee | Annual, by tier | Methodology Studio, library, brand, HQ, security. The firm's IP lives here. |
| Engagement credits | Per live diagnostic wave | Maps to how firms sell. A credit covers one wave for one client workspace. |
| Completes and video | Included allowance, then metered | Protects against 60,000-person clients and heavy video use. |
| Retainer Pulse | Per client per year, wholesale | Firm resells. Recurring revenue for both. |
9.3 Tiers (list prices, USD, annual)
| Boutique | Practice | Firm | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Typical firm size | 8–25 consultants | 25–100 | 100–250 |
| Platform fee | $30,000 | $84,000 | from $180,000 |
| Firm seats (Partner / EM / Analyst) | 8 | 30 | 100, then $1,200/seat |
| Contractor seats | $150 / month, engagement-scoped | same | same |
| Engagement credits included | 4 | 12 | 30 |
| Completes included / yr | 10,000 | 40,000 | 120,000 |
| Video minutes included / yr | 300 | 1,500 | 5,000 |
| Methodology packs | All shipped packs; 3 custom | Unlimited custom | Unlimited + pack migration service |
| Book-of-business norms | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| HRIS connectors, SAML, SCIM | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Residency | US or EU | US, EU, UK | US, EU, UK, AU |
| Support | Standard | Named CSM | Named CSM + methodology onboarding |
9.4 Overage and add-ons
| Item | Price |
|---|---|
| Additional engagement credit, population ≤ 1,000 | $2,500 |
| population 1,001–5,000 | $6,000 |
| population 5,001–20,000 | $12,000 |
| population > 20,000 | Quoted |
| Pulse wave (≤ 20 items, locked from a host pack) | 0.25 credit |
| Completes beyond allowance | $0.60 each |
| Video minutes beyond allowance | $1.50 / min (capture, transcript, redaction, storage to retention date) |
| Live IDI rooms (v2) | $4 / interview-hour |
| Licensed external norm sets (v2) | Pass-through + 15% |
9.5 Retainer Pulse (resold by the firm)
| Client size | Wholesale to firm / yr | Typical firm resale (guidance) |
|---|---|---|
| ≤ 2,000 employees | $9,000 | $30,000–$45,000 with quarterly readouts |
| 2,001–10,000 | $18,000 | $50,000–$90,000 |
| > 10,000 | Quoted | Quoted |
Includes 4 pulse waves, portal, action tracker, wave compare. The firm's analysis and quarterly readout are the value the client pays for.
9.6 Worked economics
Full Census for a 4,200-person manufacturer, firm fee $420,000, Practice tier.
| Cost line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Engagement credit (1,001–5,000) | $6,000 (or 1 of 12 included) |
| Completes: 2,562 | Within allowance |
| Video: 180 min | Within allowance |
| Effective platform cost at list | ~$7,000 if the credit is one of the 12 included ($84,000 ÷ 12) ≈ 1.7% of fee; ~$13,000 if it is an overage credit ≈ 3.1% |
Firm-side saving (hypothesis to validate with design partners):
| Activity | Current stack | With OrgDiagnostic |
|---|---|---|
| Setup to launch | 8 consultant-days | 2 |
| Fieldwork management | 6 | 3 |
| Scoring, cuts, QA | 8 | 1 |
| Open-text and video coding | 10 | 3 |
| Deck production | 8 | 2 |
| Total | 40 days | 11 days |
At a blended internal cost of $1,200/day, ≈ $35,000 saved per engagement, or capacity for more engagements per team. The retainer pulse that follows at ~$60,000/yr resale is where the firm's margin compounds.
9.7 What to test
- Credit vs. unlimited: do Practice-tier firms prefer predictable unlimited engagements at a higher platform fee?
- Whether firms want OrgDiagnostic to bill the client directly for pulse seats (white-label billing) or always bill through the firm. Default hypothesis: always through the firm.
- Price sensitivity at Boutique: is $30k the ceiling for a 12-person firm doing 4–6 diagnostics a year?
- Whether book-of-business norms justify the Practice upgrade on their own.
9.8 What we will not do
- Per-employee pricing as the only lever.
- Charge the firm for client viewers or respondents' accounts.
- Hold the firm's methodology or data hostage: full export of packs (JSON + XLSX) and k-safe results at any time, including on termination.