Defining Roles in Pricing Teams

Role confusion kills team performance. Most teams struggle with missed deadlines and slow decisions. Not from lack of talent. From lack of clarity. I learned this the hard way. On one project, two managers owned the same client account. Both thought the other approved pricing. No one did. We lost the deal. The problem was not skill. It was unclear roles. Here’s what changed everything. We mapped 5 core roles on one page. For each role, we wrote: - Key tasks - Decision rights - Expected outcomes We shared it with the whole team. No long job descriptions. No complex charts. Clear ownership. Speed improved. Meetings got shorter. Blame dropped. When people know what they own, they move faster. They stop stepping on each other. They stop waiting for permission. You avoid stalled decisions and silent resentment. Try this. List 3 to 5 roles on your team. Write down who owns each major task and decision. Share it openly. Clarity builds trust. Trust drives performance. What role on your team needs clarity right now?

More than 55% of SaaS companies set pricing based on gut feeling instead of data. The gut feeling? → 0 competitive research → 0 product evaluations → 0 customer research → 0 strategy Here’s what happens when you do it guess: - Wrong pricing leads to lost revenue - Ignoring customer behavior affects retention - Lack of competitive insight keeps you behind - Missed growth opportunities slow down scaling - No sales and marketing input weakens positioning What’s the solution? Build a “pricing team”. Who should be in it? → Finance Checks if pricing is profitable → Operations Makes sure pricing works smoothly → Sales Knows what customers like and don’t like → Marketing Ensures pricing is clear and appealing → Product Understands which features provide the most value → Customer success Helps keep customers happy and staying A great team = Better pricing = Stronger growth. ♻️ If you find value, let others benefit too. ________________________________________ Ready for more SaaS pricing insights? Follow me, Marcos Rivera🔔

Most pricing teams focus on setting prices. But the best ones? They shape how companies operate. This week, the PricingSaaS community hosted Sam Lee, VP of Pricing Strategy and Product Ops at HubSpot. Sam doesn’t just think about pricing. He thinks about how pricing impacts org design, product decisions, and compensation structure. Here were my 3 biggest takeaways from our session: 🧩 On Pricing Org Design: Structure your team like a tripod: 👉 Monetization: Working with product to set price and packaging. Sam calls this “inbound pricing” as it's internally focused on product value and value capture of products and services. 👉 Commercial Strategy: Tackling discounting, partner programs, and go-to-market. Sam calls this “outbound pricing” as its more focused on how customers interact with price. 👉 Ops & Governance: This is the back-office function that covers tracking, forecasting, and relevant business performance as it relates to pricing. As far as prioritization, Sam recommends Monetization → Governance → Commercial Strategy, as its not not as much of a priority until a company reaches sufficient scale. ⚙️ On Credit Models: Don’t start with credits. Start with value. Sam’s framework: 👉 Identify the value metric (what drives customer value?) 👉 Choose usage metrics that track closely with value and scale with your COGs 👉 Layer on credits as a GTM enable - not the foundation 🧠 On Pricing AI Agents: AI employees won’t be priced like software. They’ll be priced like labor. Think: 👉 Flat-rate “hire fees” tied to workload 👉 Overtime-style usage pricing for extra capacity 👉 Price discrimination based on “skill level” (just like humans) The best pricing teams will position AI as headcount replacement, not productivity software. Check out today’s issue for more highlights from the conversation: https://lnkd.in/e9KzTWrE Curious… Which of these 3 ideas feels most relevant (or most overlooked) in your company today? Would love to hear how you’re structuring pricing teams - or thinking about pricing AI. Thanks again to Sam Lee for dropping this wisdom! 🫡