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Price sensitivity meter

Price sensitivity meter (Van Westendorp)

Ask people four questions about price, paste their answers and see the range where your price feels neither suspiciously cheap nor too expensive.

  • Free
  • No signup
  • Runs in your browser

Survey answers

Showing 30 made-up answers. Paste four columns from a spreadsheet (commas or tabs). A header row is fine. Answers stay in your browser.

Price points

Acceptable range
$17.12 – $28.03
below it looks cheap, above it too dear
Optimal price point
$21.93
as many say "too cheap" as "too expensive"
Indifference point
$21.80
as many say "bargain" as "expensive"
  • Too cheap
  • A bargain
  • Getting expensive
  • Too expensive

This shows what people say about price, not what they will pay: use the range to choose prices to test, then watch real conversions. Based on 30 answers.

The four questions to ask

  1. At what price would you consider [product] to be so cheap that you would doubt its quality?
  2. At what price would you consider [product] to be a bargain, a great buy for the money?
  3. At what price would [product] start to seem expensive, so that you would have to think before buying it?
  4. At what price would [product] be so expensive that you would not consider buying it?

Ask them in this order, after showing what the product does and who it is for, and ask for a price per month (or per year) so every answer uses the same unit.

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How to use the price sensitivity meter

  1. Copy the four questions below the tool into a survey, in that order, after explaining what the product does.
  2. Send it to people who match your target customer. Aim for at least 20 answers, more if you can.
  3. Export the answers as four columns (too cheap, bargain, expensive, too expensive) and paste them in.
  4. Read the acceptable range and the two price points, and hover over the chart to see each curve’s share at any price.

How the curves work

For every price, the chart shows the share of people who would still call it too cheap or a bargain (these fall as the price rises) and the share who already find it expensive or too expensive (these rise). Where they cross:

  • Lower bound (point of marginal cheapness): “too cheap” meets “expensive”.
  • Upper bound (point of marginal expensiveness): “too expensive” meets “bargain”.
  • Optimal price point: “too cheap” meets “too expensive”.
  • Indifference price point: “bargain” meets “expensive”.

Answers that are out of order (a “too cheap” price above the “expensive” one) usually mean a misread question, so those rows are skipped and counted.

What it doesn’t tell you

It measures what people say, which is not what they pay, and it knows nothing about your costs or competitors. Use the range to choose a few prices to test on your real pricing page, and compare them with an A/B test if you have the traffic. The LTV and CAC calculator shows what each price means for your unit economics.

Frequently asked questions

How does the Van Westendorp method work?

Each person names four prices: too cheap to trust, a bargain, getting expensive and too expensive. Plotting the share of people at each price gives four curves, and where they cross marks the acceptable range and two reference prices.

How many responses do I need?

More is better: with fewer than about 20 people the curves are rough steps and the crossings move with each new answer. Ask people who match your target customer, after they understand what the product does.

Is the optimal price point the price I should charge?

Not on its own. It shows what people say feels right, not what they will pay or what earns you the most. Use the range to pick a few prices to test, then judge them by real conversions.