Case: a price corridor for NMT Sprint

A cost sheet mixes lines that behave differently. To get the floor, sort them by behaviour first:

• per sprint: they come with every family that buys;
• percent of price: the 2.5% payment fee;
• fixed: paid once for the season, however many sprints sell.

Only the per-sprint lines go into the floor, divided by what Klasna keeps after the fee. For NMT Sprint: tutor payouts 16 × 420 = 6,720; video and AI 16 × 30 = 480; mock reviews 4 × 210 = 840; AI scoring 4 × 33.60 = 134.40. Total 8,174.40, so the floor is 8,174.40 / 0.975 = 8,384.

The 324,000 of fixed costs stay out of it. Nazar's very first idea, 7,900 to undercut the learning centre, sits below this floor: every sprint at that price would lose money.

In spring Klasna's maths tutors are fully booked, so a sprint doesn't use spare hours: each sprint takes 16 lessons a tutor would otherwise teach in a regular 16-lesson package. The sprint must therefore also replace the contribution those hours already earn.

A maths 16-pack sells at 670 a lesson and pays the tutor 450, so 16 lessons leave 16 × (670 × 0.975 − 450) = 3,252 of contribution. The target floor adds that to the per-sprint costs:

(8,174.40 + 3,252) / 0.975 = 11,426.40 / 0.975 = 11,719.38.

Below it, every spring sprint leaves Klasna poorer than simply selling packages. The target floor is about the tutors' scarce hours; it isn't a comparison with any other price on the list.

In June Klasna asked 60 parents of last spring's maths exam-takers what they would have done without the school. The answers: private tutor 26, online group course 11, offline group course 7, free videos 8, self-study 5, nothing 3.

26 of 60 (43.33%) is the largest group, so a private maths tutor sets the reference price. Leo's worry, that free videos and group courses from 4,800 drag the ceiling down, holds only for families who would actually choose them, and they are a minority. Klasna's own package isn't an alternative to Klasna at all.

The other 34 families still matter. For them the sprint is a different trade-off, which is one more reason to price below the ceiling rather than on it.

With the alternative chosen, take its typical price. The scan found five private-tutor offers for 16 lessons over the same eight weeks: 9,600, 10,400, 11,200, 12,000 and 12,800. The median, 11,200, is robust to one unusually cheap or expensive tutor.

Then add the net value of the differences against a tutor: four full mock exams, scored and reviewed, +1,600 (parents pay about 400 a mock elsewhere); two more pluses from interviews, +600 and +400; and online-only lessons, −800. Net +1,800.

Ceiling = 11,200 + 1,800 = 13,000. With the spring target floor at 11,719.38, the corridor is 11,719.38–13,000, only 1,280.62 wide. A narrow corridor leaves little room for error, which makes the assumptions behind it matter more.

Every number in a ceiling has a source, and the sources aren't equally solid. In the sprint's differences sheet, only the mock exams have a market price: parents already pay about 400 a mock elsewhere. The other three differences (+600, +400 and −800) are estimates from parent interviews.

So the 13,000 ceiling is a hypothesis built on three assumptions, not a measured fact. That doesn't make it useless: it's the best current estimate. It does change how you present it. In the memo, write which numbers are market prices and which are interview estimates, and what would firm them up: a few more parent conversations, or a check of what parents actually paid for extras last spring.

A reader who knows where the soft spots are can judge the risk; one who's handed a confident 13,000 can't.

Hanna's first sheet did the classic thing: spread the 324,000 of fixed costs over a guess of 100 sprints, added 25%, and got a price. Full cost = 8,174.40 + 324,000 / 100 = 11,414.40; × 1.25 = 14,268.

Three problems:

1. It rests on a guessed volume. At 60 sprints the same method gives 8,174.40 + 5,400 = 13,574.40, × 1.25 = 16,968: fewer sales, higher "cost", higher price, fewer sales still.
2. It ignores the buyer. Nothing in it asks what families would do instead.
3. It lands above the 13,000 ceiling, so most families would be better off with a private tutor, and the 100 sprints it assumed wouldn't sell.

Leo's 15,000 fails the same last test. Some families would pay it; most would hire a tutor, and they'd be right to.

Fixed costs don't set the price, but they still matter: they decide whether the launch pays at all. The question turns around. Instead of "what price covers our costs at a guessed volume?", ask "at a price from the corridor, how many sprints cover the fixed costs?"

At 12,400, each sprint keeps 12,400 × 0.975 = 12,090 after the fee and contributes 12,090 − 8,174.40 = 3,915.60. The season's fixed costs are 324,000, so 324,000 / 3,915.60 = 82.75: Klasna needs 83 sprints to break even.

That number is something the team can judge: is 83 families in one spring realistic? If yes, launch. If clearly not, the answer is to lower fixed costs or not launch, not to raise the price above the ceiling.

The spring corridor for NMT Sprint runs from the target floor, 11,719.38, to the ceiling, 13,000. Only prices inside it are candidates: below the target floor a sprint earns less than the tutor's hours already do; above the ceiling the family is better off with a tutor.

Inside, the choice is about how much value to leave with the family. At 12,400 a family keeps 600 against the ceiling; at 12,900 only 100, and with three of four differences still assumptions, the ceiling itself may be lower. A price with some margin below the ceiling is safer for a new product.

How it fits together: costs per sale give the floor, scarce tutor hours raise it to a target floor, the alternative families name plus the differences give the ceiling, and fixed costs go into the launch check. The next module asks who buyers really compare Klasna with, and how to map it.