# The four-question price survey and its limits > Four questions give a range of prices that feel acceptable to the people asked. Read Nazar's Club Plus survey, and see what such a survey can't tell you. - Course: [Pricing: Set, Package and Raise Your Prices](https://productovi.com/courses/pricing.md) - Module: What will buyers actually pay? - Lesson 10/32, ~22 min - Source: https://productovi.com/courses/pricing/the-four-question-survey ## Nazar's survey **Alex Tutor:** Back at Klasna. Nazar wants to add **Club Plus**: today's Club plus two small-group speaking sessions a month with a tutor, up to six people, and a monthly progress report. **Nazar:** I sent a price survey to every Club member in November. 220 answered. The range came out 510 to 700, so 650 is right inside. I'd like to launch in March. **Sofia:** What did the survey actually ask? **Nazar:** Four questions about Club Plus a month. At what price would it seem so cheap you'd doubt the quality? At what price a bargain? At what price getting expensive, though you'd still consider it? And at what price too expensive to consider? **Alex Tutor:** That's the **four-question price survey**, also known as the Van Westendorp price sensitivity meter, after a 1976 research paper. Each person gives four prices, so you learn where their sense of «normal» starts and ends. > **Exercise:** Put the four survey answers of one respondent in order, from the lowest price to the highest. ## Four curves **Alex Tutor:** Now turn 220 answers into curves. At each price, count the share of people for whom that price is already too cheap or a bargain, and the share for whom it's already getting expensive or too expensive. **Club Plus survey: 220 Club members, November 2026** | Price a month, UAH | Too cheap | A bargain | Getting expensive | Too expensive | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 300 | 100 | 100 | 0 | 0 | | 350 | 87.73 | 100 | 0 | 0 | | 400 | 74.55 | 100 | 0 | 0 | | 450 | 43.18 | 96.82 | 0 | 0 | | 500 | 16.82 | 88.18 | 0.91 | 0 | | 550 | 0 | 69.55 | 4.55 | 0 | | 600 | 0 | 45 | 16.36 | 0 | | 650 | 0 | 24.55 | 35 | 0.45 | | 700 | 0 | 3.64 | 54.09 | 5.45 | | 750 | 0 | 0 | 76.36 | 14.55 | | 800 | 0 | 0 | 95 | 29.09 | | 850 | 0 | 0 | 99.55 | 47.27 | | 900 | 0 | 0 | 100 | 69.09 | *Share of respondents (%) for whom each monthly price is too cheap or a bargain (falling curves), getting expensive or too expensive (rising curves).* **Alex Tutor:** The usual reading: the range starts where «getting expensive» catches up with «too cheap», and ends where «too expensive» catches up with «a bargain». Versions of the method cross slightly different curves; the idea is the same. > **Exercise:** In the usual reading of the four-question survey, where does the range of acceptable prices **end** at the top? **Nazar:** And here that's 510 at the bottom and 700 at the top. At 650 almost nobody says too expensive. **Alex Tutor:** Read the 650 line yourself before we agree. > **Exercise:** Use the chart. At 650 a month, what share of the 220 responding members say Club Plus is **getting expensive** or worse? In %. ## What the range means **Sofia:** So 650 is fine? **Alex Tutor:** 650 doesn't shock the people who answered. That's all a range says: perceptions among those asked. It doesn't say how many would buy at 650, or whether they would buy at all. **Nazar:** But the curves look like a demand curve. More people find it expensive as the price goes up. **Alex Tutor:** They look like one and they aren't. «Getting expensive, but I'd still consider it» is a feeling, not a purchase. A demand curve needs what people do at a real price, and that's next lesson. > **Exercise:** What does the range 510–700 from Nazar's survey tell Klasna? **Alex Tutor:** Nazar still thinks the curves are a demand curve. > **Exercise:** Because more members call Club Plus expensive as the price rises, the «getting expensive» curve shows how many would buy at each price. ## Who answered, and about what **Alex Tutor:** Two more limits. First, who answered. All 220 already pay 450 for the Club and like it enough to stay. Ask them about «Club plus more» and of course 650 sounds reasonable. **Nazar:** They're the ones who'd buy Plus first, though. **Alex Tutor:** Maybe. But if Plus is meant to bring new people in, they were never asked. And members who left this year aren't in the sample either. **Alex Tutor:** Second, the answers depend on how you describe the offer and on the prices people already know. Everyone knows the Club costs 450, so their answers lean on that anchor. > **Exercise:** Nazar sent the four-question survey about Club Plus to all 880 Club members in November, each already paying 450 a month for the Club; 220 answered. Which are real limits of his survey? Select all that apply. ## What it is good for **Sofia:** Then why run it at all? **Alex Tutor:** It's cheap, and it catches gross mistakes: a price so low it signals poor quality, or one far outside what anyone considers. It also compares groups, if you ask the right ones. **Alex Tutor:** And never fill it in with an AI model pretending to be respondents. Synthetic answers repeat what the model already believes; they're not anyone's willingness to pay. **Nazar:** So the survey isn't a launch decision. **Alex Tutor:** It's a first sketch. Next we test what people do with money on the table. > **Exercise:** **True or false:** the price where the «too cheap» and «too expensive» curves cross is the price that earns Klasna the most. **Alex Tutor:** So what is the survey good for? > **Exercise:** Which use fits the four-question price survey? **Nazar:** Write me three sentences I can forward to Leo. He'll ask why we're not launching tomorrow. **Sofia:** What it shows, what it can't show, and what we do next. **Alex Tutor:** Keep it plain. Leo needs the gist and the next step, not the curves. > **Exercise:** Write Nazar a 3-sentence note for Leo: what the Club Plus survey shows, what it can't show, and what should come next. The facts: Club Plus is today's Club plus two small-group speaking sessions a month and a monthly progress report, planned at 650; 220 of 880 current members answered the four price questions; the acceptable range came out 510–700; at 650, 35% already call it getting expensive and one person too expensive. > **Key ideas** > > - The **four-question price survey** asks for four prices: too cheap to trust, a bargain, getting expensive, too expensive. > - Each answer becomes a curve; the acceptable range runs roughly from where «getting expensive» meets «too cheap» to where «too expensive» meets «a bargain». Versions differ slightly. > - Nazar's members put Club Plus at 510–700. That describes their perceptions, not demand: it doesn't say how many would buy at 650. > - Limits: who was asked, stated rather than revealed answers, the anchor of known prices, who chose to reply. > - Use it to catch prices that feel suspiciously cheap or out of reach. Never fill it with AI-generated respondents. **Alex Tutor:** Next time: from words to money. Price ladders, pre-orders and deposits, tried on NMT Sprint. - Previous lesson: [Value interviews: past spending, not promises](https://productovi.com/courses/pricing/value-interviews.md) - Next lesson: [From words to money: ladders, pre-orders, deposits](https://productovi.com/courses/pricing/from-words-to-money.md) --- Productovi Learning. Free, no sign-up needed to read.