The Pricing Guys

A shopper finds a great deal on Walmart for a hard drive, leaves the tab open, comes back and the price has jumped by $110. His wife searches the same item on the same day and gets it for the original price. So what actually happened?

Michael and Avy read and react to a viral Reddit post about Walmart's dynamic pricing and use it to break down one of the most misunderstood topics in retail pricing right now.

In this episode they ...

Everyone is using AI. The question Michael and Avy keep getting is: if I can just ask ChatGPT or Claude for the answer, why do I need a pricing expert?

It is a fair question and they do not dodge it. This episode goes deep on where AI actually falls short in pricing and why the gap between getting an answer and making it stick is bigger than most companies realize.

In this episode Michael and Avy get into why AI can give you the an...

We have a special bonus episode to share and it comes with some exciting news from RML!

Gustavo Mendonça is joining as a Partner to lead a brand new function at Revenue Management Labs: building custom pricing tools. Michael and Avy sit down with Gustavo to break down what this means for RML, why he left one of the biggest food companies in the world to do it, and what the democratization of AI actually means for companies that cou...

The 2 Biggest Pricing Trends Right Now

The FIFA World Cup just landed in North America and the attorney general is already involved. Ticket prices surged 35% overnight, seat maps got redrawn, and fans are furious. Michael and Avy use this as the jumping off point for the Season 3 finale and a bigger ...

Ferrari just dropped an electric vehicle priced at $640K+ and watched their stock fall 8%. What went wrong?

Michael and Avy break down the pricing and brand strategy lessons behind Ferrari's Luce EV launch, and why even the most research-backed innovation can miss the mark when it alienates your core...

Disney doesn't sell rides. They sell an ecosystem designed to keep you spending as long as possible.

Michael sat down with CJ Gustafson of Mostly Metrics to unpack the surprisingly sophisticated pricing strategy behind the Disney experience. From loss leader ticket pricing...

In this special episode of The Pricing Guys, Avy and Michael welcome Kevin Mitchell, President of the Professional Pricing Society (PPS), for a candid conversation about the past, present, and future of pricing.

Kevin traces the roots of PPS back to his father Eric Mitchel...

What can a New York City dollar slice teach you about pricing strategy? Quite a bit, it turns out.

In this episode, Michael and Avy use pizza as a lens to explore real-world pricing dynamics: the volume game behind the dollar slice, how atmosphere and customer segments jus...

What does ketchup have to do with brand value? More than you'd think.

Michael and Avy dig into one of the most underrated questions in pricing: when you strip away the logo, the mascot, and the packaging redesign, what is your brand actually worth? The Heinz story out of Turkey is the jumping off point, but this episode goes much deeper into why so many companies are spending millions to justify their existence instead of their va...

Is your grocery app charging you more than your neighbor? Welcome to surveillance pricing. Avy Punwasee and Michael Stanisz break down the pricing practice that's got Ontario Premier Doug Ford talking and consumers quietly fuming. Surveillance pricing (aka AI-powered price discrimination) is already happening on grocery apps, and the debate over whether to ban it is heating up. But here's the thing: dynamic pricing has exist...

What does "price" even mean in a world run by AI?

In this episode, Michael and Avy skip the near-term AI hype and fast-forward 10 to 15 years to ask the big questions. Are promotions obsolete? Will brands live or die by their ability to communicate value to an algorithm? A...

Are pricing teams their own worst enemy? 

In this episode of The Pricing Guys, Michael and Avy are calling out a growing trend in the pricing community: a victim mentality showing up all over LinkedIn, where pricing professionals feel undervalued, ignored, and like th...

Have you ever picked up a piece of clothing in a store and noticed the price tag was... blank? Target made headlines when they quietly removed price points from tags on select clothing items, and the guys are unpacking what's really going on.

In this episode, we dig into the operational reasoning Target offered (spoiler: it involves tariffs and cost volatility), and why that explanation doesn't fully add up. We explore the real cos...

In this episode of The Pricing Guys, Avy and Michael unpack ‬Apple's latest iPhone pricing move and why holding price flat while adding value is more strategic than it looks.

What starts as a discussion about the new iPhone and iPad turns into a broader conversation about price-volume tradeoffs, consumer caution, and what it means when a category leader decides not to take price. They explore whether Apple is responding to so...

Seat-based SaaS pricing helped fuel the software boom for more than a decade. But that model is starting to show cracks.

In this episode of The Pricing Guys, Michael and Avy unpack why many technology companies are moving away from traditional seat-based subscriptions and exploring usage-based or hybrid pricing models. Ironically, the same industry that popularized subscription pricing is now leading the shift away from it.

AI is a...

Michael and Avy are back for Season 3 of The Pricing Guys.

To kick things off, we’re testing a simple question. Do pricing experts actually know the price of everyday products? From hotel water bottles to Hugo Boss t-shirts, baby formula, marinara sauce, and Excel gum, we put our instincts to the test in a rapid-fire guessing game. Some answers are close. Others not so much.

It’s a good reminder of something pricing pro...

The 2026 Executive Pricing Survey Results Are In

In this special announcement from the Pricing Guys, Michael Stanisz and Avy Punwasee share early insights from RML’s latest research.

Drawing on input from over 330 executive leaders, the 2026 Executive Pricing Benchmarks looks at how pricing performed in 2025, where leaders set targets, what was actually achieved, and how pricing is shaping plans for 2026.

The data points to a...

A barbershop in London offering a monthly haircut subscription sparked a bigger question for us. Have subscription models stretched too far or are they simply evolving into new industries?

In this episode, we break down the real tradeoffs behind subscription pricing. We look at retention goals, churn signals, capacity limits, customer behavior, tipping dynamics, and why fixed capacity businesses like barbershops and car washes face...