I was running Vexpower, an online education startup charging $50 monthly. Our growth had completely flatlined - we were losing as many customers as we gained each month. Nothing worked. Marketing channels weren't converting. Feature updates didn't help.

A friend suggested raising prices, but my gut said the opposite. "People aren't even buying at this rate - maybe we should charge less." But gut decisions get pricing wrong most of the time so I wanted to check my assumptions.

Instead of guessing, I ran a Van Westendorp analysis with our 2,000-person email list. The four questions revealed something shocking: our optimal price point was $35, not $50. We were actually pricing ourselves out of our market.

This felt counterintuitive to my friend but made sense to me. Our target customers - mostly freelancers and small business owners - had a clear psychological ceiling around $35 for online education. At $50, we triggered their "too expensive" threshold.

We dropped the price immediately for both existing and new customers. Yes, we lost a few hundred dollars that month from the price reduction. But we started growing again - 20% that month, then another 20% the next month.

That single pricing decision transformed our struggling startup into a profitable business. The Van Westendorp analysis revealed that sometimes the path to growth is charging less, not more.

Step 1: Define Your Product Context

Start by clearly describing your product or service to the AI personas. Include features, benefits, target market, and any relevant competitive context.

Step 2: Generate Your Target Audience

Create AI personas that match your ideal customer profile. Consider demographics, psychographics, industry, company size, and purchasing behavior patterns.

Step 3: Ask the Four Van Westendorp Questions

Survey your AI audience with the four core price sensitivity questions:

1. Too Expensive: "At what price would this product be so expensive that you wouldn't consider buying it?"
2. Getting Expensive: "At what price would this product start to feel expensive, but you'd still consider it?"
3. Good Value: "At what price would you consider this product a bargain - great value for money?"
4. Too Cheap: "At what price would this product be so cheap that you'd question its quality?"

Step 4: Analyze Price Intersection Points

Plot the responses to identify key price points:

• Point of Marginal Expensiveness (PME): Upper price limit
• Point of Marginal Cheapness (PMC): Lower price limit
• Optimal Price Point (OPP): Sweet spot between "too cheap" and "too expensive"
• Indifference Price Point (IPP): Where "cheap" and "expensive" perceptions balance

Step 5: Test Price Variations by Segment

Run separate analyses for different customer segments to uncover pricing opportunities across demographics, use cases, or business sizes.

Step 6: Validate with Purchase Intent

Follow up with likelihood-to-purchase questions at your identified price points to estimate demand and revenue potential.