Price intelligence

You know what you charge and what you sold. Your competitors also know what they charge and what they sold. The difference is made by whoever knows the other’s numbers. That is price intelligence: knowing, systematically and in time, what your market charges and sells, and turning the data into a rule that decides your price.

Pricing blind

The most common way to set a price is to look at costs, add a margin and adjust “by intuition” when something does not sell. It works until it stops working, and you never know why: did demand drop, or did the neighbor drop the price? Did the season pick up, or did you raise late? Without market data, every pricing decision is a confident bet.

What is measured, and how, in a hotel

In hospitality the key data is not just the competitor’s price: it is how much it is selling at that price. A hotel that charges more and fills up is telling you the market pays; one that charges less and stays empty is telling you price was not the problem.

• Estimated compset occupancy. Calculated daily from each competitor’s public availability on Booking or on its engine: total rooms minus available. It is not exact; it is stable, and the trend is real. Detail in how to measure your competitors’ occupancy.
• Rate index. Your rate divided by the compset average, by date. Above 1 and full: you raise. Below 1 and empty: price is not the problem.
• Pace. How bookings come in for each future date against last year and against the market.

From that come simple rules: when the compset crosses 70% for a date and you have inventory, that date is worth more than you charge; when nobody fills up, a discount does not create demand, it only splits it cheaper.

What is measured, and how, in a product or a service

Outside hospitality, inventory does not expire every night, but the market publishes all the same:

• Price and offer on marketplaces and stores. What each competitor charges for the comparable product, which promotion is active and since when.
• Availability. A sold-out competitor is an opportunity that lasts days.
• Reference price on listings and catalogues. What a customer sees when comparing before writing to you.
• Lost quotes. For services with no published price, your own team brings the data: every “I went with someone else” with its price noted is price intelligence.

And from there, the same rules: price index per product and channel, an alert when someone moves, and a written decision for each case.

From the data to the rule

The most common mistake is measuring and not deciding: having the dashboard and still pricing by intuition. That is why price intelligence does not end in the data but in a rule agreed beforehand: “if the compset crosses 70%, we go up one step”; “if a competitor drops more than 10%, we do not match: we review the listing”; “if the reference product sells out, we remove the promotion”. The rule is written before seeing the data, so the decision does not depend on the mood of the day.

Why almost nobody does it

Because it is engineering work. You have to build the tool that visits every channel every day, maintain it when the channels change and know how to read the data. Most agencies work with the data the client gives them; we measure the ones next door, with our own tool, for hotels and for products and services.

And that is why “do you know what your competitors are charging and selling?” is one of the seven questions in the diagnostic.