Pricing Pocket Waterfall

Pricing Pocket Waterfall — sub-skill

The discount-leak detector. Headline price ≠ revenue. The waterfall surfaces every step where margin leaks between list and pocket.

Activation

Routed here when operator says:

• "My discounts are eating margin"
• "Where is margin leaking?"
• "Pocket price"
• "Discount policy review"
• "Why is our effective price so much lower than list?"

The canonical waterfall

List price
  - Ramp discount (first-year, "introductory")
  - Volume discount (per-seat / per-unit breakpoints)
  - Bundle discount (multi-product)
  - Annual prepay discount
  - Strategic / champion / "executive sponsor" discount
  - Promotional / quarter-end close discount
  - Off-invoice rebates (back-end)
  - Credits / SLA penalties (rolling)
  - Payment-term cost (NET-60 vs NET-30 = ~0.5-1.5% of revenue)
  - Implementation discount (often "free")
= Pocket price

Pocket-price waterfall is run per-customer, then aggregated to the cohort level.

Workflow

1. Gather the data

Required (operator provides or pulls from CRM/billing):

• For each customer (or representative sample of ~30):
  • List price (per-tier, per-seat / per-unit)
  • Cadence (monthly / annual)
  • Each discount line-item with %, dollar value, and reason
  • Payment terms
  • Implementation / onboarding fees (and discounts)
  • Credits / penalties applied in the year

If the operator says "we don't track that" — flag this as the first finding. You can't manage what you can't measure.

2. Run the waterfall script

python3 scripts/pocket_price_waterfall.py \
  --input customers.csv \
  --output waterfall_report.json

The script:

• Reads each customer's line-item data
• Computes pocket price per customer
• Aggregates to cohort-level mean/median
• Ranks discount steps by total margin impact
• Identifies the top 3 leak sources

3. Diagnostic questions

After the script runs, ask:

1. What's the largest single leak step? (Often: ramp discount or strategic discount.)
2. Is the leak step tied to commercial value? (Annual prepay tied to cash flow = real concession. "Strategic discount" with no commercial concession = pure leak.)
3. Is the leak step bounded by policy or sales-rep discretion? (Discretion = leak source; policy with thresholds = managed.)
4. What % of revenue moves through the largest leak? (>20% = top priority for policy work.)
5. Are the leaks PSP-correlated? (One PSP gets bigger discounts = a pricing-vs-WTP issue for that segment.)

4. Build the discount policy

For each leak step that's >5% of revenue, output a policy:

Discount step: {name}
Current state:
  - Frequency: applied to {N}% of customers
  - Mean discount: {X}%
  - Total $ leak: ${Y}/year
  - Tied to commercial concession: {Yes / No}
  - Bounded by policy: {Yes / No}

Recommended policy:
  - Approval threshold: 0-{N}% rep / {N}-{M}% manager / {M}+% VP
  - Required commercial concession: {longer term / prepay / case study / etc.}
  - Documentation requirement: {what gets logged}
  - Reason codes: {list of accepted reasons}
  - Forbidden reasons: {"close the deal" alone is not a reason}

5. Quantify the recovery

Estimate margin recovery if policy is implemented:

• Pre-policy mean discount on this step: X%
• Post-policy mean discount estimate: Y%
• Cohort revenue affected: $Z
• Estimated recovery: (X - Y) × Z

Typical first-year recovery from documenting + bounding discount policy: 3-8% of total revenue. (Hermann Simon empirical baseline.)

6. Output the waterfall report

Pocket-Price Waterfall — {company}
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

LIST PRICE (cohort weighted average): ${X}/customer/year

Waterfall steps (ranked by leak magnitude):
  1. Ramp discount: -${Y1}/customer  (Z1% of customers, mean A1%)
  2. Strategic discount: -${Y2}/customer (Z2%, A2%)
  3. Volume discount: -${Y3}/customer (Z3%, A3%)
  ...

POCKET PRICE (cohort weighted average): ${P}/customer/year
LEAK FROM LIST: ${L} (M%)

TOP 3 PRIORITY POLICIES:
  1. {Policy for highest leak}
  2. {Policy for second leak}
  3. {Policy for third leak}

ESTIMATED FIRST-YEAR RECOVERY: ${R} (S% of revenue)

PSP-CORRELATED LEAKS:
  - {PSP X} discounted Y% more than median — investigate

Self-check

• Per-customer data loaded (or operator flagged as data gap)
• Waterfall script ran successfully
• Top 3 leak steps identified
• Recommended policy for each is specific (thresholds + reason codes)
• Recovery estimate is conservative (not vibes)
• PSP-correlated leaks flagged separately

Script reference

scripts/pocket_price_waterfall.py:

• Input: CSV with columns customer_id, list_price, cadence, discount_steps_json, payment_terms, implementation_fee, credits_applied
• Output: JSON with per-customer breakdown + cohort aggregates + leak ranking
• No dependencies. Pure stdlib. Python 3.8+.

References

• ../../pricing/references/pricing-framework.md — the waterfall in context
• ../pricing-tribunal/SKILL.md — for any policy change that affects >10% of customers
• ../pricing-quarterly-review/SKILL.md — where the waterfall is re-run quarterly