Strategic pricing: the forgotten lever of margin
- azaror
- Dec 16, 2025
- 2 min read
Updated: Dec 17, 2025
In many organizations, pricing is a conversation that gets put off. It is adjusted once a year, usually based on inflation or competition, and then left alone. The cost of this inertia is not insignificant: reviewing prices only once a year can mean up to five percentage points less margin, mainly due to mismatches between costs, customer mix, and poorly managed elasticities.
Pricing is one of the most direct and underutilized levers for protecting EBITDA. It does not require large investments, but it does require analytical discipline, clarity in decision-making, and “courage.”
The mistake of annual reviews
Prices cannot be treated as if they were set in stone. In volatile markets, reviewing them once a year is equivalent to managing while looking in the rearview mirror. According to various studies, companies that manage pricing dynamically—with quarterly reviews based on data—manage to capture between 2 and 5 additional margin points.
It is not about changing prices every week, but about establishing a true pricing capability: clear rules, early warning signs, and decision-making mechanisms that allow companies to identify when to adjust and where the impact will be greatest.
Segment to navigate without fear
One of the main obstacles to price adjustments is the fear of losing customers. That is why the most effective companies do not start uniformly. They begin with segments that are less sensitive to price, test elasticity, and adjust with precision.
While some companies apply across-the-board increases, others take a surgical approach: by customer, by channel, or by value proposition. That's where you gain margin without sacrificing volume.
Pricing as a shared responsibility
Another common mistake is leaving pricing exclusively in the hands of the sales department. In practice, it is a shared responsibility between the CFO and the CCO. The former provides insight into margins and economic structure; the latter, a deep understanding of the customer and the market. Together, they can transform pricing into a systematic process and stop managing it as a reactive decision.
PwC shows that 8 out of 10 CFOs recognize that pricing is their main lever for EBITDA. The problem is not a lack of awareness, but rather the absence of governance to manage it rigorously.
The central question
Pricing is not a final adjustment in the decision chain: it is a direct and almost immediate lever of profitability. The question for every executive committee is simple:
“Are we managing pricing with the same rigor as costs or capital investment?”
In many companies, the answer is still no. And that gap—more than any efficiency initiative—ends up being measured in margin points.
About the author
Ricardo Sonneborn is a partner at SummaPartners and has more than 20 years of experience in strategic consulting and corporate finance.