price tier

A price tier is a decision taken before anyone opens the inbox. Content gets sorted into a small number of levels: a short clip, a full set, something made to order. Each level carries one price that does not move. The point is not the price itself. The point is that the person writing at 1am is picking from a list instead of guessing, and that two fans who ask for the same thing on the same night are quoted the same figure.

How is a tier different from a price floor?

A floor is a limit; a tier is a slot. A floor says how low you may go before you stop selling. A tier says what the thing costs. The two get confused because agencies write both into the same document, but they do different jobs, and running only a floor is how discounting starts.

	What it is	What it does
Price tier	A fixed level a piece of content belongs to	Removes the decision from the conversation
Price floor	The lowest number anyone may accept	Caps the damage once a negotiation has begun

If you only have a floor, every conversation becomes a negotiation that ends at the floor. The floor becomes the price.

Why fix the levels in advance at all?

Because improvised pricing leaks in three directions at once.

• Down. A chatter under pressure to close cuts the number, and the fan learns the number is cuttable.
• Sideways. The same PPV goes out at different prices to different fans, and they talk to each other.
• Backwards. A fan who paid full price last week sees a lower one this week and stops buying at full price entirely.

Fixed levels also make your reporting mean something. You cannot read average order value across a catalogue where every item was priced live, because a rise may only mean somebody was braver this month.

How many tiers, and how far apart?

Three or four, spaced far enough that the gap is obvious. Two tiers give a fan nothing to climb toward. Six make the ladder unreadable to the person selling it and to the fan reading it, and adjacent tiers stop feeling different.

A workable price list usually looks like this:

1. Entry: short, quick to send, meant to turn a talker into a buyer.
2. Standard: the default offer, where most of the volume sits.
3. Premium: longer or more produced, the natural target for an upsell right after a purchase.
4. Made to order. Priced above the top rung, not inside it: custom content is quoted from a rule you can apply (by length, by effort, by turnaround), never from a mood.

What do you say when a fan negotiates?

You say the price again, and you say what else you have. A tier ladder gives you a real answer that is not “no”: the fan can move down the ladder rather than talk you down it. That keeps the sale available without teaching him that asking works.

The wording of that reply matters more than you would think. Our data shows a closed question at the moment of closing costs several points of conversion. So answer the objection, restate the level, and leave the thread open rather than asking him to say yes or no.