Cost-Plus vs Value-Based Pricing for a Small Business
Compare the evidence, trade-offs and failure modes of cost-plus and value-based pricing without treating either method as a universal winner.
Small-business decision guides
Browse market-neutral guides for pricing, profitability, cash flow, operations and growth decisions.
How to Raise Prices Without Guessing
Build a price-rise decision from a reconciled baseline, downside scenarios, offer boundaries, rollout checkpoints and review evidence.
How to Price a Project Quote With Scope Risk
Map scope uncertainty, cost the agreed delivery boundary and choose a commercial response before calculating the exact quote.
How to Price Rush Work Without Damaging Margin
Check capacity, displaced contribution, scope and delivery risk before deciding whether and how to quote urgent work.
How Fixed Payment Fees Affect Small Orders
Use a neutral fixed-plus-percentage scenario to see why the same fee schedule produces a different effective rate at different order values.
How to Calculate the Customer Acquisition Payback Period
Test when cumulative customer contribution recovers CAC across a finite horizon while keeping retention, ramp and payment timing visible.
LTV vs CAC: Assumptions for Small Businesses
Compare bounded contribution LTV with aligned CAC while keeping retention, horizon, cohort and payback limitations visible.
How Conversion Rate Changes Profit, Not Just Revenue
Follow traffic through expected customers, contribution, acquisition cost and CAC in a bounded sensitivity example.
How to Decide Whether to Bid on a Low-Margin Job
Separate job contribution from capacity, cash timing, strategic value and downside risk before deciding whether to bid.
How to Compare Subscription, One-Off and Bundle Pricing
Compare the same customer job, horizon, recurring costs, cash timing and contribution without assuming any pricing model is universally best.
Price Anchoring Tests and Small-Business Margin
Test a truthful anchor against a control while measuring contribution, conversion and guardrails without claiming a guaranteed uplift.
How to Write a Cash-Buffer Policy for a Micro-Business
Write a reviewable cash-buffer policy from dated outflows, disruption scenarios, draw rules and replenishment triggers without a generic reserve benchmark.
How to Set Payment Terms for a New Client
Document payment events, dates, methods, approvals and stop points before work starts without prescribing contract wording or standard days.
Break-Even When the Sales Mix Changes
Calculate weighted unit contribution, round composite break-even units upward and stress-test a changed sales mix transparently.
Direct, Indirect, Variable and Fixed Costs for Decisions
Classify traceability and cost behaviour separately against a named object, activity driver, period and relevant range.
Fully Loaded Labour Cost: What Belongs in the Rate?
Bridge user-entered annual pay, employer costs, non-delivery time and overhead to productive hours without global statutory defaults.
How Much Working Capital Does Growth Consume?
Reconcile signed receivables, inventory and payables changes to show scenario cash absorbed at a stated balance date.
Why Inventory Growth Can Create a Cash Crisis
Map supplier payment, stock commitment, sell-through and customer receipt dates to expose the inventory funding gap.
Build a Tax Cash Reserve Without Tax Advice
Schedule and reconcile a user-supplied amount and due date without calculating liability or embedding jurisdictional rules.
Plan Cash for a Seasonal Trough
Build a dated weekly baseline and lower-receipts case through the trough using a user-chosen cash floor.