{"site":{"name":"Koji","description":"AI-native customer research platform that helps teams conduct, analyze, and synthesize customer interviews at scale.","url":"https://www.koji.so","contentTypes":["blog","documentation"],"lastUpdated":"2026-10-28T16:26:06.705Z"},"content":[{"type":"blog","id":"3ad8582d-6ef3-4b5f-9555-4f9127e92aef","slug":"gabor-granger-vs-van-westendorp","title":"Gabor-Granger vs Van Westendorp: Which Pricing Method Should You Use? (2026)","url":"https://www.koji.so/blog/gabor-granger-vs-van-westendorp","summary":"A comparison of the Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter and the Gabor-Granger pricing method. Van Westendorp uses four open price questions to find an acceptable price range and suits early pricing with no reference price; vendor guidance puts its sample at 100 to 200 per segment. Gabor-Granger asks purchase intent at one price at a time to find the share who would buy at each price and the revenue-maximising price; it suits choosing between 3 to 7 candidate prices. Both overstate real demand, so confirm with a purchase signal. Koji runs Gabor-Granger as a Price Test question in AI interviews and asks why after each answer.","content":"**Short answer:** Use **Van Westendorp** when you don't know what range your price should sit in yet, because it asks people where \"too cheap\" and \"too expensive\" start and gives you an acceptable band. Use **Gabor-Granger** when you already have a few candidate prices and need to pick one, because it measures how many people would buy at each price and shows which one earns the most. Most teams that get pricing right run them in that order: Van Westendorp to find the band, Gabor-Granger to choose a point inside it, and a conversation about *why* alongside both, because neither number tells you what a buyer is comparing you to.\n\nThis guide sets the two methods side by side, gives decision rules for picking one, shows the exact questions, works through an example, and covers the mistakes that make both of them mislead.\n\n## Why the method matters more than founders think\n\nPricing is the cheapest lever most companies never pull properly. In McKinsey's well-known analysis of S&P 1500 companies, a **1% price increase with volume held steady lifted operating profit by about 8%**, nearly 50% more than the effect of a 1% cut in variable costs and more than three times the effect of a 1% rise in volume ([McKinsey Quarterly, \"The power of pricing\", 2003](https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-power-of-pricing)).\n\n![Two founders talking over a laptop, the kind of conversation where a team decides what to charge for a new plan](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1752650732799-6e81d5f4c398?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3w5NDUzMDN8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwzfHxmb3VuZGVycyUyMGxhcHRvcCUyMGRpc2N1c3Npb24lMjBvZmZpY2V8ZW58MXwwfHx8MTc5MzE3MDIxMHww&ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=80&w=1080)\n\n_Photo by [Vitaly Gariev](https://unsplash.com/@silverkblack?utm_source=koji&utm_medium=referral) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=koji&utm_medium=referral)_\n\nThe trouble is that the usual way of finding a price, asking \"what would you pay for this?\", produces numbers you can't trust. People overstate. A meta-analysis of 28 stated-preference studies (83 comparisons of what people said against what they actually paid) found a **median ratio of 1.35 between hypothetical and real values**, with a long tail of studies where the gap was far larger ([Murphy, Allen, Stevens and Weatherhead, *Environmental and Resource Economics*, 2005](https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/enreec/v30y2005i3p313-325.html)). The same paper found that choice-style questions narrow the gap.\n\nBoth Van Westendorp and Gabor-Granger exist to get round the \"what would you pay?\" problem. They just do it in different ways, and they answer different questions.\n\n## Gabor-Granger vs Van Westendorp at a glance\n\n| | Van Westendorp (Price Sensitivity Meter) | Gabor-Granger |\n|---|---|---|\n| Question it answers | What price range feels acceptable? | How many would buy at each price, and which price earns most? |\n| What you need first | A clear description of the product | 3 to 10 candidate prices |\n| What people answer | Four open price questions | Buy or not at one price at a time |\n| What you get | An acceptable range and an \"optimal\" crossing point | A demand curve and a revenue-maximising price |\n| Best stage | Early: new product, new category, no anchor | Later: choosing between real options |\n| Main blind spot | Says nothing about how many will buy | Can only pick a price you tested |\n| Typical sample | 100 to 200 per segment in vendor guidance | Around 30 people gives a first read |\n\n![Table comparing Van Westendorp and Gabor-Granger on the question each answers, inputs, outputs, best stage, blind spot and sample size](/visuals/gabor-granger-vs-van-westendorp-comparison-table/gabor-granger-vs-van-westendorp-comparison-table.png \"Find the range first, then pick the price inside it · Source: Peter van Westendorp (1976); André Gabor and Clive Granger (1960s)\")\n\n## How Van Westendorp works\n\nThe Price Sensitivity Meter was presented by Dutch economist Peter van Westendorp in 1976. Instead of asking for one number, it asks four questions about the same product:\n\n1. At what price would this be so cheap that you'd doubt its quality?\n2. At what price would it be a bargain, a great buy for the money?\n3. At what price would it start to feel expensive, but you'd still consider it?\n4. At what price would it be so expensive that you wouldn't consider it?\n\nYou plot the share of people giving each answer at every price as four cumulative curves. Where \"too cheap\" crosses \"too expensive\" is usually read as the optimal price point, and the band between the \"not a bargain\" and \"not expensive\" crossings is the range of acceptable prices.\n\n**Where it shines.** You have a new product, nobody has a reference price in their head, and you need to know whether you're in €10 territory or €100 territory. Van Westendorp also tells you where quality doubts kick in, which matters for premium products: price too low and people assume something is wrong.\n\n**Where it falls short.** It measures perception, not purchase. Nobody in a Van Westendorp study says whether they'd actually buy, so the \"optimal\" point has no demand or revenue behind it. Sawtooth Software and other methodologists have pointed out that the crossing-point logic has little economic theory under it. And the curves get noisy fast with small samples: vendor guidance commonly puts the working target at 100 to 200 completes per segment ([Rework, Van Westendorp guide](https://resources.rework.com/libraries/growth-frameworks/van-westendorp-price-sensitivity)).\n\n## How Gabor-Granger works\n\nGabor-Granger comes from economists André Gabor and Clive Granger, who developed it in the 1960s. You show a product and one price, and ask how likely the person is to buy at that price, usually on a five-point purchase-intent scale from \"Definitely would not buy\" to \"Definitely would buy\". Depending on the answer, you move the price up or down and ask again, until you find the highest price that person would still buy at.\n\nAcross everyone, you get the share who would buy at each price. Multiply each price by its share and you get revenue per person asked. The peak of that curve is the revenue-maximising price.\n\n**Where it shines.** You have real options on the table, say €19, €29 and €39 a month, and you need to choose. Gabor-Granger gives you a demand curve, an elasticity read and a clear winner on revenue, which is the number a board or co-founder will ask for.\n\n**Where it falls short.** It can only pick from the prices you test, so a badly chosen ladder hides the real answer. It assumes people judge each price on its own, without competitors in view. And like every stated-intent method it is directional: people say \"probably would buy\" more often than they buy.\n\n## Which one should you use?\n\nUse these rules in order. The first one that fits is your answer.\n\n1. **No reference price at all** (new category, first product, nobody knows what this should cost): start with Van Westendorp. You need a range before you can test points.\n2. **A range in mind and 3 to 7 real candidate prices:** use Gabor-Granger. It is built to choose between options.\n3. **Testing a price rise for existing customers:** use Gabor-Granger with the current price as the lowest step, and interview the people who would stop buying.\n4. **Premium product where \"too cheap\" might hurt:** run Van Westendorp at least once, because it is the only one of the two that shows where quality doubts begin.\n5. **Fewer than about 30 people you can reach:** neither method gives you a reliable curve. Run qualitative pricing interviews instead, anchored on what people spend today, and treat any number as a hypothesis.\n6. **Several packages or features to price together:** neither is enough. Look at conjoint or MaxDiff, covered in our [pricing research guide](/docs/pricing-research-survey-guide).\n\n## The questions, ready to use\n\nHere are both sets of questions in plain wording. Show the product first (a description, a screenshot or a mockup), then ask about price. Keep the product description identical for everyone, or the answers won't compare.\n\n![Question bank with the four Van Westendorp price questions and the Gabor-Granger purchase intent question with its five-point scale](/visuals/van-westendorp-and-gabor-granger-question-bank/van-westendorp-and-gabor-granger-question-bank.png \"Copy these into your study as they are · Source: Peter van Westendorp (1976); André Gabor and Clive Granger (1960s)\")\n\nFor Gabor-Granger, the scale is:\n\n- Definitely would not buy\n- Probably would not buy\n- Not sure\n- Probably would buy\n- Definitely would buy\n\nCount \"Probably would buy\" and above as a yes unless you have a reason to be stricter. For a high-commitment purchase, counting only \"Definitely would buy\" gives a more cautious curve.\n\n## A worked example\n\nHere is an illustrative case, with made-up numbers to show the arithmetic. A small analytics tool is choosing a monthly price. A Van Westendorp round suggested an acceptable band of roughly €20 to €50. The team picks five evenly spaced prices spanning that band, with one below and one above it, and runs Gabor-Granger with 40 people.\n\n| Price per month | Would buy | Revenue per person asked |\n|---|---|---|\n| €19 | 78% | €14.82 |\n| €29 | 62% | €17.98 |\n| €39 | 41% | €15.99 |\n| €49 | 22% | €10.78 |\n| €59 | 10% | €5.90 |\n\n€29 earns the most per person asked, even though €19 wins more buyers. Two things to notice:\n\n- **The drop from €29 to €39 is the steepest.** That is where something changes in buyers' heads: often a competitor's price or a budget threshold. You only find out which by asking.\n- **€39 is close behind.** With 40 people, a gap of two euros per person is within the noise. A careful team would test €34 next, or ship €29 and watch conversion.\n\n## Mistakes that make both methods mislead\n\n- **Testing the wrong people.** A price test on people who would never buy the category tells you nothing. Screen for the job and the budget first.\n- **A ladder that's too narrow.** If everyone would buy at your top price, you priced too low and the test can't tell you by how much. Put at least one price above where you're comfortable.\n- **Reading the number without the reason.** \"Would not buy at €39\" might mean \"too expensive\", \"I'd use the free plan of a competitor\" or \"my manager signs anything over €30\". Each needs a different fix.\n- **Treating stated intent as forecast.** Given the overstatement in the research above, use these results to rank options and spot thresholds, not to forecast revenue. Pair them with real signals: pre-orders, a paid pilot, or an A/B test on the pricing page.\n- **Anchoring everyone on the cheapest price.** If every person sees the lowest price first, the rest of their answers lean low. Start people at different points.\n\n![A small team talking through notes at a whiteboard, the point where price test results get read and argued over](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1758873269035-aae0e1fd3422?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3w5NDUzMDN8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHw4fHx0ZWFtJTIwbWVldGluZyUyMHdoaXRlYm9hcmQlMjBkaXNjdXNzaW9ufGVufDF8MHx8fDE3OTMxNzAyMTF8MA&ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=80&w=1080)\n\n_Photo by [Vitaly Gariev](https://unsplash.com/@silverkblack?utm_source=koji&utm_medium=referral) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=koji&utm_medium=referral)_\n\n## How to run each in Koji\n\nKoji runs both inside AI-moderated interviews, so every price answer comes with a follow-up about why.\n\n**Gabor-Granger: the Price Test question.** Pick *Price Test (Gabor-Granger)* as the question type, then enter between 3 and 10 prices (5 to 7 evenly spaced works best), a currency and an optional unit such as \"per month\". Each participant sees the product, using the question text and its image if you attach one, and rates one price at a time on the five-point purchase-intent scale. You choose which answer counts as a buy; the default is \"Probably would buy\" or higher.\n\nKoji starts each person at a random price in the middle of your ladder, so nobody anchors on the cheapest, and moves up or down until it finds the highest price they would still buy at, usually in about three steps. Then it asks why, in their own words. The report shows the share who would buy at each price, the revenue each price implies and the price that earns the most, with the quotes behind each point. It is labelled directional for the reasons above, and it reads best from about 30 interviews. It works in text and voice interviews, not on phone calls, and the prices lock once responses come in.\n\nYou can set it up yourself from a free account, or ask the research assistant (\"help me test pricing for our new plan\") and it will build the study. If you use an AI assistant connected to Koji over MCP, it can create and read price tests too.\n\n**Van Westendorp: four open questions.** Add the four questions above as open-ended questions, and the AI interviewer will ask what's behind each number (\"what makes €60 feel too expensive?\"). Koji doesn't draw the four Van Westendorp curves for you, so copy the answers into a spreadsheet to plot them. Koji's willingness-to-pay template also closes with a spoken Van Westendorp round.\n\n![Koji question editor showing open ended, 1 to 10 scale and single choice questions with follow-up settings](/email/shots/shot-question-types.jpg \"The study editor, where price questions sit next to every other question type\")\n\nTo reach people, share the interview link with your own users, email a list of customers from Koji, or recruit from Koji's panel when you need people who don't know you yet. Only interviews that pass Koji's quality check count toward your results and your credits.\n\nFor the full method detail, see our docs on the [Gabor-Granger method](/docs/gabor-granger-pricing-method), the [Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter](/docs/van-westendorp-price-sensitivity-meter) and the [willingness-to-pay interview template](/docs/willingness-to-pay-interview-template).\n\n## The bottom line\n\nVan Westendorp and Gabor-Granger aren't rivals. One finds the band, the other picks the point, and both get far more useful when you hear the reasons behind the numbers. If you're choosing a price this month, start with the method that matches what you already know, keep the sample honest, and confirm the answer with a real purchase signal before you announce it.\n\n**Ready to test a price?** [Start free with Koji](https://www.koji.so), add a Price Test question with five prices, and have your first answers, with the reasons behind them, the same day.\n","category":"Research","lastModified":"2026-10-28T07:20:13.692635+00:00","metaTitle":"Gabor-Granger vs Van Westendorp: Which to Use (2026)","metaDescription":"Van Westendorp finds an acceptable price range; Gabor-Granger picks the price that earns most. Decision rules, questions, sample sizes and a worked example.","keywords":["gabor granger vs van westendorp","van westendorp vs gabor granger","pricing research methods","price sensitivity meter","gabor granger pricing","willingness to pay survey","how to choose a price"],"aiSummary":"A comparison of the Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter and the Gabor-Granger pricing method. Van Westendorp uses four open price questions to find an acceptable price range and suits early pricing with no reference price; vendor guidance puts its sample at 100 to 200 per segment. Gabor-Granger asks purchase intent at one price at a time to find the share who would buy at each price and the revenue-maximising price; it suits choosing between 3 to 7 candidate prices. Both overstate real demand, so confirm with a purchase signal. Koji runs Gabor-Granger as a Price Test question in AI interviews and asks why after each answer.","aiKeywords":["gabor-granger","van westendorp","price sensitivity meter","pricing research","willingness to pay","price testing","koji"],"aiContentType":"guide","faqItems":[{"answer":"Van Westendorp asks four open questions about where a price starts to feel too cheap, a bargain, expensive and too expensive, and gives you an acceptable price range. Gabor-Granger asks how likely someone is to buy at one price at a time, and gives you the share who would buy at each price and the price that earns the most. Van Westendorp measures perception, Gabor-Granger measures stated demand.","question":"What is the difference between Gabor-Granger and Van Westendorp?"},{"answer":"If you have no idea what range your price should sit in, run Van Westendorp first to find the band. If you already have 3 to 7 real candidate prices, go straight to Gabor-Granger to choose between them. Many teams run both in that order.","question":"Should I use Gabor-Granger or Van Westendorp first?"},{"answer":"Vendor guidance for Van Westendorp commonly puts the working target at 100 to 200 completes per segment, because the four curves get noisy with small samples. Gabor-Granger gives a first directional read from around 30 people. With fewer than about 30 reachable buyers, run qualitative pricing interviews instead.","question":"How many responses do I need for each method?"},{"answer":"Both are directional. People tend to overstate what they would pay: a 2005 meta-analysis of 28 stated-preference studies found a median ratio of 1.35 between hypothetical and real values. Use the results to rank options and find thresholds, then confirm with a real purchase signal such as pre-orders, a paid pilot or a pricing page test.","question":"Are Gabor-Granger and Van Westendorp accurate?"},{"answer":"Yes. Koji has a Price Test (Gabor-Granger) question type. You enter 3 to 10 prices, each participant starts at a random price in the middle and moves up or down, and Koji asks why after each answer. The report shows the share who would buy at each price, the revenue each implies and the price that earns the most. It works in text and voice interviews and reads best from about 30 interviews.","question":"Can Koji run a Gabor-Granger price test?"}],"relatedTopics":["pricing-research","willingness-to-pay","research-methods","ai-interviews"]}],"pagination":{"total":1,"returned":1,"offset":0}}