{"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":"2026-04-30T11:56:32.812Z"},"content":[{"type":"documentation","id":"8ad0e41d-8e61-41ed-942c-0ddf3bca6a1e","slug":"willingness-to-pay-interview-template","title":"Willingness-to-Pay Interview Template (Van Westendorp + AI)","url":"https://www.koji.so/docs/willingness-to-pay-interview-template","summary":"A complete Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter (PSM) interview template designed for AI-moderated interviews. Uses Koji’s 6 structured question types to capture the four canonical price points (too expensive, expensive, good value, too cheap) as scale questions, plus open-ended follow-ups for reference price anchors. Koji auto-plots the four cumulative curves and identifies Point of Marginal Cheapness, Point of Marginal Expensiveness, Optimal Price Point, and Indifference Price Point. Run the full study with n=80 to 150 in days for under €100 — versus €5,200+ for a traditional panel-recruited study.","content":"## The Bottom Line\n\nThe Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter (PSM) is the most-used pricing interview framework in the world — but it has always been a survey, which means you get four numbers and zero context. This template shows you how to run Van Westendorp as an **AI-moderated interview** instead, so every price point comes with the qualitative reasoning behind it. With a tool like Koji, the four core price questions auto-aggregate into distribution charts, while open-ended follow-ups capture the \"why\" — without you running a single live call.\n\nClone the structured questions below, paste them into a new Koji study, share the link, and you have a live willingness-to-pay study running in 30 minutes.\n\n## Why Van Westendorp Survives in 2026\n\nMost pricing methods have a fatal flaw: they ask a single question (\"What would you pay?\") and lock the respondent into a number. Van Westendorp asks four questions that triangulate the acceptable price range:\n\n1. **At what price would this be so expensive that you would not consider buying it?** *(too expensive)*\n2. **At what price would this start to feel expensive — but you would still consider it?** *(expensive)*\n3. **At what price would this start to feel like a great deal?** *(good value / cheap)*\n4. **At what price would this be so cheap that you would question its quality?** *(too cheap)*\n\nPlot the four cumulative curves and you get four canonical points: **Point of Marginal Cheapness (PMC)**, **Point of Marginal Expensiveness (PME)**, **Optimal Price Point (OPP)**, and **Indifference Price Point (IPP)**. The acceptable price range sits between PMC and PME, and most teams anchor their list price at OPP.\n\nThe reason Van Westendorp survives in 2026 — when most \"ask the customer\" pricing methods have been discredited — is that it forces respondents to think about price as a multidimensional signal (quality, fit, alternatives) rather than a single willingness number.\n\n## The Limit of Survey-Based Van Westendorp\n\nThe classic survey version has three weaknesses:\n\n1. **No reasoning.** You see that someone said €40 was \"too expensive\" but never learn whether their reference price was a competitor, a budget constraint, or a quality assumption.\n2. **No segmentation depth.** You can cross-tabulate by demographic, but you cannot probe why a segment behaves differently.\n3. **Anchoring drift.** Respondents tend to anchor all four prices off whichever they answer first.\n\nAn AI-moderated interview fixes all three. The AI asks each price question, listens to the participant’s justification, and probes follow-ups to surface the underlying reference point. Anchoring drift drops because the conversation breaks the survey rhythm.\n\n## The Template (Copy/Paste Into Koji)\n\nHere is the full structured-questions interview plan. Each question carries a stable ID, a question type, and probing config that drives Koji’s AI moderator behavior.\n\n### Section 1 — Context priming (1 question)\n\n```\nID: q1_context\nType: open_ended\nText: Walk me through the last time you bought a product or service in this category. What were you trying to solve, and how did you decide what to spend?\nProbing: maxFollowUps: 2\nWhy: Anchors the participant in real purchase context before pricing — reduces hypothetical bias.\n```\n\n### Section 2 — Van Westendorp price points (4 questions)\n\n```\nID: q2_too_expensive\nType: scale\nText: At what price would this product be SO EXPENSIVE that you would not consider buying it?\nConfig: scaleMin: 0, scaleMax: 200 (currency: EUR — adjust to your unit and range)\nProbing: maxFollowUps: 1, anchor: true (asks \"What would change that?\")\nDisplay: slider\n```\n\n```\nID: q3_expensive\nType: scale\nText: At what price would this start to feel expensive — but you would still consider buying it after some thought?\nConfig: scaleMin: 0, scaleMax: 200\nProbing: maxFollowUps: 1, anchor: true\nDisplay: slider\n```\n\n```\nID: q4_good_value\nType: scale\nText: At what price would this feel like a great deal — high quality for the money?\nConfig: scaleMin: 0, scaleMax: 200\nProbing: maxFollowUps: 1, anchor: true\nDisplay: slider\n```\n\n```\nID: q5_too_cheap\nType: scale\nText: At what price would this be SO CHEAP that you would question whether it is high quality?\nConfig: scaleMin: 0, scaleMax: 200\nProbing: maxFollowUps: 1, anchor: true\nDisplay: slider\n```\n\n### Section 3 — Reference points (1 question)\n\n```\nID: q6_reference\nType: open_ended\nText: When you were thinking about those prices, what other product, service, or budget were you comparing them to?\nProbing: maxFollowUps: 2\nWhy: Surfaces the actual reference price the participant was anchoring on.\n```\n\n### Section 4 — Purchase intent (1 question)\n\n```\nID: q7_intent\nType: single_choice\nText: At a price of [your hypothesized list price], how likely would you be to purchase?\nConfig: options: [\"Definitely buy\", \"Probably buy\", \"Might buy\", \"Probably not buy\", \"Definitely not buy\"]\nProbing: maxFollowUps: 1\n```\n\n### Section 5 — Feature bundle sensitivity (optional, 1 question)\n\n```\nID: q8_bundle\nType: ranking\nText: If we had to remove features to hit a lower price, which would you keep first and which would you drop first?\nConfig: options: [\"Feature A\", \"Feature B\", \"Feature C\", \"Feature D\", \"Feature E\"]\nProbing: maxFollowUps: 0\nWhy: Reveals price-feature elasticity beyond the single-product Van Westendorp.\n```\n\nThat is **8 questions, ~10 minutes of participant time**, and produces a complete Van Westendorp dataset plus qualitative reasoning.\n\n## How Koji Auto-Aggregates the Result\n\nThe four `scale` questions produce numeric distributions that Koji charts automatically as Van Westendorp curves. The `single_choice` purchase-intent question produces a frequency bar chart. The `ranking` question produces an average-position ranked list. The `open_ended` questions produce themed summaries with verbatim quotes.\n\nIn other words: **the moment your sample size hits ~30 participants, your Van Westendorp price points are already plotted in the report.** No spreadsheet, no manual coding, no analyst hours.\n\nFor structured questions like these four scales, Koji’s per-question aggregation is what turns a 30-hour analyst job into a real-time dashboard.\n\n## Recommended Sample Size\n\nVan Westendorp produces stable price points around **n=80 to n=150** for a single segment. For multi-segment pricing (e.g., enterprise vs SMB vs prosumer), aim for **n=80 per segment**. Because Koji interviews are async and self-serve, you can hit those numbers in days rather than weeks.\n\nA rough budget on Koji’s Interviews plan:\n\n- **80 text interviews** = 80 credits → 1 month of the Interviews plan (€79) covers it with one credit left over.\n- **80 voice interviews** = 240 credits → €79 plan + 161 overage × €1 = €240 total.\n\nCompare that to a traditional Van Westendorp study with a panel platform: 80 × (€40 recruiting + €25 incentive) = €5,200 minimum, before any moderator or analysis time.\n\n## Common Mistakes to Avoid\n\n1. **Asking Van Westendorp without context.** Pure hypothetical pricing produces noise. The \"context priming\" question (q1) is non-optional.\n2. **Letting price points cross.** If a participant says \"too expensive: €30\" and \"expensive: €50\", flag and re-ask. Koji’s probing follow-up catches this automatically.\n3. **Running on the wrong audience.** Van Westendorp only works on people who could realistically buy your product. Use a `screener-questions-guide` flow to filter.\n4. **Assuming OPP equals list price.** OPP is a starting hypothesis; validate against conversion data.\n5. **Skipping the reference question (q6).** Without it, you see prices but not the mental anchors driving them.\n\n## What to Do With the Results\n\nWhen the report is ready:\n\n1. **Plot the four cumulative curves** (Koji does this automatically for `scale` questions).\n2. **Identify PMC, PME, OPP, IPP** at the curve intersections.\n3. **Read the q6 reference theme** to understand what alternatives anchor your pricing.\n4. **Cross-tab purchase intent (q7) by segment** to find the segment where intent peaks at OPP.\n5. **Use the ranking output (q8)** to design good/better/best tiers.\n\nThe whole synthesis takes 30–60 minutes, not 30 hours.\n\n## Related Resources\n\n- [Structured Questions Guide](/docs/structured-questions-guide) — the 6 question types that drive auto-aggregation\n- [Pricing Research Interviews](/docs/pricing-research-interviews) — broader pricing research methodologies\n- [Pricing Research Survey Guide](/docs/pricing-research-survey-guide) — survey-only counterpart\n- [Screener Questions Guide](/docs/screener-questions-guide) — filtering participants for pricing studies\n- [Generating Research Reports](/docs/generating-research-reports) — how Van Westendorp curves render in reports\n- [User Research Cost Calculator](/docs/user-research-cost-calculator-2026) — budgeting an 80-participant pricing study","category":"Study Design","lastModified":"2026-04-30T03:18:26.216864+00:00","metaTitle":"Willingness-to-Pay Interview Template: Van Westendorp + AI | Koji","metaDescription":"A ready-to-clone Van Westendorp pricing interview template using AI-moderated interviews. Capture all four price points plus qualitative reasoning — auto-aggregated.","keywords":["willingness to pay interview","van westendorp price sensitivity meter","pricing interview template","price sensitivity interview questions","willingness to pay survey ai","customer pricing research template"],"aiSummary":"A complete Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter (PSM) interview template designed for AI-moderated interviews. Uses Koji’s 6 structured question types to capture the four canonical price points (too expensive, expensive, good value, too cheap) as scale questions, plus open-ended follow-ups for reference price anchors. Koji auto-plots the four cumulative curves and identifies Point of Marginal Cheapness, Point of Marginal Expensiveness, Optimal Price Point, and Indifference Price Point. Run the full study with n=80 to 150 in days for under €100 — versus €5,200+ for a traditional panel-recruited study.","aiPrerequisites":["Familiarity with pricing research","Basic understanding of Van Westendorp","Access to a target customer audience"],"aiLearningOutcomes":["Set up a Van Westendorp interview using Koji structured questions","Capture qualitative reasoning behind price points","Auto-aggregate the four canonical price curves","Identify OPP, PMC, PME, and IPP from the report"],"aiDifficulty":"intermediate","aiEstimatedTime":"10 min read"}],"pagination":{"total":1,"returned":1,"offset":0}}