CTV and streaming adtech vendors inherit pricing models from three different worlds at once – CPM-based media, SaaS platform fees, and usage-based data pricing – and most never pick one. We build a pricing structure that matches how your buyers actually transact, holds up against incumbents who quote whatever keeps a deal moving, and doesn't require a VP to approve every quote.
The Problem
You are pricing a platform like it is a media buy
Measurement and attribution vendors in CTV often default to CPM-style pricing because that is the language every agency buyer already speaks, but CPM pricing was built for media spend, not for a platform fee tied to impressions you never touch.
Agencies and direct brands expect two different deals and your rate card only has one
An agency buying on behalf of ten clients wants volume discounts, rebate structures, and the flexibility to shift spend between brands mid-quarter. A direct brand buying your platform wants a predictable annual fee tied to a specific use case.
The incumbents you are pricing against do not publish a number
Innovid, iSpot, and The Trade Desk's measurement stack rarely show pricing publicly, and what a prospect got quoted last quarter is not what they will get quoted next quarter. Without a documented floor and a clear value story, your sales team is negotiating blind against a moving target, and every deal becomes a one-off negotiation instead of a repeatable motion your finance team can forecast against.
Usage-based pricing sounds fair until a customer's usage becomes unpredictable
FAST channel operators and SSPs that price on data volume or API calls attract customers who love the model when volume is low and resent it the moment a campaign scales and the bill triples with no warning. A pricing model that punishes a customer for succeeding creates renewal risk exactly when you should be expanding the account, and finance ends up fielding angry calls that sales never saw coming.
How We Help
We start by mapping your actual cost drivers against how each buyer segment wants to transact, not against what the last pricing consultant recommended for a generic SaaS company.
From there we build a segmented model instead of one rate card. Agency accounts get a structure built around aggregate volume across their client roster, with rebate tiers that reward consolidation onto your platform rather than fragmenting spend across three vendors to hit each one's discount threshold.
Where usage-based components make sense, we build in caps, tiers, or overage notice periods so a customer's success does not become a billing surprise.
We also build the negotiation floor sales actually needs. That means documented discount authority by deal size, a clear articulation of what differentiates your platform from an incumbent's opaque quote, and packaging tiers that give a rep room to trade features for price without discounting the core number every time.
Execution includes rebuilding how pricing shows up in <a href="/services/creative/">creative</a> and sales collateral – the pricing page, the proposal template, the one-pager a rep sends after a first call – so the value story and the number are told together instead of the number showing up cold in a follow-up email.
Measurement here is not about conversion rate on a pricing page. It is about deal-level margin, discount leakage versus the documented floor, and whether agency accounts are consolidating spend the way the rebate structure was designed to encourage.
What we deliver
- Cost-driver audit separating what should scale with usage, what should be flat, and what should never appear as a line item at all
- Segmented rate structure for agency and direct-brand buyers, including agency rebate tiers built around spend consolidation
- Usage-based pricing guardrails – caps, tiers, or overage notice periods – so scaling customers do not get billing surprises
- Documented discount authority and negotiation floor for sales, built specifically to counter opaque incumbent quoting
- Pricing page, proposal template, and sales collateral rebuilt to pair the number with the value story
Most CTV adtech pricing problems are not a math problem, they are an identity problem: the company has not decided whether it is selling media, software, or data, and the rate card is trying to be all three at once. Pick the transaction model that matches your actual cost structure and the discounting stops being a negotiation and starts being a decision.
Our Methodology
We run pricing strategy for CTV and Connected TV companies on the same 90-day sprint we use across every service line, because pricing decisions compound fast and a real checkpoint before you roll out a new rate card matters more here than almost anywhere else. The first 30 days are audit: mapping true cost drivers by account type, pulling every discount given in the last two to four quarters to see where the real floor already is versus the one on paper, and interviewing sales on what objections actually kill deals against incumbents.
Days 30 to 60 are model design and testing. We build the segmented rate structure, run it against a sample of recent closed and lost deals to see whether it would have changed the outcome, and adjust before anything goes live. This is also when we rebuild the negotiation floor and discount authority sales will use going forward, so the new pricing does not just exist on a slide but actually changes how quotes get built.
Days 60 to 90 are rollout and measurement: training sales on the new structure, updating the pricing page and proposal templates, and setting up the deal-level margin and discount-leakage tracking that tells you within a quarter, not a year, whether the new model is holding. This is not a one-time rate card handed off and forgotten – it is an operator watching the first cohort of deals under the new structure the way you would if your own commission depended on it.
How We Work
The first 30 days are the cost and discount audit described above, ending with a documented view of what your pricing actually costs to deliver and where negotiation is currently leaking margin, not a generic pricing framework deck. Days 30 to 60 build and stress-test the new segmented structure against real recent deals before it goes anywhere near a prospect. Days 60 to 90 are rollout, sales enablement, and the first live measurement cycle.
On the client side we need access to your CRM deal history, current rate cards or master service agreements, and time with whoever runs sales and finance, since pricing decisions this consequential cannot be made from marketing alone. On our side, one strategist owns the engagement and pulls in our <a href="/services/product/">product</a> team only where pricing needs to reflect a packaging or feature-tiering change, not as a standing committee.
Cadence is weekly during the build phase, since pricing model decisions need fast iteration while they are still cheap to change, then biweekly through rollout as the sales team adjusts to the new structure. Most pricing strategy engagements for CTV adtech vendors run 3 to 4 months for the initial build and rollout, with a quarterly check-in afterward, because incumbent pricing behavior and agency buying patterns shift enough that a rate card benefits from a real review rather than running untouched for years.
What clients should expect: a rate card built around how your specific buyers transact, not a copy-paste SaaS pricing framework, a documented floor sales can actually negotiate from, and honest flags when a proposed price point does not match what the market or your cost structure will support. We will tell you when a pricing idea sounds good in a boardroom but will not survive contact with an agency buyer who has three other vendors quoting the same deal.
- Deal-level margin improvement
- Reduced discount leakage against a documented floor
- Agency spend consolidation onto a single platform relationship
- Faster quote-to-close cycle from clearer packaging
- Reduced renewal risk from usage-based billing surprises
If your ctv / connected tv company needs pricing strategy leadership, we should talk.
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Frequently asked questions
How much does a pricing strategy engagement cost for a CTV or Connected TV company?
Engagements typically run $15K-$35K for the full 90-day audit, model design, and rollout, depending on how many buyer segments and existing contracts need to be reconciled. Companies with a single rate card and few legacy agreements land at the lower end, while those with years of one-off agency deals to untangle land higher because the audit phase takes longer.
How long before we see results from a pricing strategy engagement?
The discount-leakage findings from the audit phase are usually actionable within the first 30 days, since they come directly from your own deal history. Margin improvement from the new structure takes a full sales cycle or two to show clearly, typically 60 to 120 days after rollout, because you need enough new deals closed under the new model to read the trend.
How does the pricing strategy team integrate with our existing sales and finance staff?
One strategist owns the engagement and works directly with whoever runs sales and finance, since the new rate structure has to satisfy both a rep's need to close deals and a CFO's need to forecast revenue. We pull in product only when pricing needs to map to a packaging or feature-tiering change, and we train the sales team directly on the new discount authority rather than handing over a document and leaving.
What makes Winston Francois different from a traditional pricing consultant for this category?
Most pricing consultants bring a generic SaaS framework and apply it regardless of how the business actually transacts. We start from your real cost drivers and how CTV buyers – agencies versus direct brands – actually want to negotiate, and we build the sales enablement and discount floor alongside the model instead of treating rollout as someone else's problem.
How do you measure ROI from a pricing strategy engagement?
We track deal-level margin against the pre-engagement baseline, discount leakage relative to the new documented floor, and whether agency accounts are consolidating spend the way the rebate tiers were designed to encourage. These get tied into the same pipeline reporting your board already reviews rather than a separate pricing dashboard that goes stale after the first quarter.
What type of CTV or Connected TV company is the right fit for this service?
This fits Series A through growth-stage CTV measurement vendors, SSPs, ad servers, and FAST channel operators in the roughly $5M-$100M ARR range who have outgrown an informal rate card and are seeing inconsistent discounting or margin pressure across deals. It is a weaker fit for a company still pre-revenue or with fewer than a handful of closed deals, since there is not yet enough deal history to audit or model against.
