Values, trust, anticipation: What next for price innovation in 2026?

Humans have been thinking about pricing throughout the ages, with the roots of some of today’s most common pricing models evolving over centuries.

The dynamic ‘surge’ models of digital marketplaces like Uber are today’s version of ancient market traders bartering over goods and services, while the first example of a subscription model can be traced back to the 1600s with Minsheu’s The Guide into Tongues.

It was 17th century merchant John Wanamaker, meanwhile, who introduced the concept of fixed pricing, based on his belief that “if everyone was equal before God, then everyone should be equal before price”.

Today, pricing strategies are driven by changing consumer behaviour, market conditions and increasingly sophisticated technologies, but the aims remain the same: to generate revenue, create value and engender loyalty. To price successfully is what helps businesses operate competitively and sustainably.

The trouble for many modern marketers is that pricing strategies typically sit within finance departments. They are aimed at maintaining gross margins and, because innovation brings risk, it can be difficult to get CFOs to take a gamble on new models and strategies.

“It means pricing choices are often oriented around discounting and price elasticity,” says Marketing Week columnist and director of Passionbrand, Helen Edwards. “So it’s rare to have a truly innovative strategy around price.”

Marketers have a vital role to play in pricing. They are the people who should be uncovering how the buyer is feeling about the product and proposition.

Graham Wylie

That said, it feels like there is movement in the market and change is afoot. With the UK economy set to face another tough year in 2026, it is arguably even more important brands get their price strategies right. So how are marketers approaching price innovation in 2026 and ensuring they have a seat at the table?

In 2014, the Tetreneu Club in Barcelona introduced a pricing system that literally put a price on laughter. Entry to the comedy club was free and using facial recognition technology audience members were only charged when they laughed. It was so popular the system boosted both audience numbers and revenue per spectator.

In 2025, Wizz Air saw similar success with its ‘All You Can Fly’ membership offering, which allows passengers to book as many flights as they like within 12 months. This is another example of a values-based offering, but centred around a different behaviour: spontaneity.

“These are great examples of giving people value through imaginative thinking about pricing,” says Edwards. “Yes [All You Can Fly] was about price, but the way it was positioned was more about the excitement of spontaneity. For Wizz Air, it was about being able to use up inventory. For the person who buys it, it is about being seen as a spontaneous person.”

Ryanair closes loyalty programme after eight months

According to the airline, members use their pass nine times a year on average, with some people taking more than 100 trips annually. With plans to expand the scheme in 2026, the scheme is poised to play a significant role in the business’ overall growth strategy.

“The response has exceeded our expectations and shows that demand for affordable and flexible travel is stronger than ever,” says Wizz Air commercial officer, Silvia Mosquera. “Next year is all about growth and continuing to expand our fleet and network. All You Can Fly will play an important part in helping us achieve those goals.”

Successful innovation can bring its own issues. In December, Ryanair axed its ‘Prime’ membership programme after eight months, saying the trial cost more than it generated.

Launched in March 2025, the scheme offered members access to exclusive sales, free seats on up to 12 flights and travel insurance for £79 a year. The trial signed up 55,000 members and generated over €4.4m (£3.86m) in subscription fees. However, Prime customers received more than €6m (£5.27m) in fare discounts.

According to Ryanair CMO Dara Brady, the level of subscription revenue did not justify the airline’s “time and effort” and new sign-ups were suspended.

Personal to anticipatory

Loyalty programmes are not new, but remain a popular way for brands to engage and transact with customers, with some statistics suggesting more than 90% of companies have one.

New Look has been dabbling in new price offerings over the past 12 months, launching its first loyalty programme at the end of 2025. In line with changing shopper habits and expectations for more personalised content, chief customer officer Clare Dobbie saw an opportunity to create more than just a generic rewards scheme.

She spent the past year building the tech and data infrastructure to ensure Club New Look can meet customers’ evolving needs.

“Today’s shoppers expect brands to recognise them, understand their preferences and make the experience feel effortless,” says Dobbie.

Key benefits of the free-to-join scheme include weekly discounts, early access and member-only prize draws. The move has paid off so far, with New Look amassing 800,000 members in the first couple of months and aiming for 1 million by the end of the fiscal year.

Pricing choices are often oriented around discounting and price elasticity. So it’s rare to have a truly innovative strategy around price.

Helen Edwards

The real indicators, however, are behavioural, says Dobbie. While sign-ups are important, she is more interested in whether customers are redeeming offers, exploring personalised edits or taking part in early access events.

“Longer term, success looks like deeper loyalty,” she adds. “It’s about building a relationship that feels genuinely useful and personal.”

Only a few months in and there are already plans to evolve the scheme this year, taking it from one that is personalised to “anticipatory”.

“We’ll be using customer signals to refine benefits and introduce new features that feel intuitive and timely, to streamline the shopping journey even further,” says Dobbie. “We’ll continue to listen closely to customer feedback and adapt the scheme around what our shoppers tell us they value.”

The ultimate goal is to ensure Club New Look becomes a natural part of how customers shop with the retailer.

A common currency

Whether operating in B2C or B2B, a fundamental part of the pricing conversation is about making sure both brands and customers feel like they are getting a fair value exchange.

According to Edwards, an effective pricing strategy is based on fairness, because it is about a long-term, sustainable consumer relationship.

“In the end, we know what the currency is for consumers making choices: it’s trust. If consumers feel like you’ve charged them too much, or they come to realise they’ve paid too much, then you’ve lost the trust and probably the business for the long term,” she notes.

There are important nuances, however. B2C pricing is often simple, fixed and focused on tactics that create desire and impulse, such as promotional offers and discounting. Marketers can generally be more agile in how they approach price points and promotional spaces, as they have greater control over their channels.

Within FMCG, marketing and innovation director at food firm Pilgrim’s Europe, Chris Doe, sees a need to work collaboratively with retailers to ensure pricing strategies are aligned to “deliver maximum value” with the right price points and promotions. By contrast, Doe notes DTC brands have more control by virtue of owning their channels, meaning they can change things quickly.

Where marketing can really add value to the conversation is the fact they are doing the research, they are connected to consumers.

Chris Doe, Pilgrim’s

Ultimately, for a brand like Pilgrim’s, retailers want the confidence it is going to make the right pricing decisions in order to drive incremental growth into the category.

“It’s about trying to find that sweet spot between both sides’ agendas that is going to drive collective growth,” adds Doe. “In terms of pricing, it’s about making sure that you are adding value to consumers’ lives with your proposition and that you’re justifying the premium that you offer.”

While some B2B businesses have less control over their pricing, making it harder to adjust pricing strategies quickly and creatively, there are voices in the industry who believe the boundaries with B2C are blurring.

According to Graham Wylie, who most recently served as CMO of global payments and payroll company Activpayroll, rising prices are pushing more B2C products into a considered purchase where shoppers seek information from people they know or opinions they trust.

“Word-of-mouth, review and comparison sites form a virtual decision making unit for things the individual might have decided on alone in the past,” he explains.

In B2B, those same virtual communities can mean buyers feel more confident making a decision at a higher price point and firms can pilot new products more easily – particularly in SaaS – experimenting with different price points and messaging.

“In recent years, marketing in B2B has become more emotional and more personalised to the early adopter to try to land and expand,” adds Wylie. “These internal champions can explain why companies often buy from a preferred brand.”

A vital role

According to Marketing Week’s 2025 Career & Salary survey, only a third of marketers have influence over their business’s pricing strategy.

While finance departments may hold the budget and have the final say, that shouldn’t mean marketers are sidelined from the conversation. They are, after all, the gateway between the boardroom and the customer

“Marketers have a vital role to play in pricing,” says Wylie. “They are the people who should be uncovering how the buyer is feeling about the product and proposition, and bringing customer insight to the table. If marketing isn’t in the room when the pricing conversations happen you have a finance-led mindset, whereas marketers can drive a broader conversation around what price does for the business.”

Many businesses – particularly in industries such as retail, software and hospitality – will have a strong revenue management function in-house, which sits separately from finance and is geared solely towards looking at how to evolve pricing, and maximise profit by selling the right product at the right time.

Why do only a third of marketers have influence over pricing?

“Where marketing can really add value to the conversation is the fact they are doing the research, they are connected to consumers,” Doe adds.

“They understand the types of pain points consumers have and therefore can have a really strong point of view on what is the role of pricing to address that problem and how does it fit with what we’re trying to do with the brand overall?”

For New Look, pricing strategies are the result of a collaborative effort from its entire customer team: insights, data analysts, marketers, traders and creatives. Objectives and key results are centred around driving customer lifetime value.

“We know that price perception, value and experience are deeply linked, so alignment is crucial,” says Dobbie. “In working this way, and in partnership with our buying and merchandising teams, we increasingly deliver the right product, pricing and promotion that represent real value, that resonates with customers and strengthens trust.”

Ultimately, Doe stresses pricing shouldn’t be innovative for the sake of it. It should be a solution to a real brand or category challenge, or behaviour change a brand wants to drive.

All the things marketers know better than anyone.