The fastest lever most PE firms still leave on the table
Every operating partner knows the playbook: cut costs in the first hundred days, stabilize operations, then build toward growth. But the single fastest path to EBITDA improvement — pricing — is routinely underexploited, misunderstood, or delegated to someone in finance who inherited a spreadsheet three owners ago.
The math is not complicated. A 1% improvement in price realization, holding volume constant, drops directly to the bottom line. For a $100M revenue business with 15% EBITDA margins, that 1% price improvement represents a 6.7% increase in EBITDA — achieved without hiring a single rep, closing a single new logo, or cutting a single cost. McKinsey's pricing practice has published this analysis repeatedly. Simon-Kucher has built an entire firm around it. And yet, in portfolio company after portfolio company, the pricing architecture is a tangle of inherited rate cards, legacy discount approvals that nobody can trace, and contract renewal terms that were set by a VP who left two years ago.
We publish independent research to help PE operating teams and deal teams navigate the growing landscape of pricing strategy providers. Our analysis is based entirely on publicly available evidence: vendor websites, published methodologies, case studies, testimonials, and pricing disclosures.
Start here
Pricing Strategy for PE Portfolio Companies [2026 Guide] — A category overview covering what to look for in a pricing partner, a capability matrix across 10 providers, and detailed vendor notes with harvey ball ratings.
Provider Comparisons — Head-to-head analyses of specific providers, with scoring matrices, deal fit guides, and real-world scenario recommendations.
Why this exists
PE firms have discovered — often painfully — that pricing is not a project. It is a capability. The portfolio companies that sustain margin improvement beyond the first rate increase are the ones that build pricing governance, implement dynamic pricing infrastructure, and embed pricing discipline into the commercial operating rhythm. The provider landscape now includes everything from global strategy firms with dedicated pricing practices to AI-native software platforms that adjust prices in real time. We are here to help operating teams decide which approach fits their portfolio company, their hold period, and their value creation plan.