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4.4 Risk-Based Pricing Patterns

Risk-Based Pricing Patterns in Odoo

1. The Central Dilemma

Pricing for Asset-Based Services must do two things at once: make offers feel attractive and simple to customers, and quietly price-in very real risks around asset loss, overstay, and collateral erosion. If we over-index on risk, products feel punitive and adoption suffers; if we under-index, the business carries hidden liabilities that show up later as write-offs, disputes, or unscalable economics.

This section does not define a single tariff. Instead, it describes patterns that commercial teams can combine with the basic pricing types in 1-pricing-types.md and the risk mechanics in 3-risks-and controls.md.

2. Mapping Risk Drivers to Price Components

Use the risk dimensions from 3-risks-and controls.md to decide which price components to expose in Odoo:

  • Time in custody → overstay fees or extended custody surcharges.
  • Asset value exposure → deposit levels and non-refundable risk fees.
  • System resource occupancy → quotas or block pricing for swap counts or kWh.
  • Behavioural and credit risk → different plan variants or required deposits by segment.

All of these should appear as normal Odoo products, fees, or price list rules so that they remain transparent and auditable.

3. Guardrails for Commercial Teams

When designing risk-based pricing:

  • Start from customer-facing simplicity; keep the number of visible fees low.
  • Prefer bundled plans (where risk premium is baked into a simple monthly price) over long lists of penalties.
  • Use deposits and overstay fees primarily as behaviour-shaping tools, not as profit centers.
  • Document patterns explicitly so that different markets do not invent incompatible one-off hacks.

4. Where to Document Details

  • Use 1-pricing-types.md for who pays what via which channel (retail, B2B, agent, partner).
  • Use 2-price-management.md for how prices and fees are maintained in Odoo.
  • Use 3-risks-and controls.md for the underlying risk narrative and control mechanisms.
  • Use this file to capture the evolving catalogue of risk-pricing patterns that link those concepts together.