Pricing is def a dark art but this seems like the exact opposite of what to do.

Asking people who are not your target customers what the price should be should get you an answer to price it to be free. These people will not think it is worth more or less than you're thinking as they dont need it. If they offer a price, they're guessing since what you have is not something that solves a pain for them.

Instead, talk to customers early and saying "we are doing x to solve y pain and are thinking of charging $z. What do you think?". If they vomit all over the price, then you know you're too high. If they don't get into price cuz they don't get the product, then you got different problems to solve before pricing.

In general, for these convos, I think going higher with this initial pricing is better as it has price anchoring benefits and it's much easier to go down then up in subsequent convos.

The point is, you should ask someone how much they'd be willing to pay. Even nontarget customers will give you some sort of ballpark value that's better than guessing in a vacuum.

But of course, target customers are better. I have a feeling most people when starting out, don't even ask those, but just take the "expenses plus a bit of margin = price" formula.

I agree with second part being a pitfall, but re: ask someone/anyone, let me illustrate why this is problematic.

A friend of mine was starting a subscription ecommerce site targeted at women (clothing & makeup primarily). She asked me about pricing (I'm a guy) I used all my "knowledge" to offer up my thoughts on price and then she asked "would your wife or sister use it at that price?" and I couldn't say. At that moment, it became apparent to both of us that although my pricing logic seemed ok in a theoretical, consulting-esque way, I was actually a pretty useless windbag in this circumstance.

I fear asking non-customers just risks getting at very wrong pricing - garbage in, garbage out. And also risks you missing out on great product feedback as well.

I've learned from research and experience that you shouldn't ask anyone how much they're willing to pay for anything. You pick the price you want them to pay and adjust accordingly based on your goals. Do you want a lot of sales at a low price or a few sales at a high price? How low can you go while still turning a profit? It's a lot of experimentation and you also have to consider your competition and myriad of small things. But you just can't base your price off of what people say they'd pay. You and your customers will always have competing interests when it comes to price. They want to get as much as they can for as little as possible while you want to maximize profits. You'll know you priced your product right when you hit your revenue goals.

It's actually way more complicated than that but for the love of god just don't ask people what they'd pay. People are terrible about managing hypothetical money and purchases.

"and experience that you shouldn't ask anyone how much they're willing to pay for anything."

My experience, over many years, is the same as well.

People first of all don't even know what they will pay. They can be manipulated into paying more than they were willing to by anchoring and a whole host of negotiating tactics. As another example, just take a look at the way that auctions work. You might decide upfront you will only pay $100 for an item but if someone outbids you the thought of losing the item when you can offer $5 more draws you into bidding more than you would have expected to.

Also look at the way infomercials work in manipulating people to make purchases. "What if we told you this costs $15, well it's $10 and we're going to give you 2 of them". Etc.