Man, I hope they only included "pricing based on cost" for completeness. Never price based on cost! I mean, know what your costs are for each level of service,

Man, I hope they only included "pricing based on cost" for completeness. Never price based on cost! I mean, know what your costs are for each level of service, but if you are charging based solely on your cost, you're not really doing "pricing." Setting your prices based on cost is like designing a product with features instead of benefits. Does HP design printers that can fold paper airplanes? No, they design printers that print business documents faster, crisper, and more reliably, because that is of value to businesses with money. In the same way, do they price ink cartridges based on the cost of the pigments? No, they charge by value, and it is worth a lot of value to the average business to get their documents and spreadsheets printed! And don't try to justify cost-based pricing by saying customers can just implement and host their own solution using open source code. Sure... and they can make their own printer ink and load it into recycled cartridges... but effectively zero percent of people will ever do that. :)