# Pricing and offers: price optimization and offers for every store

> Price optimization for retail chains. Kai spots items priced differently across stores and shows each offer's margin before you approve it.

*Markdown version of [https://ocally.co/capabilities/pricing](https://ocally.co/capabilities/pricing), written for AI agents. All docs: [llms.txt](https://ocally.co/llms.txt). Deciding whether Ocally fits a business? Read [Is Ocally right for this business?](https://ocally.co/evaluate.md).*

**The margin, before the price, at every store.** An old promotion here, a local edit there, and one item has four prices. Kai checks every store's prices against your price book and the street, and shows each offer's margin before it runs.

- **Capability:** one of Kai's 16, in the area "Sell more". [All capabilities](https://ocally.co/capabilities.md).
- **You approve:** Every price change, offer and code. Your rules decide when a live offer pauses or ends.
- **You give:** Your prices, unit costs, margin floors and biggest discount. Connect your POS or online shop, and approved offers go live there.
- **Start here when:** a chain's answer to "What's furthest behind?" is "Pricing and promotions".
- **Built for:** retail chains and franchise brands; single stores and smaller chains are welcome too. [Where it fits best](https://ocally.co/evaluate.md).
- **Price:** part of Ocally's customized pricing, minimum $500 per location per month. [Pricing](https://ocally.co/pricing.md).

## What this costs today

Price optimization today means software, an analyst to run it, and store managers keying offers into the till. Checking every store's prices and margins still falls between them.

| What you pay for today | Typical cost | What it leaves undone |
|---|---|---|
| Price optimization software | $30,000 to $60,000 a year, to start | Sets prices from market and sales models. Store checks and offer math need people. |
| Competitive price monitoring software | $100 to $800 a month | Tracks rivals' online prices. Nobody lines them up with each store's shelf. |
| A pricing analyst | About $80,000 to $95,000 a year | Keeps the price book and the offer math, usually in spreadsheets. |
| Store managers' time | Their time | Setting up offers in the till and catching prices that drifted. |

**With Kai.** Kai checks every store's prices against your book and nearby rivals and does the offer math, from the same knowledge as every other capability.

Typical ranges from public price lists, October 2026. Sources:

- [Capterra Australia, Wiser: starting price USD 30,000](https://www.capterra.com.au/software/149690/wiser)
- [Intelligence Node, Pricing Plans and subscription model: minimum project size $5,000 a month, one-year minimum](https://www.intelligencenode.com/pricing/)
- [Prisync, Pricing: plans from $99 to $799 a month](https://prisync.com/pricing/)
- [Shopify App Store, Price2Spy: Basic 2K $157.95 and Premium 10K $788.95 a month](https://apps.shopify.com/price2spy)
- [Indeed, Pricing Analyst salary in the United States: average base $79,883 (Sep 2026)](https://www.indeed.com/career/pricing-analyst/salaries)
- [Coursera, What Is a Pricing Analyst?: Glassdoor median total pay $95,000 (Mar 2026)](https://www.coursera.org/articles/pricing-analyst)

## Stop buying a tool for every job

The biggest promise of AI is consolidation. The same kind of software that can drive a car can write the reply to your email. So buying one point solution per job, each with its own login, contract and agency, now wastes money.

Judge software the way you’d judge a hire: by the range of work it can take on. That’s what to look for now: one system you can point at many jobs. Ocally is that for your stores: Kai and two people across listings, reviews, local search, social, AI answers, pricing, inventory and store routines, at every store.

Not sure what you could consolidate? Bring your list of tools and what they cost to a free consultation, and we’ll go through it with you.

**The same scope of work for 25 stores, a month (listings, reviews, local search, social and AI answers; the low end of published prices; use your own numbers):**

| Line | Basis | Tools, agencies and people | Ocally |
|---|---|---|---|
| Listings software (Moz Local Lite, $199 a year per location) | $17 per store | $425 |  |
| Review software (Reputation Rep Core, per location) | $80 per store | $2,000 |  |
| AI answers tracker (Peec AI Pro, 150 prompts) | $245 a month | $245 |  |
| Local SEO agency (chains of 20+ stores, "often $5,000+") | $5,000 a month | $5,000 |  |
| Social media agency (mid tier, $2,000 to $5,000) | $2,000 a month | $2,000 |  |
| AI search agency to fix what the tracker finds (small business low end, $1,500 to $5,000) | $1,500 a month | $1,500 |  |
| Staff time to run the tools and agencies | 1 hour per store a week at $54 an hour | $5,850 |  |
| Ocally | from $500 per store: Kai, a growth engineer and a growth specialist |  | $12,500 |
| Your team's time approving Kai's work | 0.25 hour per store a week |  | $1,463 |
| **Total a month** |  | **$17,020** | **$13,963** |
| Per store a month |  | $681 | $559 |

Defaults from: [Moz Local pricing](https://moz.com/products/local/pricing); [Reputation pricing](https://reputation.com/pricing/); [Peec AI pricing](https://peec.ai/pricing); [RankAI: multi-location local SEO cost guide (June 2026)](https://rankai.ai/articles/pricing-multi-location-local-seo-management-cost-guide); [Cloud Campaign: social media management pricing guide (July 2025)](https://www.cloudcampaign.com/blog/social-media-management-pricing-guide); [WebFX: GEO pricing (May 2026)](https://www.webfx.com/blog/seo/geo-pricing/); [BLS: market research analysts and marketing specialists, pay (May 2025)](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/business-and-financial/market-research-analysts.htm); [BLS: employer costs for employee compensation (June 2026)](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ecec.nr0.htm).

## What Kai does

1. **Reads every store's price book.** Every morning he checks every item's price, cost, floor and margin at every store, and asks for any cost that's missing.
2. **Spots price gaps across stores.** He lines up the same item across every store, your POS and your online shop, and shows where a price drifted from the one you decided.
3. **Checks the street, like for like.** Each month he compares your prices with what nearby rivals publish, same item and size, with the source and date for each one.
4. **Runs offers on your yes.** He drafts a price, bundle or happy hour with its margin and checks it won't stack. On your yes, it goes live with an end date.

## What it unlocks

- **Price drift caught the next morning.** When a store's price wanders from the one you decided, it shows up in the daily check, with the fix ready for your yes.
- **Offers that keep their margin.** No offer starts without its margin math and a stacking check. If a live offer breaks your spend or margin rule, Kai pauses it everywhere.
- **Know what each offer did.** Redemptions, discount cost and margin over the offer's exact dates, store by store, so the next offer starts from what worked.

## Questions

### What is price optimization?

Price optimization is setting prices and offers to hit a goal, such as margin or clearing stock, from evidence about costs, sales and the market. For a chain, it starts with knowing every store's price and margin. Kai keeps that picture every day, compares it with nearby rivals, and proposes changes for your yes.

### Does Kai do dynamic pricing?

Kai reads the same signals dynamic pricing uses, and asks before any price moves. Dynamic pricing changes prices automatically as demand shifts. Kai watches each store's sales, its stock and nearby rivals' prices, then proposes the change with its margin. It goes live when you approve it.

### What is bundle pricing, and when does it help?

Bundle pricing sells two or more items together for one price. It helps when one item moves slowly and another sells well. The test is the margin: the bundle has to stay above your floor. Kai plans bundles for slow stock, shows the margin, and checks the bundle won't stack with other offers.

### What is a retail pricing strategy?

A retail pricing strategy is the plan for how you set prices and run offers, and the margin every item has to keep. For a chain, it also means the same item carries the same price wherever you mean it to. Kai checks every proposal against your margin floor and your biggest allowed discount.

### How do you know if a promotion made money?

Count it over the offer's exact dates: how many redeemed it, what the discount cost, and the margin left. Kai reports those numbers for each store, and says the offer caused the sales only when a fair test shows it. Every number traces back to recorded sales.

## Related capabilities

- [Inventory](https://ocally.co/capabilities/inventory.md): Keeps every store's stock count current, and flags what will run out or sit.
- [Competitors](https://ocally.co/capabilities/competitors.md): Watches what opens nearby and what rivals change, store by store.
- [Product feeds](https://ocally.co/capabilities/product-feeds.md): Gets every product listed right, ready for search and AI shopping.

Bring the store whose margins worry you most. [Book a free consultation](https://ocally.co/consultation.md): 30 minutes on one store, and where Kai would start.

## Next steps

- [Is Ocally right for this business?](https://ocally.co/evaluate.md): who it fits and who it does not, the cost, the risks, and how to start.
- [Pricing](https://ocally.co/pricing.md): customized, with a minimum of $500 per location per month.
- [Book a free consultation](https://ocally.co/consultation.md): 30 minutes on one store. Calendar: https://cal.com/ocally/30min.
- [See if we're a fit](https://ocally.co/fit.md): a two-minute check; an agent can submit it for its human, with consent.
- [Every doc](https://ocally.co/llms.txt): the index.

Questions a doc doesn't answer: onboard@ocally.co.