12th December 2023

How to price my pet health plan

Are you unsure of how to price your pet health plan correctly? Does the thought of figuring out the right price for you and your practice as well as your loyal clients seem challenging? If so, this blog is for you!

It can be perilous task, but it is fundamental to the success of your health plan, both financially and clinically.

Price it too high, you risk diminishing its value and annoying your loyal clients who work hard to look after their animals OR price it too low, you risk minimising your growth potential.

Both options can lead you down a tiresome road but we’re here to help!

Step 1 – Clarify your practice ethos.

This means defining what best practice looks like for you.

A healthcare plan is there to support what you believe will help change the client’s behaviour and pet’s health. That also means that you need to define what behaviour you want to see. Would you like to increase antiparasitic treatment compliance? Are you concerned about dental care, and would like you like annual dental checks? Understanding the outcomes you would like to see are essential when planning you health care plan.

Example – What vaccinations and medications do you define as
core to best practice?

Step 2 – What is the cost to me?

You’ve taken the time to assess what you want to provide as part of a preventative plan, but you need to figure out how much all of this will cost you and decipher if everything you desire is realistic.

A good starting point is to check what are the most expensive and most common combinations of products that are needed to fulfil your ethos. If you would like advice on how to price your plan to be of benefit to you and your clients, click here and one of our experts will contact you. https://premiervetalliance.com/uk/contact/

Step 3 – Understand client price and perception of value

You need to research how much your client would normally pay for the required plan items and how many of them are deemed to be important to them, rather than simply important to you.

You need to stay true to your ethos but if it is widely different from your client’s interests, you might need to scale back.

Example – Your ethos suggests you want to include a blood and urine screen however, you know it isn’t valuable to your younger pets (any pet under seven years) and therefore it is of decreasing value for that audience. Your next question is to decide whether to include it, so they use at a later date, or take them out and continue to sell that part of the plan separately. You could offer an exclusive discount to plan members.

Example – Your ethos suggests you want to include a blood and urine screen however, you know it isn’t valuable to your younger pets (any pet under seven years) and therefore it is of decreasing value for that audience. Your next question is to decide whether to include it, so they use at a later date, or take it out and continue to sell that part of the plan separately.

Step 4 – Add an additional hook

Providing additional benefits to hook your client into a health plan are a really easy way to make it more desirable to them.

Example – You could add discounted consultations or even unlimited consultations, as part of being part of a health plan.

You could even add on home delivery (find more info on post2pet here) to increase compliance and foster additional engagement between the client and your practice.

Step 5 – Create ‘KISS’ plans

Keep. It. Simple. Stupid.
You may consider creating a few plans per species / size, so, to make sure it isn’t too confusing for the client, these need to be clearly outlined with each having a specific purpose.

Top tip – It is not easy to change the price once you’ve officially launched and communicated to your audience. Do your workings twice and seek expert advice in this area to make sure all of the numbers add up.

We price up plans every day and when working with a practice, we even enlist an internal expert to check everything adds up.

Message one of our coaches today.

Step 6 – Set the price

The last step, and often the most difficult part to commit to. Remember, if you address points 1 to 5, this will be a lot easier.

The final price needs to drive the behaviour you want from your client, but you need to also analyse the profit of a plan against your standard client base, to make sure it doesn’t cost you money.

You need to look back carefully at step 2 and 3 and work out what profit is being driven by the items you are set to include. This will enable you to select an appropriate price for each plan. Help is just a click away, if you’d like some expert advice on the best way to arrive at the right prices. https://premiervetalliance.com/uk/contact/

Example – Your client currently buys a three pack of flea treatment for the year and is therefore non-compliant, but you want them to invest in a three pack every three months (12 packs in total to ensure annual cover).

The price increase associated with a purchase of 12 packs (up from 3) will be too great of a commitment / financial leap for many clients and therefore you need to select a price which is more appealing by employing a bulk discount.

We price plans every day and when working with a practice, we even enlist an internal expert to check everything adds up.

Message one of our expert coaches today.