K-3.6 Pricing the Thing Beside the Introduction

The Field Manual opens its pricing chapter with "Price is the fastest lever you have." On Kindling, one thing never gets a price: the introduction. Kindling defines no chargeable surface between two people (§1.3, a stated non-goal). K.3 sets the rule and its three questions, and its Money lines table shows the shapes the Kindling library offers. What gets priced is the thing beside the introduction: a membership, a day pass, a class, a ticket, a hosting plan, a shared desk, or a service someone asks for after an introduction.

Run every price in this chapter through K.3's three questions before you publish it. Every organization named here is invented by the Kindling sites, except Mycelial, which the sites label real. Spec references are to v0.1.1, as of October 4, 2026.

Three ways to set a price

The Field Manual's three methods all still work on the thing you sell.

"Value sets the ceiling, cost sets the floor, and competitors tell you where buyers' expectations sit." One adjustment, from K.3: "The value you may price is the value of the thing you sell. The introductions a Pool makes possible are why people come, and they are not yours to bill."

The library publishes one price. The invented Ferry Room, a music room, lists "$12 at the door, $8 before eight." That is a time-of-arrival tier on a ticket, and it passes all three questions. The same page says what stays free: "Nobody pays to be asked, to be found, or to be written to. Not players, not bands."

Value-based pricing, worked: an invented shared desk

The invented Threshold is, in K.3's table, "A desk for curators." Its money line: "Organizations that keep many Pools may pay for a shared desk." It describes the buyer as "A library, a festival office or a union hall." Suppose you build a desk like it, and an invented library that keeps 6 Pools asks what it would cost. Start from the library's own work, in its own numbers. Every figure in this table is an assumption for the example.

Figures checked October 2026.

At $90 a month, the desk takes 30% of the quantified value and the library keeps $210 of it. The Field Manual's caution applies: "The less proof you have, the smaller the share you can claim." Use their time logs, not your estimate.

Now run the three questions on the $90. Nobody pays more or earns more while two people have not yet met: the price is per organization. Paying changes nothing about who is shown or in what order: the desk works on the curators' side of the Pool. Payment is no condition of being listed: the library's members never see the desk. Three noes. Threshold's own page draws the same lines: "it buys nothing inside a Pool," "curators are never paid per introduction," and the desk is "Free for volunteer curators."

Asking about willingness to pay

The Field Manual's advice holds: have the willingness-to-pay conversation before you build. It cites Madhavan Ramanujam and Georg Tacke's Monetizing Innovation (2016) and the Van Westendorp method's four questions, asked about a clearly described product:

1. At what price would this be so expensive you wouldn't consider it?
2. At what price would it be expensive, but you'd still consider it?
3. At what price would it be a bargain?
4. At what price would it be so cheap you'd doubt the quality?

Ask them about the membership, the class or the desk. Never ask them about introductions, because introductions have no price to find. "Behavior is still the strongest signal." A library that signs a three-month pilot at $90 tells you more than five that say it sounds fair.

What you charge for

The library's shapes reduce the Field Manual's structure table to the units that sit beside an introduction. Usage pricing for a host's own costs has its own chapter, K-3.7.

Outcome pricing, priced per introduction or per relationship, is the unit the protocol leaves out. K-3.7 lists every form of it that is closed.

Tiering: good, better, best

The Field Manual's tiering rules carry over to hosting and memberships:

1. Tier on value drivers, such as Pools hosted, curators on the desk and the support you give, rather than arbitrary feature gates.
2. Make the middle tier the one you want most buyers on. Design it first.
3. Put one thing in the top tier that large organizations need and small ones don't. For a desk, that is handovers between curators and notes kept across a season.
4. Keep the bottom tier profitable, or account for it honestly. "A cheap tier that loses money on every customer is a marketing expense, and you should account for it that way." A free tier for volunteer curators, as Threshold offers, is that expense, chosen on purpose.
5. Show prices publicly. Threshold: "We tell them what it costs before they ask."

Tiers stop at the edge of the Pool. K.3 states the test with Card Catalog's line, "Every field, every drawer and every feature is the same for everyone," and the consequence: "A tier that opens who said yes, or a ranking, is a paywall by another name."

Memberships without pressure

The library's gym shows what a membership on Kindling leaves out. Drip Line: "No streaks, and no visit counts. We do not count how often you come, and nothing is lost if you miss a month." It sends no "we miss you" emails. The Why page explains the logic: "When you can leave without losing anyone, streaks, paywalled likes and fake urgency lose their leverage." Price the membership on what the gym gives, and keep retention honest. A member whose withdrawal any Pool must process within 60 seconds (§5.3) is someone you keep by being worth paying.

Discounts

The Field Manual's rule stands: "never give a discount without getting something back." A sample policy for a membership or a desk:

Figures checked October 2026.

Tie every time-limited discount to a date. In the Field Manual's words, a discount with no end date "is your new price."

Raising prices

On new buyers, the Field Manual's test holds: change the price, watch for four to six weeks, and read the result. On existing members:

1. Decide on grandfathering: forever, for a fixed period (commonly six to twelve months), or everyone on a date.
2. Give real notice: at least 30 days, and more for annual plans. Check your own terms, which may require a specific notice period.
3. Explain what changed, plainly.
4. Offer a price lock on the thing sold: "Switch to annual before [date] and keep your current rate for a year." The Field Manual calls this "Offer a lock-in." On Kindling it is a lock on a price and never on a Pool.
5. Talk to your largest buyers personally before the notice goes out.

An invented notice, for illustration only:

Subject: Membership price change on [date]

On [date], the monthly membership moves from $[old] to $[new]. Your current rate holds until [date, six months out], or for a full year if you switch to annual billing before [date].

Nothing about any Pool changes. Your page, your Pools and your place in them stay exactly as they are, whatever you decide.

Subscription rules to check

Memberships renew, so the Field Manual's paragraph applies as written. "At the federal level, the FTC's 2024 'click-to-cancel' amendments to its Negative Option Rule were vacated by the Eighth Circuit in July 2025. The FTC restarted rulemaking in 2026, and it continues to enforce the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act (ROSCA) against confusing subscription practices. Many states have their own automatic-renewal laws with specific disclosure and cancellation requirements." The status is moving; verify it before you design your checkout. This is not legal advice; for subscription terms, a short consult with a lawyer is cheap insurance.

Pricing a service someone asks for

Some library shapes sell a service after an introduction. Hearthhold: "We charge only for help after two people decide to build something together, and only if they ask." The invented matchmakers at Late Supper cook private dinners, which "pays for Late Supper." K.3 sets the limit: such a service "is sold after the introduction and only on request, and it is never tied to the next one." What happens between the two people stays theirs. Ferry Room: "If a band asks what a sub costs, the answer is between the band and the player."

Price the service with the Field Manual's structures, minus the one that pays on results:

Then set it the Field Manual's way:

1. Find your floor. Target income plus overhead plus taxes (Vol 5), divided by realistic billable hours. Plan on perhaps half to two-thirds of working time being billable.
2. Find the value of the help to the people asking for it.
3. Check the market as a reference point. It isn't a ceiling.
4. Price the offer, not the hour. Package the work into named offers with fixed prices.

Field exercises

1. Write out every line of your price list and run K.3's three questions on each. Done when every line passes with three noes, or the lines that failed are gone.
2. Build a value table for one membership, class or hosting plan, using the buyer's own numbers. Done when you have a quantified monthly value and know what share your price captures.
3. Ask the four Van Westendorp questions in your next three conversations about the thing you sell. Done when you have three sets of answers and a note on where "expensive but I'd consider it" lands.
4. Write your discount policy as a table that includes the no-placement row. Done when every allowed discount names what you get back and none touches a Pool.
5. Put a price-review date on your calendar within the next six months. Done when the event exists with this chapter linked in it.

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Rewritten for the Kindling edition from Chapter 3.6 of The Solo Operator's Field Manual. The full chapter is on solo.joshwolf.net. © 2026 Josh Wolf, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Quotations from the Kindling Protocol Specification v0.1.1: © 2026 TranquilTech and Kindling spec contributors, CC BY 4.0, marked where shortened.