Most publishers think custom rate cards are a necessary part of doing business.

A large client asks for special pricing… Sales pushes for flexibility… and before long, you have dozens of “exceptions” across your business.

But what seems like a short-term win can create long-term damage.

In this video, I break down the hidden cost of custom rate cards—and why they often lead to:

Loss of pricing discipline

Increased operational complexity

Constraints on product innovation

Poor visibility into true market demand

More importantly, I walk through what to do instead, including:

How to maintain a single source of truth for pricing

Why adding value is more effective than discounting price

How to create structured flexibility without creating chaos

If you’re managing pricing, yield, or monetization at a publisher, ad tech platform, or retail media network—this is a problem you’ve likely seen firsthand.

We discuss:

Why custom rate cards erode pricing integrity

The operational burden of managing exceptions

How custom deals distort price-demand signals

Better alternatives to discounting

How to structure pricing that actually scales

These are exactly the types of pricing and yield challenges I work on with clients.

If you’re dealing with similar issues, feel free to reach out or follow along for more content.