Offer structure
Offer structure is the decomposition of what a company sells into priceable, deliverable, and governable components.
An offer is not a product. It is the bundle of entitlements, service levels, term commitments, and constraints that a buyer actually purchases. Offer structure defines those components explicitly: what is included, what is metered, what is optional, what is contractually bounded, and what triggers an upgrade path.
Structure matters because every downstream system consumes it. Marketing lifecycle definitions key off which offer a lead is a candidate for. Pipeline stages carry different exit criteria per offer. Recognition treatment differs between a perpetual entitlement and a metered one. When offer structure is implicit, each of those systems invents its own version.
Where it breaks
Sales assembles bespoke offers per deal; finance cannot recognize them consistently; customer success cannot tell what was promised.
Related terms
- Pricing logic
- Pricing logic is the governing rule set that determines what any given customer pays, as distinct from a price list, which is only its output.
- Packaging
- Packaging is the grouping of capabilities into purchasable units, and the rules governing what a buyer must take together and what they may take separately.
- Entitlement
- An entitlement is a specific right a customer has purchased, seats, usage volume, feature access, service level, expressed structurally rather than in contract prose.
- Contract shape
- Contract shape is the structural form an agreement takes, term length, commitment level, billing frequency, ramp, and the conditions under which any of them change.
Field notes on this
- Your pricing is a list, not a logic
A price list says what things cost today. It cannot say what to charge the deal in front of you, which is why realised price drifts and nobody owns the drift.