Help me perfect a pup pricing formula!

Hello! I'm trying to develop a rough pricing formula for selling my pups because frankly I like spreadsheets and consistency, and I'd love the input of other players in helping me create it! Here's what I have so far: (I'm sorry that its not a very clean formula to read since its formulated more to work in excel!)

Price in SC = [20+(M*10)] * [S] * [T] * [P] * [R] * [V]

Marking modifier: M = number of markings

Sex modifier: if male, S=0.5; if female, S=1

Tier modifier: if Tier 1, T=1; If Tier 2, T=5

Potato check: if Male AND Tier 1, P=0.5; if not, P=1

Rarity check: if Base is rarer than 0.4%, then R = 2; if not, R=1

Valuable check: if female AND Tier 2, V=2; if not, V=1

So, for example, a Tier 2 Lavender female with 5 markings would be worth quite a lot at 1400 SC because:

M = 5 ; S = 1 ; T = 5 ; P = 1 ; R = 2 ; V = 2 --> Price = [20+(5*10)] * 1 * 5 * 1 * 2 * 2 = [70] * 20 = 1400

Whereas a Tier 1 Marengo male with just 2 markings would be worth almost nothing at 10 SC because:

M = 2 ; S = 0.5 ; T = 1 ; P = 0.5 ; R = 1 ; V = 1 --> Price = [20+(2*10)] * 0.5 * 1 * 0.5 * 1 * 1 = [40] * 0.25 = 10

If you'd like to see more examples of the formula in action to get a feel for it, I've used it for all the pups in my den sales.

Here's where you come in!! What I'm most curious about is:

a) is the Tier 2 modifier too high? Currently I'm assuming that a Tier 2 is worth about 5 times more than a Tier 1, and a Tier 2 female worth about 10x more, but is that right?

 b) how could we change this formula to take stats into account? 

d) should the presence of RMA-only markings (merle, tamaskan, inuit, etc) affect the price, and if so how?

c) other than stats and RMA-markings, what does this formula miss that you factor into your own pricing when selling pups? age? rarer eyes? heat? sheer prettiness? etc?

Thank you so much for even reading this far! I know its a bit dorky, but I'm rubbish at math so I've been trying to find excuses to practice it more in my life, and thought hey, why the hell not try to figure out some stuff with math in Wolvden! I also recognize that trying to create a "one size fits all" formula for a constantly shifting market is inherently never going to be perfect, but I thought it might be fun to try and figure one out anyways. Please don't hesitate to add your thoughts and let me know what you think, or ask questions if you don't understand anything above!

(Also if anyone wants to see the actual spreadsheet lemme know and I'll share it with you k thx bai)

I love your potato modifier xD

im thinking break stats into tiers and have each tier have a modifier

tier 1: < 200 total stats

tier 2: 200 - 300 stats

Etc.

I imagine adding in modifiers for breed only and rma only markings and bases since these do influence people’s decision to purchase. If inbreeding happens in your den I would also suggest adding a clean/inbred modifier.

This was very interesting thanks for putting the time and effort into it.

@Cloudeh all really good suggestions thank you!! I love your idea of creating a modifier based on rank scales by 100s, that would be very clean to implement - any ideas on how much to bump up each level? Maybe:

<200 --> 0.75

200-300 --> 1

300-400 ---> 1.5

400+ ---> 2

I don't have as good a sense for how valuable high stat wolves are compared to their same lower-stat counterparts so I'm guessing a fair bit with these!

And yes I think you're right, RMA markings and breed-only bases should factor in somehow. 

Would you say clean is more valuable than unclean?

(and thank you XD I couldn't think of what to call that variable and then remembered the "potato" shorthand and it fit!!)

I would definitely say clean wolves are worth more since there seem to be lots of dens focused on it. A clean wolf can be purchased by someone who isn’t bothered by inbreeding or who is while an unclean pup is only going to interest people who don’t care.

As someone very interested in breeding for stats I’m willing to pay considerably more for a wolf with 400 stats than its lower statutes counterpart. I’m fairly new to the game though and I’ve just now got my first litter brewing so I don’t have experience selling only buying. Your modifiers seem reasonable to me so far but I’d be curious to see them in action. 

I think an important think to note right now is that it can be a huge pain selling pups for higher prices, especially right now where the market is just saturated in pups. So although those higher prices could work regularly, it'll definitely be harder right now.

I imagine a system of selling pups for one price and pups that make it to adols getting a huge discount could be a good way to see if their are any takers without losing the chance to sell the wolf at all. 

yeah i think a lot of people do that! like ive seen on flatsale threads that if the pup makes it to the adol stage then they get very reduced in prices. some people have an issue with waiting that long though too, only because that means they have extra mouths to feed that they dont necessarily want. 

Age is a complicated consideration because I've seen exactly what you two are talking about (reducing prices to encourage offers as pups age) but also the opposite, where people are willing to pay more for adols or adults because they don't have to wait around to get use out of them. Its so tricky! I think as long as pups are just cute and can't be used or trained in any way its going to be hard to figure out what life stage is the most valuable... but maybe more research is needed!!!

@Wolfy to your point about market saturation - could we add that to the equation somehow? Like a binary "yes/no" variable where if the market is oversaturated you can factor in a modifier that would lower the price? Say 2/3s or so? More? Less? I'm hoping the market will level out soon as the sudden flood of new folks tapers off but thats not a given - I think high prices scare folks off a lot these days and people are still not super sure when to offer lower than the buyout or not. 

@Cloudeh thanks for your insight on clean vs unclean! Maybe if they're a clean breed keep it at the same rate but if they're inbred lower the price a bit? I'll play around with that and see what that does to pup prices. 

Thank you both for your help, this is hugely useful <3 also new folks feel free to chime in!

Subscribing so I can contribute tomorrow. Too tired for numbers tonight XD

Woohoo this is were all the math/stats people are!

I am just starting to get into the selling game and started out on this problem independently myself. Though mine is in my head, thus very course yours on the other hand is very well thought out, good job.

I have defiantly considered RMA markings in my price point, but instead of doing a multiplying I have been doing an addition. So that normal markings, are 10SC to 100SC (full slots), and RMA markings are worth 50sc.

For the overpopulation/market in account I would consider making the overall formula divided by a market modifier (I currently don't know how to quantify this), so when its over saturated, market modifier is high the overall price drops and vice-versa.