Surveillance Pricing 101: How Companies Use Your Data to Charge You More
The Surveillance Pricing Field Guide
I came across a headline recently about companies charging people different prices for the exact same thing, based on data they'd collected about who was looking. This has been bothering me ever since.
I’m sure you have experienced this: you and a friend are sitting together looking up prices for a weekend hotel stay, and you see the exact same room for the exact same dates in the exact same location for different rates. Maybe hers is listed $34 cheaper than yours.
Y'all, it's not a glitch. It's a strategy, and it has a name: surveillance pricing.
Yet again, marketing is doing what I would consider dirty work, and it destroys consumer trust. As a marketer, I roll my eyes, roll up my sleeves, and dive into this to understand how to navigate the schemes with poise and good stewardship. Just because there is a tactic out there that “works,” doesn’t mean we need to jump on board. So let’s get into this…
What Surveillance Pricing is and Why It Should Bother You (Personally and Professionally)
What Surveillance Pricing Really Is
Surveillance pricing is the practice of using your personal data — your location, your browsing history, the device you're on, even how long you hover over a product before you buy it — to estimate exactly how much you are willing to pay, and then setting a price just for you.
This is not the same thing as dynamic pricing, which is what happens when a flight gets more expensive because seats are filling up, or a hotel room costs more on a Saturday than a Tuesday. That's responding to the market and adjusting based on supply, demand, and/or timing. Everybody looking at that flight or that room sees the same price because the price is reacting to conditions, not to you.
Surveillance pricing is different. It's not asking "what's happening in the market." It's asking "what do we know about this specific person, and how much can we get them to pay." You’ll be looking at the same product in the same minute as someone else, but see a different price, and it’s all based on data, not demand.
How Surveillance Pricing Shows Up
I want to give you real, non-hypothetical examples, because "companies use your data" can start to feel abstract, and abstract things are easy to shrug off. Are you paying attention?
Target has faced scrutiny over pricing that shifted based on a shopper's location in a parking lot. Instacart has been found showing the same discounted price to different customers while quietly displaying different "original" prices, so two people think they got two different deals, when really they paid the same amount. That sounds more like a magic trick to me.
And loyalty programs, the very thing that feels like a reward for showing up, are one of the biggest feeders into this system. Every swipe of that loyalty card teaches a company more about what you'll tolerate paying. (I said it was icky and I meant it.)
If you want the fuller picture of just how much of yourself you're handing over every time you click "accept" on a cookie banner, I wrote about that here. It's the natural prequel to this whole conversation.
What This Means For Business Owners
Here's where I have to turn the mirror around, because it would be too easy to write this whole piece pointing fingers at giant corporations and never once look at my own toolkit.
If you run a business, you almost certainly have some version of these same tools sitting in your hands right now. Email segmentation or retargeting ads are just two examples. You’ve likely employed some sort of "just for you" offers triggered by browsing behavior. None of that is inherently wrong. I use versions of it myself, and I've built them for my clients. Data, when used well, lets you serve the right person with the right offer at the right moment, instead of shouting the same message at everyone and hoping something sticks.
But… the line between "personalization" and "surveillance pricing" is thin, and it isn't drawn by the technology. It's drawn by the intention behind it. Are you using what you know about someone to serve them better, or to extract more from them? Those can look identical from the outside and be worlds apart on the inside.
I've said this before and I'll keep saying it until I'm out of breath: I view my work as presenting the right person with the right solution when they are financially, thoughtfully, and emotionally ready. I believe in presenting facts at the right time to someone who's equipped to receive them.
The Case for Stewardship
I'm a person of faith, and I don't leave that at the door when I walk into client meetings. For me, it's the whole operating system, not a coat I put on for church.
Stewardship of a customer's trust and stewardship of a customer's wallet are the same discipline wearing two different hats. If I've been given the skill to understand what moves someone toward a decision, that skill comes with an obligation, not just an opportunity. I don't think God hands out marketing talent so we can figure out how to squeeze one more dollar out of someone who's grieving, or distracted, or too busy to notice they're being charged more than the person next to them.
I know plenty of smart, capable marketers who will keep leaning into surveillance pricing and its cousins, because it works. It moves the revenue needle in the short term. I'm not interested in pretending it doesn't. But "it works" has never been the whole question for me. The whole question is whether I could explain what I did to a customer's face, in plain language, and still feel steady doing it. If the answer is no, the tactic doesn't belong in my toolkit, no matter what it does for the quarter.
What You Can Do About Surveillance Pricing
Okay, so what can we do about all of this? It feels a little overwhelming, right? Here’s my take.
As a consumer: compare prices across devices and browsers before you buy something significant like a flight, a hotel room, or any big purchase. My new favorite tactic is to use a private or incognito window. Be a little skeptical of "personalized discounts," because sometimes the discount is the whole illusion. It’s also worth noting that companies will only get the information that you give them (knowingly or not), so going analog and paying only with cash could work for those who are hyper-averse to this type of new tech scheme.
As a business owner: take an honest inventory of the data you're collecting and ask why, specifically, for each piece of it. Before you launch a personalization tactic, ask whether you'd be comfortable explaining it to the customer it's about, out loud, in real time. If that question makes you squirm, that tells you something you might want to pay attention to. Can we all agree to be responsible stewards of what’s been given to us?
Surveillance Pricing: Your Questions Answered
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Surveillance pricing is the practice of using your personal data — location, browsing history, device type, shopping behavior — to estimate how much you specifically are willing to pay, then setting a price just for you instead of showing everyone the same one.
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Currently, there's no single federal law banning it outright. The FTC has been studying the practice since 2024, and states are moving at different speeds — New York now requires businesses to disclose when a price was set by an algorithm using your personal data, and other states, including Virginia, have introduced their own bills. The legal picture is shifting fast enough that "check your state" is genuinely the honest answer right now.
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Dynamic pricing responds to the market for things like demand, timing, and/or supply. Everyone looking at the same flight or hotel room at the same moment sees the same price.
Surveillance pricing responds to you, so two people can look at the identical item at the identical moment and see two different numbers, based on what a company has learned about each of them.
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You mostly won't. It's built to be invisible. The closest thing to a tell is a price that jumps between visits, or a price that doesn't match what someone else sees for the exact same item at the exact same time.
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Several major retailers and platforms have faced scrutiny for pricing practices that fit this pattern, including incidents involving Target and Instacart. Coverage on this is still developing, so I'd hold any specific company name loosely and expect the list to grow.
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Not entirely, but you can make it harder. Compare prices across different devices and browsers before a big purchase, try a private or incognito window, treat "personalized discounts" with a little healthy skepticism, and maybe even pay with cash. Sometimes the discounts you see are doing more marketing than math.
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Yes, on two fronts. Small businesses are consumers themselves when they're buying from larger suppliers, so they can get surveillance-priced right along with everyone else. And small business owners hold lighter versions of these same data tools, which means the ethical question isn't just "how do I avoid this," it's "am I building any version of it into my own marketing."
Surveillance pricing is what happens when data collection and profit motive meet in a shady back room.
You don't have to accept that as the cost of doing business online, and you don't have to build your own business on the same foundation just because the tools are sitting right there waiting to be used. Pay attention to what you're being charged. Pay closer attention to what you're charging, and why.
Want more of this kind of thinking in your inbox once in a while, without the fluff?
I write The Marketing Minute for business owners who'd rather build something intentional than chase every trend that crosses their feed. No hype or hustle-culture guilt trips… just calm, useful thinking on marketing, one email at a time.
Next Up in the Field Guide Series:
Growing without having to constantly chase leads.
