436 Int. J. Entrepreneurship and Small Business, Vol. 16, No. 4, 2012 Copyright © 2012 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. Entrepreneurial pricing: characteristics and implications of pricing in SMEs and start-ups Florian U. Siems* RWTH Aachen University, Kackertstrasse 15-17, 52072 Aachen, Germany E-mail: florian.siems@wiwi.rwth-aachen.de *Corresponding author Sascha Kraus University of Liechtenstein, Fürst-Franz-Josef-Strasse, FL-9490 Vaduz, Liechtenstein E-mail: sascha.kraus@uni.li Patrick Pollok RWTH Aachen University, Kackertstrasse 15-17, 52072 Aachen, Germany E-mail: pollok@tim.rwth-aachen.de Abstract: Pricing is a classical marketing instrument. While it affects companies of all sizes and categories, scientific research often sees pricing as focused on large enterprises, particularly the consumer products industry. In the limited amount of articles on SMEs and/or start-ups, new developments in pricing and/or marketing often receive no attention. The following paper aims to address this: using the most current findings from marketing research, its goal is to show which characteristics result for pricing in SMEs and start-ups, and which implications for management can be derived from them. Keywords: entrepreneurship; pricing; SMEs; start-ups. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Siems, F.U., Kraus, S. and Pollok, P. (2012) ‘Entrepreneurial pricing: characteristics and implications of pricing in SMEs and start-ups’, Int. J. Entrepreneurship and Small Business, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp.436–454. Biographical notes: Florian U. Siems is a Junior Professor and leads the Business-to-Business Marketing Group at RWTH Aachen University. Before beginning his recent position in Aachen in fall 2008, he was a Professor for Marketing and the Head of the Marketing Department at the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences in Austria (2005 to 2008). His research focus is in the field of marketing strategy, relationship marketing, customer satisfaction and pricing management.