Longtime reader Sheena wrote about my post on the heated Bento Box: “Ooh! I love this. Then I saw the price…”

HeatsBox Go is made in Switzerland and sells for US $199.

For a lunchbox, life-changing or otherwise, that’s a seriously high bar.

A very attractive product can still be killed by price. Many people will pay a premium for a product they need, but everyone has a ceiling.

And the height of that ceiling depends on a ratio of the product’s relative desirability to the resources it takes to get it.

If desirability goes up, the ceiling rises.

If perceived cost (resources) goes up, the ceiling drops.

And there’s an additional dimension.

The height of the ceiling is affected by a person’s financial situation AND where they live.

Apple’s latest iPhone highlights that ceiling nicely.

According to the iPhone 17 Affordability Index, a worker in Luxembourg needs about three days to buy a 256 GB iPhone 17 Pro.

In India, it’s 160 days — 51 times longer for the same phone.

The global average is 26 days, and even in the U.S. it’s nearly four days.

Workers in India and the Philippines log some of the world’s longest weeks but still need months of wages to afford Apple’s flagship!

Based on this index, a consumer from the HeatsBox Go’s country of origin (Switzerland) would earn enough to buy one in just 4.3 hours: it’d be paid for by lunchtime.

A Canadian worker would need about 7.2 hours. Already that value perception had better be sky-high.

The average person in India would need to work 162 hours, or just over a full working month.

Heatbox Go is gonna be an absolute no-go there, regardless of desirability.

For makers, know that value is relative, and highly variable.

Premium has got to match both need and ability to pay in your target market.

Innovation “cojones” are great.

But so is knowing when your price crosses from “premium” into “screw that!”

Want to make your product irresistible to the right people? That’s what we do as product marketing consultants at Graphos Product, helping innovators turn need-driven ideas into market-ready successes.