The Federal Trade Commission has extended the public comment period on its proposed policy statement about personalized pricing.
The new deadline is Sept. 25, 2026, which gives businesses one more week to weigh in on a rulemaking idea that is still very much alive. The FTC says personalized pricing means using personal data to set a price a company believes a specific customer will pay. FTC press release
For small businesses, the practical point is simple: if your pricing changes by customer, by behavior, or by system logic, you should be able to explain it in plain English.
Why Owners Should Care
Most owners are not building elaborate dynamic pricing systems.
But plenty of businesses are already doing some version of it:
- quote software that nudges a price up or down
- AI tools that suggest discounts
- memberships or subscriptions with hidden logic
- CRM-based offers that are not disclosed clearly
That is where the risk lives. It is not just about whether the price is legal. It is about whether a customer thinks they were shown one thing and charged another.
If the pricing logic is invisible, trust gets expensive fast.
The Owner Takeaway
If your business changes prices based on customer data, now is a good time to audit three things:
- What data affects the final price
- Whether the customer is told that pricing is personalized
- Whether your sales team can explain the logic without improvising
If any of those answers are fuzzy, tighten them before the FTC turns this from a policy question into a bigger enforcement story.
The safest move is not to hide clever pricing. It is to make sure the customer can understand it.