The correct way to price any service has to be (i) in context of the industry, (ii) competitor aware, and (iii) appropriate for the service/product.
1. Context - As stated earlier, the estimate for banking Cost-to-Serve is $550/yr/client, which is $45.83. This is not charged directly to the customer but is something that is felt in either lower returns or higher fees on products. Companies do, after all, just pass costs through to their customers.
2. Competitors - There are a lot of competitors in various parts of the financial services industry when it comes to dealing with people. Some of them are free (or ad supported) while others have a periodic fee. TO go beyond the cliche "if it's free you're the product" I also think that if you are a customer and you aren't paying for something then you don't have a seat at the table. You are not in a position to be well represented when you are willingly using a product or service that you don't pay for.
3. Appropriate - Financial services must be bound by the realities of the first two points above. On the other hand, there has to be a strategy of its own. I recently read Game Changer on pricing and until I find more nuance or a better theory, this is the framework I'm going to use.
a) Most important driver - Value and competition (excluding costs)
b) Industry Structure - B2C has many buyers with a mostly shared set of problems - there are only so many when it comes to financial life. Suppliers are more constrained but barriers to entry are low and there are new companies targeting slivers of these markets all the time.
c) Best model(s) - Value (how much is created above competitors, what is it worth, and how is it split between the company and customers - see: Apple) and Choice (Building a set of features that help to further segment the market - see Salesforce).
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