MAP (Minimum Advertised Price)
A minimum advertised price (MAP) is the lowest price at which a brand or manufacturer allows its resellers to advertise a product, while the price the reseller actually charges at checkout remains the reseller's own decision. MAP restricts the advertised price — the number shown in ads, listings and on product pages — not the transaction itself. That distinction is what separates MAP from resale price maintenance.
How a MAP policy works
A brand publishes a MAP policy stating the minimum price at which each product may be advertised, and communicates it to its authorized resellers. The brand then monitors advertised prices across shops and marketplaces, contacts resellers who advertise below the minimum, and can escalate — for example by pausing supply — if violations continue. Because the same product is often sold by dozens of resellers across many sites, systematic monitoring is what makes a MAP policy enforceable in practice.
MAP vs RRP vs fixed resale price
MAP is often confused with a recommended retail price (RRP). The difference: an RRP is a non-binding suggestion, while MAP is a floor the brand actively enforces for advertised prices. A fixed resale price goes further still and dictates the actual selling price.
| RRP / MSRP | MAP | Fixed resale price | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it constrains | Nothing — a suggestion | The advertised price | The actual selling price |
| Reseller may sell lower? | Yes | Yes (but may not advertise lower) | No |
| EU competition law | Allowed if genuinely non-binding | Risky where it works like a resale price floor | In principle prohibited |
US origin, EU caution
MAP is an American concept: in the United States, MAP policies are a common and widely used instrument for protecting brand value and reseller margins. In the European Union the picture is different. Under EU competition law, imposing fixed or minimum resale prices is in principle prohibited, while recommended prices are allowed as long as they are genuinely non-binding. A MAP policy that in practice functions as a minimum resale price can fall on the wrong side of that line, which is why many European brands work with recommended prices combined with monitoring, rather than a formal MAP program. This page describes the concepts and is not legal advice.
How PricePatrol fits in
MAP monitoring is PricePatrol's core brand feature — included from the first paid brand plan, not reserved for an enterprise tier. You set a reference price per product per country (a formal MAP where you run one, or your recommended price in markets where a hard floor isn't appropriate), and PricePatrol tracks every reseller listing across shops and marketplaces, flags listings below that price automatically, and records when and where each violation happened. Weekly discovery scans surface resellers you didn't even know were listing you. The result: dated, factual evidence for the conversation with any reseller.