Price from the client's upside, not your own wallet
Last Friday’s call turned into a long one on pricing.
One member had two quotes out, one at $650 and one at about $1,000, and wasn’t sure if it was too much. I get it. If you’re thinking about a personal consumer expense, $1,500 or $2,000, that’s a lot of money. We had to replace our hot water heater, and it was literally $2,000. It kind of ruined the week. Professionally, it’s relative.
But if you’re building something for a client, forget about how much time it costs you. Think just about what it’s doing for the client. What is it unlocking for them? Say a speaker does three gigs a year off a 12-year-old Wix page. With a new site, they could book more, sell the book and sell coaching right off it. They aren’t paying $2,000 for a website. They’re paying for that. At $2,000, you’re getting the bad end of the deal, and they might not trust you can do it.
Dan Mall calls it a slice of the pie. Work out what the work is worth to the client and ask for a slice of it. Bigger client, bigger pie. Smaller client, smaller slice, and a smaller offer that doesn’t eat your time. And the less you’ve done it before, the smaller the slice you get to ask for.
Then know your floor: what you need personally plus what the business costs to run. That’s what you make before you’ve made any money.
I wrote the longer version up here: How to price a project when the number feels too high
A few other things that came up:
- How do you tell which sales came from your emails when ads and email send people to the same Shopify checkout? (Separate landing pages per entry point if you need 100% certainty. Otherwise, consistent UTM parameters on every email link, GA4 and your pixel, then a GA4 report for revenue from that campaign. GA4’s AI assistant can help you build it.)
- A client wants an hourly breakdown of your quote. Do you give one? (One member doesn’t quote hourly at all. If they want to pay less, change the scope, not the rate.)
- Can’t the client just build it with AI? (Sure. I use Claude too. I can also buy a violin. Owning the tools doesn’t make you the pro.)
- A long-time client won’t answer emails or texts. Now what? (Walk in. Buy something while you’re there. Give them a simple choice, and let them know you’re not asking for money.)
This is what the Friday calls are. Practical, collaborative, no bells and whistles.
If you can’t make it, every session gets recorded and added to a private library that’s chapter-marked and summarized, so you can find the bit that matches whatever you’re stuck on.
Talk soon,
Brad