Pricing is the part people agonise over most and think about least clearly. You cannot cost it up from your hours, because nobody is buying your hours, they are buying a result. The number that works sits somewhere between what the outcome is worth to the client and what you can say out loud without flinching. This is how to find it.
Price on the value of the outcome you deliver, not on the hours you spend or what it costs you to deliver. Set a floor from your costs, an anchor from what similar people charge, then adjust up toward what the result is genuinely worth to the client. Pick a number you can say out loud confidently, because your certainty is part of what the client is buying.
Who this is for: Coaches and consultants setting or raising their prices
The instinct is to work out your hourly worth and multiply. It feels safe and rational, and it is almost always wrong, because your client is not buying hours. They are buying a change: more clients, a clearer strategy, a problem that stops keeping them up at night. Two coaches can spend the same hours and be worth completely different amounts, because one gets a result the client would pay ten times as much to have. Once you price the outcome instead of the effort, the whole question opens up.
Three forces set the sensible range. There is your floor, the point below which the work is not worth your time and costs. There is the market, what people who do roughly what you do are charging, which sets what a buyer expects to hear. And there is the value, what the result is genuinely worth to this client, which is usually far higher than either of the other two. Your price lives somewhere in that range, and where exactly depends on your confidence and your position.
That last part is the one people underrate. Your own certainty is part of what the client is buying. If you name your price and then rush to justify it, you tell them it is negotiable and probably too high. If you say it plainly and let it sit, you tell them it is simply what the work costs. The number matters, but the way you hold it matters nearly as much.
You do not have to pluck a figure from the air. Work it from three angles and let them meet in the middle:
Most people land far closer to their floor than they should, because the floor feels justifiable and the value feels presumptuous. But the client is comparing your price to the value, not to your costs. When you have understood their situation well, as in any good discovery call, you can price nearer the value with a clear conscience, because you can see what it is worth to them.
A useful test: pick a number and say it out loud, to a wall if you have to. If you can say it plainly without your voice tightening, it might be too low. If it makes you slightly nervous but you can still stand behind it honestly, you are probably about right. The number that is comfortable is usually the number you have outgrown.
How you package the price changes how it lands. Wherever you can, sell an outcome as one clear offer rather than a menu of hourly options, because hourly billing punishes you for getting faster and makes the client watch the clock instead of the result. A fixed price for a defined outcome lets you both focus on the thing that matters, and it lets you improve your margins by getting better at the work.
Be careful with tiers. The instinct to offer three packages often backfires, because more choices slow the decision and push people toward the cheapest option to avoid getting it wrong. If you do offer options, keep them to two or three, make the one you want them to choose the obvious middle, and anchor with your highest so the others look reasonable by comparison. Often a single, well-scoped offer sells faster than a clever pricing table.
Decide too whether the shape is a project, a retainer, or a programme. A project suits a one-off outcome with a clear end. A retainer suits ongoing work where the value keeps arriving, and it gives you predictable income. A programme, priced as one figure for a defined journey, suits coaching where the transformation is the product. Whichever you choose, write down exactly what is included and, just as importantly, what is not, so the scope holds and the price stays honest.
Whatever shape you choose, resist the urge to add extras to justify the price. Piling in more calls, more documents and more bonuses usually makes the offer feel heavier rather than more valuable, and it quietly tells the client that the core work was not worth the number on its own. A tight offer that does one important thing well is easier to sell, easier to deliver, and easier to stand behind than a bloated one, and the confidence that comes from a clean offer is worth more at the point of sale than any bonus.
If you have not raised your prices in a year, or you close nearly everyone you speak to, you are almost certainly too cheap. Closing everyone is not a sign of a great offer, it is usually a sign the price is low enough that it is not making anyone think. A healthy price gets a no now and then, and that is fine, because a no from someone who could never see the value is not a lost sale, it is a filter working.
Raise on new clients first, and simply quote the new number as if it has always been the number, without a speech or an apology. Existing clients can be moved up more gently, at a natural renewal point, with fair notice and a plain reason. You will lose a few, and that is part of it, because a price increase trades some volume for more value per client and usually less work overall. Test the new number on real calls before you decide it is too high, since the objection you fear often never comes.
When it does come, remember that a price objection is rarely about the number itself, and handle it as I lay out in how to handle price objections. Make sure your sales page and your calls are building the value properly before you blame the price, because a good outcome priced fairly is far easier to sell than a vague one priced cheaply.
Pick your number using the three angles above, write down exactly what is included, and then commit to it for a set run of calls, say the next ten, before you second-guess it. Pricing improves through evidence, not agonising, and ten honest conversations at the new number will teach you more than another week of spreadsheets. Watch how people react when you say it plainly, not how you feel about it beforehand.
Getting the price, the offer and the words that carry them to line up is a lot of what we work on with clients at Unbury, because a strong offer priced timidly leaves most of its value on the table. But the real shift is smaller than any of that. Decide on a number you can stand behind, say it out loud without flinching, and let the silence do its part. The right clients are far more reassured by a confident price than by a cheap one.
Enough that the work is worth your time and the client takes it seriously, which is usually higher than beginners think. Start from the value of the outcome, sense-check it against the market, and raise it as your results and confidence grow.
By the project or as a package wherever you can. Hourly billing punishes you for working faster and makes the client watch the clock. A fixed price for a clear outcome keeps you both focused on the result.
If you close nearly everyone, have not raised them in a year, or feel completely comfortable saying the number, they are probably too low. A healthy price makes people consider it and gets an occasional no.
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