The Simplest Rule for Pricing With Confidence
Calm pricing starts with clarity.
The first time I ever quoted a fee to a new tax client after going out on my own, I was filled with anxiety. There was also some desperation in the moment, because I was burning through my meager savings rapidly to start my own practice, and I needed the revenue from this client.
In the moment, I quoted a fee of $500, for something I knew was worth $1500. I lowballed myself, devalued my own worth, in order to get the client.
They said yes, but it didn’t make me feel good. But at least I had a little income coming in that week.
With time, it’s something I got better about. Way better. In that one little realm of my life, I pretty quickly lost all hesitation about quoting fees.
Pricing is a complex subject, and one that generates anxiety, like it did for me, for many independent practitioners, especially when they’re new to running their own business.
Over the past two decades in business, one simple rule has emerged as the most important of all when it comes to pricing, at least for my own businesses and the business coaching clients I’ve worked with.
Price for alignment.
I can already imagine more than a few readers say, “Alignment? What the heck does that mean with pricing?”
Reactive vs Aligned Pricing
Many service practitioners are reactive when they set prices. They react to their own emotional state, as I have done many times. They also react to the client, especially when there is hesitation. This is when we suddenly start offering discounts, or start packing on explanations to justify our price. Confidence evaporates, and we’re trying to make a sale through price action alone.
Aligned pricing on the other hand, comes from a positive place. Not only will you have done the competitive market research to gain an understanding of what price levels the market will bear, but you also know the true costs of delivering your service. This is alignment with market forces and alignment with your overhead costs.
But it goes beyond that. Every service generates an impact on the client, and that impact (or transformation, if you will) has value. And that value can be translated into various forms of currency, be it dollars, pesos, or hugs.
Something I’ve been learning about more recently is that the service work we do is also an energetic exchange. You’re providing your time, talent, expertise, and energy to the client in exchange for some of their energy. I know quite a few people in my local area here on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state that literally do work trades, such as a therapist trading an hour of their time for an hour of massage. But since we assign dollar values to our time units of energy — yes, I see you physicists shuddering at that one — we can incorporate this concept of energetic exchange into our pricing models.
The bottom line on pricing is that if you have clarity around the value you provide, the energy you exert providing your services, and the economic reality of the revenue you need to generate to keep your business open, alignment reveals itself.
Three Grounding Checks Before Setting Prices
Before you publish your new fees, run them through this quick filter:
Sustainability: Does this rate support the business and the human running it?
Fit: Is this price designed for the clients you actually want to serve?
Confidence: Can you state your price with calm confidence, without the urge to justify it?
When you have confidence around your rate, know it’s a good fit for the ideal clients you seek, and is able to sustain your business and yourself financially, you know you’re in the sweet spot.
If you’d like additional support around setting your fees, or anything else in running your business, you’re invited to join the Bizorca Pod, and work alongside peers who value calm over chaos.
And yes, the $33/mo price for Bizorca Pod is sustainable for me, a proper fit for the practitioners I’m trying to serve, and is a price I feel very confident in stating, because our 2026 program provides value far in excess of similar programs that are triple this price.☺️