All three panelists talked through how they decide their pricing, and how they communicate it to clients. 

AJ prefers to get on the phone with a client first and ask them what their budget is for marketing services. If he receives a lot of pushback and requests to just hear a flat cost for something, that could mean trouble ahead. This prospect is usually highly fixated on price over working out a nuanced plan and strategy that may have different costs and outcomes than AJ’s competitors.

One piece of advice he gave was to productize services as much as possible. This entails documenting “a la carte” services you provide often and are well-practiced in how much time and resources it takes. This will help new consultants move through the pricing decisions more quickly and with more confidence that they’re setting the right price.

Maddy echoed the recommendation to productize services, and advised new consultants to go to Fiverr for inspiration. Dig around among Fiverr pros who offer the same types of services that you want to offer, and look to them for inspiration on how they broke it up into modules.

She also explained her more straightforward approach, which is to display pricing on her website. She says this more quickly weeds out bad fits and clients who don’t have an aligning budget, since they need to agree to her pricing before any meetings are set.

“While they’re filling out their name, their email, you know, all the details for whatever calend.ly is asking them. There’s also a question that says, ‘Have you seen my pricing? And do you agree to my pricing?’ and it has a link to my page that has pricing on it. So they literally have to say yes, that’s cool, before the meeting goes through. Then it’s just like, ‘What’s our first topic going to be?’ It’s not a sales call.”

While Gee doesn’t post her pricing publicly, she emphasized the need for new consultants to cut their losses when someone may be a bad fit and, above all, respect their own time.

She’s determined a minimum that she will not go below. Beyond that, it’s a case by case basis depending on what the client wants, but she’s still careful not to sell herself short. Part of being able to successfully not sell herself short also includes not revealing too much to clients.

The thing that comes with writing is, first of all, you’re not just paying me for writing, also paying me my education also comes into play.

Maddy agreed, 

I think the biggest takeaway I could give in terms of which way to price is that the client doesn’t have to know how long it takes you. Your experience comes into play, and you shouldn’t be punished for being efficient. So it’s not necessary that they know, I wouldn’t tell them.

Gee also wanted to let freelancers know that they shouldn’t be afraid to stand up for themselves and maintain these expectations. 

Especially solo freelancers, will be like, ‘Oh, well, maybe if I lose this, then I won’t get another client.’ And that’s simply not true. I am a big believer in set your prices and go with it.