As a solopreneur, I’ve offered several services over the last 8 years. From photography to copywriting, it feels like I've done it all at this point.

One of the biggest questions I used to struggle answering is: "what should I charge?"

Pricing services can feel difficult, especially with so much conflicting advice online.

- "Charge your worth!
- "High-ticket only!"

But what is your worth? And what's the barrier that defines "high-ticket?"

I wish I had a secret pricing formula to share with you. Especially given pricing is so important — price too low and you may not cover your costs or make a terrible wage for your time. Pricing too high can lead to 0 sales if you don't have the right audience, positioning, or portfolio to back up the expensive price tag.

So while a secret formula would be nice, I can't provide that. But I can give you 3 tips that can get you headed in the right direction:

1 | Value of the transformation you provide

What is the specific outcome your customer will experience from your service?

The more valuable the outcome, the more you can charge.

Example: A client has 10,000 website visitors per month, and they generate $.50 per visitor. That's a total of $5,000 in revenue.

If you can increase their website visitors to 50,000 per month through SEO, while maintaining the $0.50 in revenue per visitor, you increased your clients revenue from $5,000 per month to $25,000 per month.

Idk about you, but if someone could boost my revenue that much I'd gladly pay them a few grand a month to make it happen.

But what if you're brand new and have no data?

If you're early in your entrepreneurship journey, you may have 0 clue how much value you provide to clients.

One way to determine this is to ask your ideal clients this question: "how much is this problem costing you right now?"

Prospects may talk about the time they're wasting, the stress that's being caused, or the amount money they're leaving on the table. Whatever the case may be, you'll start to determine the exact problem you solve, as well as the ultimate value of the solution you provide.

2 | Where you are on your solopreneur journey

Self reflection is critical in entrepreneurship, especially so for pricing.

Be honest with yourself on these 2:

- How confident are you that you can deliver the promised results?
- How much social proof do you have to back up your claims?

Them more confident you are, the higher you can price and the more convincing you'll be when you "sell."

And the more social proof you have, the more you can charge too. Because social proof brings credibility to your offer, resulting in more trust in prospects.

If you're a beginner, don't shy away from doing a little bit of free work or a handful of cheap projects to gather social proof. Perform some projects in exchange for testimonials or referrals. It doesn't feel good right away, but will pay in dividends later.

For service providers: after every 2 clients and testimonials, raise your prices by 30-50%. 

End of the day: customers don't want to take on risk when shelling out their cash. Make them feel at ease by proving you got the sauce 🔥 (through social proof)

3 | Target audience

Clarity on your audience is crucial. Not only so you create better content, market better, and have a "niche" — but it helps with pricing too.

It's important to know where your target customer is in their journey, and how much money they have to spend on your service. 

For example, let's walk through my existing offer ladder:

Offer 1: I sell a course called the Content Convertor which helps new and existing business owners develop a content strategy for their social media posts. This is priced at $150 since most people that will buy this are earlier in their solopreneurship journey. I priced this low because that audience may not have tons of money to invest in coaching or consulting yet, but they want to start getting better results.

Offer 2: The Golden Offer Accelerator. This is a 13 week clarity coaching program designed for solopreneurs who have started landing some clients, but need improvements... Enhancements to their offer, positioning, and systems so they can scale beyond their current revenue roadblock. This gives people all the tools they need to scale to $10k-$50k months, with a moderate level of direct access to me through coaching calls and 1:1 real-time chat.

This is targeted at solopreneurs who are seeing success, but aren't "rolling in the dough" yet. Therefore, this is priced at a medium level of three $1,000 payments, and they can cancel or pause at any time.  

Offer 3: Managed services. I offer a retainer with a high level of direct access to me. This includes strategy, financial, and operations consulting for agencies doing $500k+ per year in revenue. I build financial models, review tech stacks and more.

These founders make significantly more money that those I help in offers 1 and 2. In return, I charge a higher price (but they get waaaaaay more access and much more of my time). I price this at $5,000 per month.

As you can see, different offers + different audiences = different price points.

Bonus Tip: Ignore What Your Competition Charges

Feel free to check out the pricing of your competition. But I never recommend pricing based on competition.

It's tempting to see what other people are offering and do the same, but that never works out in the end.

You either end up in a race to the bottom (and pricing yourself too low). Or you overcharge based on where you are in your own journey.

Focus on the transformation your provide and how much that's worth — not what the market "dictates." 

That's all for this week!

If you're interested in growing your brand...

Check out our content strategy video course (and 6 bonuses!), so you gain followers on social media and start attracting your ideal audience.