Pricing Services

I used to think charging less would get me more clients. After my trip to the US I realised it just made them trust me less. when i was cheap, clients questioned everything. "why this approach?" "can we try something else?" "i'm not sure about this." so when i raised my rates, they trusted my decisions completely. same work. different psychology. so here's what i've basically realized about pricing: when someone sees a low price, their brain doesn't think "great deal." it thinks "what's the catch?" they start looking for problems. inexperience. desperation. corners being cut. low prices trigger fear of loss, not excitement about savings. but when they see premium pricing, something else happens. "if they can charge this much, they must deliver results." "other people are paying this, so the value must be there." "the risk of not solving this problem costs way more than the investment." premium pricing signals confidence in your work. think about it. rolex doesn't make better watches from a functionality standpoint. but the price tells you everything about what owning one means. same thing with services. a premium project isn't necessarily 10x better in execution. but the price signals experience, systems, proven results. and here's the shift that changed everything for me: i stopped anchoring clients to the price and started anchoring them to the outcome. not "this costs X" but "this will generate Y for your business, and the investment is X." when they're thinking about ROI, the price becomes secondary. your pricing isn't just a number. it's a signal to the market about who you are and what you deliver.

In business, there's a huge difference between price and value. If a client starts the conversation by focusing solely on price, chances are they're not going to buy—or worse, they may not be the right client for your business at all. When a customer is only interested in negotiating the lowest price, they often don't appreciate the value you bring to the table. We realized that as soon as we increased our prices, everything changed. Not only did our revenue grow, but more importantly, our client profile shifted dramatically. We began attracting clients who truly valued the quality and expertise we offer. These clients understood the investment they were making and trusted us to deliver results that justified the price. By raising our prices, we set a new standard, and the clients who recognized that were the ones we wanted to work with all along. Remember, when you charge what you’re worth, you attract clients who value what you offer. It’s not just about making a sale—it’s about building relationships with clients who understand the value behind your work.

A lesson I wish I had learned earlier: How to attract customers who are happy to pay more I spent years chasing people who haggled, looking for deals or asking for discounts. Every sale was a battle. But when I made a few simple shifts, I quickly learned higher-paying clients are 10x easier to work with than people looking for a deal. Because high-quality buyers don't need convincing. They see your content and think: "This is exactly who I've been looking for." Here’s the exact 5 things I changed to elevate my positioning and attract better customers: 1. Be Obsessively Specific In Your Content The more clearly you describe your ideal client's exact situation, the more premium buyers think, "this person gets me." What you're saying should repel anyone who's not the perfect fit. 2. Feature The Best Clients You've Already Worked With Premium buyers look at who else is in the room. If your testimonials or case studies feature the wrong clients, that's who shows up next. Showcase the work you want more of. The room fills accordingly. 3. Price Like You're Trying To Impress Someone A low price doesn't attract more clients. It just attracts a different kind. Premium buyers use price as a quality signal before they read a single word of your copy. The price is a huge part of your brand. Set it like you mean it. 4. Let Your Content Do The Qualifying Every post should make the right people lean in, and the wrong people keep scrolling. What can you say that would make the right customers hungry for more? What would make the wrong customers unsubscribe or click away immediately? The right people will reach out already sold, already trusting, and already agreed to your price. 5. Stop Writing For Everyone Premium buyers pay more to feel certain they've found the right solution. Write content that makes them feel understood before they've spoken to you. The premium positioning makes it an easy yes. Stop chasing volume. Start attracting premium buyers who see your price and think: "Finally, someone who gets it." __ Feel like you’re attracting the wrong customers? Most founders think attracting better customers means getting better at sales. But the clients you attract are a direct reflection of the signals your brand puts out. Comment ‘Pricing’ and I'll send you my Pricing Psychology Playbook. It’s the exact framework we use to attract premium buyers at Founder OS.

The 15-minute energy prices will have a significant impact on the value of flexible production and consumption. This is good for you if you own a battery energy storage system or an Electric vehicle, and will be introduced throughout Europe on October 1st.   The average 15-minute prices might be equal to the 60-minute price, but I expect the price fluctuations within the hour to be of a similar magnitude to those we now see within a day.   The day-ahead market price is set by the marginal price of each period, so, naturally, prices will differ significantly within the hour as the availability of production differs.   Solar power production follows a ramp pattern, with the first 15 minutes having a lower volume than the last 15 minutes of the morning hours. The consumption is much more stable, meaning each morning hour starts with a high price and ends with a low price. Conventional generation cannot ramp up and down in this short time span, so the supply and demand curve will shift, impacting prices.   This is what should happen as the market moves closer to the physical reality with a more accurate pricing of the energy.   These price differences will significantly increase the value of flexibility and energy trading.   ☀️ For PV, it will result in even lower capture rates. 🔋 For a BESS, it means that there are four times more products to trade but probably ten times more spreads to deliver on. This will double the value that can be captured from the day-ahead market.   🚗 It can result in lower charging costs. Instead of charging your car for two hours straight, the optimal charging plan would spread the process over the best 15-minute periods throughout the night. It requires the charging optimiser to pause and restart the charging several times during the night to take advantage of the cheap periods. Optimal planning will increase in value compared to a fixed charging schedule.   Some of the Danish DSOs have been very slow at introducing 15-minute readings for the consumption customers. You may be settled on a 60-minute basis after October. In this case, the DSO will take your hourly consumption and spread it out equally in the 4 periods. In some cases, it might require a new meter, but the regulation states that everyone has the right to be settled at the same resolution as the market time unit. Hybrid Greentech - Energy Storage Intelligence

The question I hear most from founders during Sequoia Capital's Arc program is about #pricing. Pricing is one of the most underutilized levers for startups. Why does it matter so much? It has the most direct impact on revenue, and the moment you establish your pricing, you determine your TAM. Getting the pricing metric right is, by far, the most important one. The key is to imagine the future: when you are a large and successful company, how have you changed the world, and what metric correlates best with your success? Hitch your financial wagon to that metric! If you are Figma, success is all designers using the app; therefore, the pricing metrics is per designer seat. If you are VMware, success is all workloads run in virtual machines; therefore, the right pricing metric would have been a virtual machine. A pricing metric is like the genie in a bottle: once you get it out, it is tough to rein it back or change it. The pricing model is about when and how frequently you charge. Recurrent subscriptions are the predominant model for SaaS apps, and usage-based pricing is the model for infrastructure solutions. Usage-based pricing creates a beautiful alignment of incentives but is less predictable. Upfront credit purchases and commitments are efforts to make usage-based practice more aligned with the rigid corporate budgeting processes. You can be the premium solution or the affordable one. Both are legitimate approaches. But your pricing needs to be consistent with the rest of your strategy: with your product and distribution channels.  You can’t have an affordable solution distributed through an expensive enterprise sales force. In this case, you need to sell either online or through inside sales—the product better be simple and the sales cycle quick. Many technical founders are shy about asking for a lot of money for their product. Don’t be. If customers like the product and it delivers value, they will gladly pay for it. Unless you hear customer complaints that you are expensive, then for sure you are underpricing. Calculate the ROI of your product, and take 20% of that value as your price point. How much it costs you to build the solution should not guide your pricing. But you should do a sanity check that you have a decent gross margin. Most companies start by selling a single package. Over time, they realize that different customer segments have different maturity levels and willingness to pay. To price discriminate between these segments, you need to introduce multiple packages.  Start by creating a customer maturity curve to inform your decisions on how many packages you need. The trick is to have the smallest number of packages to cover the broadest range of customer needs. Your packages will change and evolve quickly as your product matures. 

While competitors sold mattresses at ₹10,000, we launched at ₹29,900. Amazon and Flipkart said it wouldn't work, because our price was 3X what sells on their platforms. Today, The Sleep Company is the fastest-growing mattress brand in India. People ask how we convinced customers to pay a premium for a mattress. The answer isn't about pricing. It's about understanding value. Indian customers are willing to pay ₹1 lakh for an iPhone, and ₹2 lakh for a Royal Enfield. It’s not because they're "affordable”, but because the value is clear. So, the real question isn't "Can they afford it?" It's "Do they believe it's worth it?" Most brands price like this:  Cost + Margin = Price But, we flipped it to Value-Based Pricing:  What's the transformation worth to the customer? = Price Our product wasn't just 3x the price, it also delivered 5x the outcome. And every touchpoint communicated that. But most of the brands end up making these mistakes: 📍Underpricing to "get traction"  📍Overpricing without differentiation  📍Changing prices too often Here’s what worked for us instead: 📌 The sweet spot wasn't the lowest. 📌 Focused on value perception - packaging, unboxing, communication reinforced "premium." 📌 Invested in experience - website, stores, after-sales. Premium pricing demands premium delivery. As a result: 📍₹60,000 became our best-selling price point 📍Customers didn't ask "Why is it so expensive?" They asked, "When's the next collection?" Premium isn't about charging more. It's about being worth more. And if you deliver on that, the market will pay.

🔌 Fuel vs. Charge: The Cost of 100 Kilometers Having spent years in petrol retail operations, I’ve closely followed the rise of EV charging infrastructure—especially premium networks like Fastned (one of the few with public data). 🔄 Whether powered by petrol or electrons, the job is the same: deliver vehicle range—efficiently and profitably. 📊 Baseline economics—before cost kicks in: Fastned (public data) vs. avg. of ~1,700 petrol stations (7–8 EU countries): • Energy sold/site/year  Petrol: ~21M kWh | EV: ~406k kWh → 50x gap (EV efficiency ❗) • 100 km units enabled  Petrol: ~290k | EV: ~22.5k → 13x gap • Price per 100 km  Petrol: €13.60 | EV: €12.80 → nearly same • Gross margin per 100 km  Petrol: €0.63 | EV: €8.82 → EV 14x higher • Site-level gross margin/year  Petrol: ~€185k | EV: ~€200k → ⚖️ roughly equal 📌 Bottom line: Different volume and margin mechanics—but a comparable topline per site. 📉 But here’s where the story shifts—from topline to discipline. Despite a simpler business model, EV fast charging operators carry significantly higher costs: • Direct OPEX: ~8x higher than petrol  Driven largely by grid connection costs—unavoidable, but still surprising given that petrol stations handle cashiers, attendants, inventory, deliveries, mechanical pumps, and buildings. • Indirect OPEX (G&A): ~20x higher  Partly understandable in a growth phase with scarce talent and cross-border expansion—but the scale of the gap raises questions about cost culture and operating discipline. • Total OPEX per 100 km:  EV = €7.65 | Petrol = €0.40 💡 High margins are a gift—but they also attract competitors. In fuel retail, a few cents/litre can shift behaviour. In EV charging, we're talking about €0.10–€0.20/kWh swings—plenty of room. Fastned’s highway strategy offers a natural moat—location still matters. But EV customer behavior is still forming: more price sensitivity, more demand for transparency. 🧭 But margins don’t build resilience. High-growth environments often breed cultures that prioritize speed over efficiency. Understandable. But hard to reverse. It’s easy to scale perks. Much harder to scale discipline. Once cost sensitivity fades, restoring it becomes a cultural challenge—not just a financial one. 🙏 To be clear—this isn’t a critique of Fastned . Quite the opposite. I admire their product, their transparency, and their ambition. They’ve set a high bar—and given us a rare view into real economics. 🛢️ And let’s be honest—downstream oil isn’t riding a tailwind. Cost discipline alone hasn’t protected it from structural decline. That’s the opportunity: to do better, not just different. 📉 Growth stories have brought us this far. (Read Justin Custer https://lnkd.in/dZwnuXCF) 📈 But operational excellence will decide who stays in the game Thanks to Sumit Jena for prompting the petrol baseline—and Piotr Chmielewski for the sharp financial lens. #ev  #evcharging  #dcfc

I might lose a few friends in the media world for saying this, but building your brand on discounts alone is a trap. And no, this isn’t theory. This comes straight from the highs, lows, and hard lessons of managing multiple client accounts and growing an agency from the ground up over the past four years. Discounts might attract clients, but they won’t make them loyal. Let’s break it down: What keeps clients coming back to you, instead of someone else offering a cheaper deal? 1️⃣ Exceptional Quality: Deliver work so well, clients can’t stop talking about it. 2️⃣ Consistency: Hit deadlines. Keep promises. Every. Single. Time. 3️⃣ Emotional Connection: Build relationships that go beyond contracts. Make clients feel like partners, not just buyers. Now, here’s the problem with relying on discounts: They start to define your service, instead of enhancing it. I’ve seen agencies fall into the “discount trap”: → Offering endless freebies to “sweeten the deal.” → Dropping rates to compete with low-cost providers. → Attracting clients who see them as cheap — not valuable. And the result? A race to the bottom. A brand that struggles to stand out. Here’s what actually works: Build something clients value beyond the price tag: ✨ Work that delivers real results. ✨ Communication that makes them feel heard and respected. ✨ A partnership they see as essential to their success. Because clients who chase discounts will leave the second someone offers it cheaper. So stop chasing quick wins. Focus on creating a service people are proud to pay full price for. When clients stick around because they trust you, not because you’re the cheapest, that’s when you’ve built something truly special.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a global Nigerian freelancer is thinking in Naira. When I first started freelancing, I used to charge based on how much I felt something was worth not based on the actual value I was offering. I’d say things like, "Ah, $50 is a lot in Naira. Let me not overcharge them." Meanwhile, the client I was trying to “help” was probably paying someone else $500 for the same work. The aha moment for me was when a foreign client paid me x5 of what I charged cause he liked my work and told me I was charging too little lol. That’s when I knew I had to stop pricing like a Nigerian trying to survive, and start pricing like someone who brings value, no matter where they live. So if you’re a freelancer in Nigeria with global clients (or who wants), here’s how to price smart: ✅ 1. Stop converting USD to Naira in your head If you keep thinking, “$100 is ₦150,000 oh!”, you’ll end up undercharging. The truth is: people abroad don’t think like that. They’re comparing your rate with other global freelancers, not your local cost of living. So price in dollars, based on the value you’re bringing , not your location. ✅ 2. Create different packages (I was a little late💀) Not every client has the same budget, & that’s fine. Create options: •Tier one gets the basic package •Tier two gets the mid-tier •Tier three gets premium That way, you can confidently say, “Here are your options,” instead of struggling to hack one “safe” price. ✅ 3. Price based on results, and effort—not effort alone. Don’t just say: “I’ll write 5 posts in a month.” Say: “I’ll extensively research into your industry and prepare 5 optimally written posts that help you build consistency and attract more of your target audience online over the next 30 days.” The more outcome-focused your offer sounds, the more valuable you become in the client’s eyes. ✅ 4. Say your price with your full chest If you quote and then immediately explain or apologize, they’ll smell the uncertainty. Instead, be calm and clear: “This project starts at $750. I can explain what that covers.” Say it like you’re ordering food, not begging for approval. ✅ 5. Factor in your real costs Let’s be honest, working from Nigeria has its own challenges: •Internet wahala •Generator or inverter bills •VPN subscriptions •Payment delays or charges All of that should reflect in your pricing. Don’t shortchange yourself. ✅ 6. Ask for a deposit. Always. At least 50% upfront. Use platforms like Payoneer, Wise, Deel, or even Chipper if needed. You’re running a business, not doing “please help me” work. ✅ 7. Make your brand look global If your social media, website, or portfolio is looking too “local,” some foreign clients will assume you’re cheap. Polish your look. Show testimonials. Speak the language of impact and results. Bottom line: You’re not just a Nigerian doing remote work. You’re a global talent solving real problems from Nigeria. Start acting (and pricing) like it.🦋

You're afraid to raise your prices because you think you'll lose clients. Here's the counterintuitive truth: You might lose some clients, and that's actually strategic. I worked with a professional speaker who raised her minimum speaking fee. She lost 25% of her revenue initially. But here's what happened next. That same price increase saved her 40% of her time by eliminating lower-paying engagements below her new threshold. What did she do with those reclaimed hours? She wrote a book proposal. She developed a signature workshop series. She built relationships with higher-tier event planners. Within 18 months, her revenue was 30% higher than before the price increase. The best clients who truly value your work will stick with you. The ones who leave either can't afford your current level of expertise or weren't aligned with where you're heading anyway. Here's the practical strategy that makes this work: Give existing clients 6-12 months advance notice of your price increase. Grandfather them in at current rates until that date. Why this timeline works: Six months gives them enough time to budget for the change without feeling blindsided. It preserves your current relationship while you're building new work. And it positions the increase as inevitable growth, not a sudden cash grab. The real insight? This isn't just about raising prices. It's about strategically choosing which clients you keep as you level up your business. 🛟 Save this post if you're ready to get paid what you're actually worth. ➡️ Follow Dorie Clark for more strategies on building a business that values your expertise.