Your Fun & Profitable Online Business · Episode 5
Charging Your Value: 3 Keys to Profitable Pricing
Not feeling confident in your prices? Here, Wendy tackles one of the most challenging aspects of entrepreneurship: profitable pricing.
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Three foundations for profitable pricing
How to charge your value with more confidence
Confident pricing is not about choosing the biggest number you can say out loud. It means setting a price that reflects the result, supports a profitable business, and can be explained clearly to the right customer.
Price the transformation
Consider the problem solved, result created, expertise required, and lasting value instead of calculating price from delivery time alone.
Know the value you provide
Document client results, experience, skills, and evidence so you can communicate your price without shrinking or apologizing.
Clarify the offer before lowering the price
A pricing objection may point to fit, positioning, urgency, or unclear value. Investigate the reason before automatically discounting.
Pricing a service or offer can stir up doubt because the decision affects far more than one sales conversation. Your prices influence revenue, capacity, delivery quality, customer expectations, and whether the business can sustainably support you.
Charging your value does not mean assigning a price to your worth as a person. It means making a thoughtful business decision about the value of the offer, the transformation it supports, the cost of delivering it, and the customers it is designed to serve.
How to price services based on value, not only time
Hourly calculations can be a useful starting point, especially when you are new and need to understand the minimum revenue required for your available working hours. But time alone rarely captures the full value of expertise.
A system that takes two hours to teach might save a client several hours every week. A decision made during one strategy session could prevent an expensive mistake. The delivery time is real, but so are the experience, judgment, preparation, intellectual property, and ongoing result.
When pricing an offer, consider the problem it solves, the outcome it helps create, the importance of that outcome, the depth of support, the delivery costs, your capacity, and the alternatives available to the customer.
How to feel more confident stating your prices
Pricing confidence is usually built from clarity and evidence, not positive thinking alone. Create a record of the results you have helped clients achieve, the problems you solve, the feedback you receive, and the experience you bring to the work.
Then practice explaining the offer in plain language. A potential customer should understand who the offer is for, what problem it addresses, what is included, and what changes they can reasonably expect. Clear positioning makes the price easier to evaluate.
You do not need to deliver a long defense of the number. State the price directly, pause, and give the other person room to decide whether the offer fits.
What pricing objections can tell you about your offer
Not every person who values your work will be able or willing to buy, and that does not automatically mean your price is wrong. Budget, timing, priority, trust, perceived risk, and fit all affect purchasing decisions.
If objections happen repeatedly, look beyond the price. The offer may need clearer positioning, stronger evidence, a better-defined result, a different audience, improved sales messaging, or a delivery model that better matches the customer’s needs.
Use objections as information. Avoid making an immediate price reduction simply to remove discomfort from the sales conversation.
How to conduct a simple pricing audit
List each core offer and its current price. Beside it, write the problem it solves, the result it supports, what is included, how much delivery capacity it requires, and the evidence you have that customers value the outcome.
Compare the price with your revenue goals and actual business costs. If the number feels misaligned, test a thoughtful adjustment. Wendy suggests that a modest increase, such as 10 percent, can provide useful information without requiring a dramatic overnight change.
Profitable pricing connects the value of the result with the needs of the customer and the realities of the business.
Your action step
Complete a quick pricing audit for one core offer:
- Write down the current price and the transformation the offer supports.
- List the experience, support, and deliverables that help create that result.
- Check whether the price supports your costs, capacity, and profit goals.
- Choose one adjustment or pricing test based on what you notice.
Questions about charging your value
How do I know what to charge for my services?
Start with your revenue needs, business costs, available delivery hours, market context, level of support, and the value of the result. Use an hourly calculation as a floor when helpful, then evaluate the complete offer rather than time alone.
What does value-based pricing mean?
Value-based pricing considers the importance and impact of the result for the customer, along with expertise, positioning, delivery, costs, and demand. It does not mean choosing an arbitrary high price or promising a result you cannot control.
Should I lower my price when someone says it is too expensive?
Not automatically. Ask whether the objection is about budget, timing, fit, trust, unclear value, or the offer itself. One objection is information, not proof that the price is wrong.
How can I say my prices more confidently?
Know the offer, document the results and value you provide, practice stating the price directly, and stop adding unnecessary explanations or instant discounts after sharing it.
When should I raise my prices?
Consider an increase when demand exceeds capacity, your experience or results have grown, delivery costs have changed, the offer has become more valuable, or the current price no longer supports a profitable and sustainable business.
Calculate a sustainable starting price
Use Wendy’s free pricing calculator to estimate an hourly baseline and a starting package price based on your income goal, available time, and delivery needs.
Use the free pricing calculator →Read the full episode transcript
Episode 5 transcript: Charging your value and profitable pricing
Hey there, and welcome back to Your Fun and Profitable Online Business. I'm Wendy Muzzy, a money coach and business strategist, and I'm here to cheer you on as you create an online business that feels as good as it looks. That's why I'm known as Confetti Girl. If you're ready for some fresh ideas, real talk, and a little sprinkle of confetti along the way, you're in the right place.
Why profitable pricing matters
Today, we're tackling a big one, charging your value. Pricing is one of those topics that can bring up all kinds of self-doubt, fear, even guilt. But here's the truth. The price you charge directly impacts your business, it directly impacts your confidence, and it directly impacts your ability to serve at the highest level. Plus, we want to be profitable. Let's do this. Let's talk about pricing with confidence and stop undercharging for the incredible work you do.
Three keys to charging your value
We're going to start off with the three keys to charging your value.
Price the transformation, not only your time
Up first, pricing should reflect the transformation, not just your time. You know, this is one of the biggest mistakes I often see as people think about time in, time out. And whenever we come from the W-2 world, that's often the case. We give them an hour of work, they give us an hour of pay. And that sounds really, really nice, unless you're on salary, but that's a whole other conversation. That's really, really nice in that context. But here, as we own our businesses, we're really charging people for what we're bringing to the table. And if we only think about dollar in, dollar out, that limits how much we can make. That really hurts our earning potential. So if we switch this a little and think about what's the transformation I'm bringing to them. Let's say you create a system for your client that saves them hours every week. That's valuable. It may have only taken you two hours to teach them the skill, but you're saving them over the life of their business. That's the transformation. You're charging for that transformation. And we can start to focus our pricing accordingly whenever we do that. If you're just starting out, sometimes I suggest you figure out your ideal hourly rate. This is really hard whenever we're just starting out. I've been there and like, oh gosh, I think I'm just going to charge a really low rate for what I'm doing. So I do have a pricing calculator to help you figure out what your ideal hourly rate is. This is like a jumping off spot. You can plug in what you're hoping to make, how many hours you're hoping to do, and then how long it's going to take for whatever you're offering. And this will give you a package price or a collective price. I don't recommend using this through the life of your business, but I do recommend using this if you're just starting out and trying to figure out your ideal hourly rate. You can find that at wendymuzzy.com/calculator. It's free, but it's used to help you determine this. And there's also some questions if you should increase your rates or lower your rates based on that.
Build confidence in the value you provide
All right, number two, confidence in pricing starts with you. I'm going to give you a little bit of tough love. I don't do this often, but I'm going to do it here. If you're doubting your prices, your potential clients will too. I'm so sorry. I wish it was easy. I wish I could just say, just tell them what your prices are and everything will be fine. No, you've got to be really solid whenever you tell your prices out loud to somebody. This confidence comes from being crystal clear on the value you bring. Maybe it's experience you have, or maybe it's the results you've created, but you have to be really, really clear on the value you bring to the table. I often suggest writing down all of the results you've provided. This could be big or small, but write them all down so you can see them in black and white and remind yourself of the impact you're making. It'll naturally flow to confidence in your pricing whenever you say it, but make sure you can really understand the value you're bringing to the table and feel really confident as you say them.
Use pricing as part of offer positioning
Number three, the right people will pay, the wrong people hesitate. Here, we're going to talk a little bit about fear and the role it plays in all of this. Specifically, the fear that people won't pay, or the fear that someone will say, oh, that's too expensive. Whenever I first started out, I was worried that pricing was going to be hard. I was talking to people about their money and I was worried that people wouldn't pay what I was asking. and I had someone tell me, those aren't your ideal clients. And that hit me like a ton of bricks. If people don't pay, they're just not my ideal client. My ideal client is going to pay to fix their problem. They're going to know that I'm the solution because I'm going to continually tell them that I'm the solution through my presence and they're going to pay because of what I bring to the table. So really pricing is a filter. The right people, the ones who truly want to work with you will say, yes, that's exactly what I need. And the ones who don't, they're simply not your right people. And that's okay. If you keep hearing pricing objections, it's not a sign to lower your prices. Sometimes it's a sign that you need to clarify the value you're bringing or reposition your offer. Remember, it's your job to convey the value of what you bring to the table and these calls and these interactions and everything in between.
How to complete a pricing audit
All right, here's your action step for today, do a quick pricing audit. Write down your core offers and their prices. You have one, great. Write down that, write down the price. You have 20, great. Write down them, write down the prices. Next to each one, list the transformation it provides, maybe what problem it solves, and the results that it creates. Then ask yourself, is this price aligned with the value? If it feels off, adjust accordingly. And if you're feeling unsure about it, test it out. If you think, hey, this needs to be a little bit higher. Now, I will always say it's easier to raise our rates than lower our rates, so raise our rates. If it feels uncertain, go up 10%. Try it on your next few consults, just a little bit higher. Make sure you work through any doubt that you may be holding on to, because when we see our prices with uncertainty, potential clients pick up on it. I have a $9 training on this and how to price with confidence. You can find it at wendymuzzy.com/everything, or you can also find it in the show notes. That's wendymuzzy.com/5 for this episode. Look, charging your value isn't about numbers. It truly is about owning your expertise, recognizing the results you bring, and showing up with confidence. You are worth it. Your work is worth it. And the right clients, they know it too. If you love this episode, share it with a friend. And don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. It helps me reach more entrepreneurs like you. Until next time, be sure to charge your value, friend!