How To Price Your Services As A Beginner
Introduction
One of the biggest challenges that people face when starting a new service business is figuring out how to price their services. They worry that if they charge too much, they’re going to scare clients away and not be able to build their business. Or if they charge too low that they’re going to be working really hard for not very much money.
I want to show you a simple way where you can start pricing your services without overcomplicating things and get your business off the ground.
Hi, I am Dr. Marcela and I am a business strategist and coach. And here I share practical tools and strategies to help solopreneurs build their service business without burning out. So let’s get started.
Why Pricing Matters (But Shouldn’t Hold You Back)
As a new business owner, learning how to price our services is one of those key decisions that are going to help us to get our businesses off the ground. It’s really important to think about pricing, but it’s also really important not to overcomplicate it and not to let that get in the way of actually going out there and selling your services to your clients.
Point 1: Pricing Doesn’t Need to Be Perfect
Point number one, pricing doesn’t need to be perfect. A lot of new business owners really worry about getting pricing wrong, and it delays them being able to launch into the market and try out their services and start working with clients.
Initially when you are just getting started, even if you have a lot of expertise that you are now using to be able to sell services to clients, you may find that your pricing is very different to how it’s going to look like once your business is very well established and your confidence has grown, and you have testimonials, and you have momentum.
The key to remember here is that pricing is actually completely subjective and there isn’t any right or wrong. You need to decide what feels right for you, what you feel confident charging, and to also relax and remember that you can change your pricing anytime you want. It’s your business. You can go lower if you want to. You can go higher if you want to. Honestly, there is no price police that’s going to come and get you if you get it wrong.
Pricing is something that actually evolves as your business evolves, as you get more testimonials, as you start building your confidence and as you start gaining that momentum.
Point 2: Price Based on Value, Not Time
The second point is to start with the value of the service that you are providing. So most service business owners, when they’re starting out, they think about the hours that they’re working and that’s how they charge. But actually in business, we need to focus on the value we are providing, not on the amount of hours we are working.
Clients actually care so much more about results than the amount of time that you are dedicating to a particular thing. If you think about it, if you’re able to solve a problem in a shorter space of time, that client is going to value that more than if you were to take a lot longer. And so we need to start really focusing on that value and the transformation we’re able to deliver, and start thinking about pricing according to that.
So with that in mind, if you are someone that’s able to solve a problem in a meaningful way that’s efficient and it’s going to save your client time, that becomes very valuable. So it’s important to start thinking about the problems you’re able to solve and to separate that from the amount of time that’s taking.
For example, if you’re a health coach and you help people in their forties to regain their health, their energy, their vitality, and that means that they are able to live life on a completely different level, that has a lot of value. So it’s really understanding what is the specific problem you’re solving for your customers, what is the transformation you are delivering, and what is the result, the value that they gain from being able to achieve that by working with you.
When you are starting out, it’s okay to start charging an hourly rate to begin with so that you understand how the value exchange works. But please try to keep in mind the result and the transformation that you are providing for your customers and really try to switch your model into that as quickly as you can so that you don’t get trapped in that time for money exchange, which becomes very difficult to sustain and is not scalable.
Point 3: Do Market Research
The third point is to do a little bit of research. So there is a market for what you’re offering for the most part, unless you’re inventing something completely new, which is less common, but you can have a look at the market and see what’s on offer. It doesn’t mean that you have to price according to the market necessarily, but as a beginner, that is a good place to start.
So you can look at people that are providing services similar to yours and to position yourself and to try out some of those prices and see how you feel, and see how it lands with your potential clients.
One interesting thing that I have found in terms of my own personal experience as an entrepreneur, but also all of the clients that I work with, is that pricing is often more a reflection of our own confidence rather than our expertise or what our clients are willing to pay us.
There is a saying by someone called Simon Alexander Ong, which is that there are two sales that you need to make. One is the sale to your client, but the second one is a sale to yourself. If you don’t fully believe in the service that you’re offering, if you don’t believe in the value you provide, if you don’t know if you can provide that transformation, and you want to price highly, that’s going to be very difficult because there’s going to be an energetic mismatch. So you really need to be able to believe in what you’re offering.
And one way to do this is to do it in a gradual way. You can grow into your pricing. You don’t have to get to that ideal price that you want to charge right away, because that can be a process in and of itself, whereby you learn to trust that you can deliver that value. You start gaining testimonials, you start getting feedback, and as your confidence grows, your prices can follow that as well.
Point 4: Start Simple and Adjust Later
Number four is to start really simple and to adjust later on. You are completely allowed to start at whatever price feels good to you, and that can often be a very low or introductory price because as I explained earlier, we need to build that confidence and we need to have some kind of tangible results for us to know that we are able to provide those services and we can provide that value.
Many successful service providers have started their services with very low introductory pricing, and they have gradually built that up as their confidence and expertise grows. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, and in fact, that’s going to help you get to those higher prices quicker, and it’s going to help you feel so much more confident. You can literally start by creating a very simple package that delivers a transformational result for your clients.
You can test it out with a few clients at a specific price point, and then you can adjust and evolve as you start getting real world experience. Don’t try to figure all of this out in your head without actually testing it out in the market, because then you will run into the problem of having analysis paralysis because you’re not going to have any real time data or feedback.
If you feel really confident with your pricing from the get go, that’s great. Go for the price that feels good to you.
What I often recommend to new service providers is to start with two to three pro bono clients where they test their ideas and their services for free in exchange for testimonial and feedback. Then you can try a very reduced price, maybe 50% off for the next few clients, then 30%, then 20%, then 10% until you get to that point that you have in your mind.
That’s a really great way to do it because you know that you’re working towards something, but you’re building your expertise, your experience, and your testimonials in the meantime. Honestly, there is no better way to refine your offer and the way that you’re able to deliver your services than by actually doing it instead of just thinking it.
Real Experience: Pricing Evolves With You
In my coaching business, I have had so many different prices from really cheap hourly rates and promotional introductory offers to high-end coaching packages. I have been able to sell at every price point.
The main thing in terms of charging at the higher end is that I needed to have confidence in myself that I could deliver that type of value, and that came with practice. It came with having more experience and it came with growing into my business and the confidence to be able to deliver that value for my clients.
A Word on “High Ticket” Pressure
One thing that I want to address is this whole thing around charging high ticket. You may have seen it online. A lot of marketing gurus push people to charge high ticket without nuance.
I do agree that charging premium and charging well for our services is crucial, because we need to charge what we’re worth and what relates to the transformation we’re offering.
However, when we are just starting out, we need to understand our place in the market, our positioning, our value, our niche, and we need to test and refine our offers. That takes time.
So yes, we can get to a point where we charge our worth, but it’s okay to grow into that. If you’re feeling anxious about pricing, relax. You can always change it later.
Final Summary
If you are just starting out as a service provider and you don’t know what to charge:
Firstly, please do not worry. There is no perfect price you need before you launch. You can choose something that feels good and adjust it as you grow.
Start focusing on value, not hours, because clients care about transformation more than time.
Do a bit of market research to understand where you fit, but don’t feel you must copy it exactly.
And finally, start simple. Get out there, work with real clients, and refine your pricing based on real feedback and experience. That is the fastest way to build confidence, momentum, and a sustainable service business.
