There’s a scene that repeats constantly and almost always ends the same way. Someone with good creative work sits down to put together a quote, stares at the screen, and in the end types the number they think will get accepted. Not what the work is worth, the one that won’t scare them to send. They hit send, and they breathe.
And then they complain about the same things: that clients haggle, that the client doesn’t value the work, that they spend the whole project fighting over things that shouldn’t be up for debate. They almost never connect it to the number they set at the start, and that’s exactly where it all began.
I’ll give it to you in one line and then take it apart: a price is a message before it’s a figure, it says where you are and who you work for, and almost everyone sets it from the wrong place.
In short (TL;DR)
- The price doesn’t come from cost or hours, it comes from the transformation you deliver and where you want to sit. Cost only gives you a floor.
- A price is a signal: it tells the market what league you’re in and who you’re for. A low price isn’t just less money, it’s a message that scares off the very clients you want.
- Almost everyone sets the price from one of three wrong places: cost, what others charge, or fear (the number that lets them sleep).
- Price and clients go together: the number you set decides who comes to you. Cheap attracts hagglers; aligned attracts people who value the work.
- Charge by the project or the outcome, not by the hour. Charging by time punishes you for being good and fast.
- Raising the price isn’t raising for the sake of it, it’s aligning it with value. You lose the ones you wanted to lose and gain the ones you wanted to have.
Why almost everyone prices wrong
The problem isn’t that people charge too little, it’s where they get the number. And it almost always comes from one of these three places, all three of them bad.
From cost. You add up your hours, put a rate on them, tack on a margin, and that’s the price. It sounds reasonable and it’s a trap, because it ties what you charge to what it costs you to make, not to what it’s worth to whoever receives it. The better and faster you get, the less you earn. You’re penalizing your own craft.
From comparison. You look at what others like you charge and set yourself a touch below so you don’t price yourself out. The trouble is you’re letting the most generic part of the market, the average, decide your price, and you know what happens in the average: everyone competes on number, because there’s nothing else to look at.
From fear. This is the most common and the least admitted. You set the number that doesn’t give you vertigo to send, the one you think will get accepted without a fight. That isn’t a price, it’s what lets you sleep. And the client can tell, because a price set from fear communicates itself.
Price is positioning
The price is the first thing the market learns about you, often before it sees the work. And like any signal, it says things, whether you want it to or not. Rory Sutherland puts it well: a price isn’t just what you pay, it’s information about what you’re buying. A high number and a low one tell different stories about the same person.
That’s why a low price doesn’t make you more approachable, it makes you more suspect to anyone looking for quality. It reads better as a table:
| A low price says | An aligned price says |
|---|---|
| ”I’m not quite sure what I’m worth" | "I know exactly what I deliver" |
| "Compare me by the number" | "Choose me by the judgment” |
| Attracts hagglers | Attracts people who value it |
| Leaves you no room to do it well | Gives you room to do it well |
It isn’t about charging high for the sake of it. It’s about the price and who you are telling the same story. When you charge well below your level, you’re not being generous, you’re sending a confusing message that you then pay for in every meeting.
Price and the clients it attracts
Tell me your price and I’ll tell you who you’ll be fighting with all project long. It’s the part that’s hardest to see and the one that orders everything else: the number you set doesn’t just determine how much you earn, it determines who comes to you.
A low price attracts the client who buys on price. And the client who buys on price haggles, questions every line, and leaves the moment someone shows up a euro cheaper, because the price was the only thing about you that mattered to them. They’re not a bad client, it’s that you sold them on the one thing you told them to look at.
A price aligned with your value does the opposite. It filters. The ones who only looked at the number fall away, and the ones who choose by judgment, by fit, by what you solve, stay. You work with fewer people, better, and you stop spending your projects defending yourself. The right price isn’t just more money, it’s a different kind of client.
How to set the price
There’s no formula, but there is a way of thinking about it that gets you out of the three bad places. Four moves.
Price the transformation, not the hours. Before you think about numbers, answer what changes for the client when they work with you. What problem disappears, what happens to their business, what stops costing them. That change is what you’re selling, and it’s worth the same whether you do it in two days or two weeks.
Charge by project or value, not by time. The moment you get the price off the hours, you stop penalizing your efficiency and start charging for what the work solves. Time is your cost, not your value, and the client isn’t buying your time, they’re buying an outcome.
Give options and anchor. Instead of a single take-it-or-leave-it number, offer two or three tiers. It doesn’t just lift the average ticket, it changes the conversation: the client stops asking “do I take it or not?” and starts asking “which one do I take?”. And the highest tier you set anchors what it costs to work with you.
Raise it on purpose, in steps. Don’t wait until you feel ready, because that feeling doesn’t arrive on its own. Raise the price on the next quote, one step above what gives you vertigo, and watch what happens. The judgment to charge is trained like any other: by charging, seeing how the market responds, and adjusting.
Where to start this week
Take your next quote, the one you were about to send with the usual number. And before you send it, do two things.
First, write in one line what really changes for that client if the work goes well. Not what you’ll do, what will happen to them. Second, raise the number one step above what gives you a bit of fear, and set it by project, not by hours.
That client might say no. But you’ll have done the only thing that actually moves your price: setting it from value and from where you want to be, instead of from fright. And that “no” will teach you more about your positioning than ten projects accepted at the usual rate.
Frequently asked questions
How do I know how much to charge for my creative work?
It doesn’t come from your costs or a rate card, it comes from the transformation you deliver and where you want to sit. Ask what changes for the client when they work with you and what that change is worth to them, not how many hours it takes you. Cost gives you a floor below which you lose money; the real price you set from value and from the positioning you want to occupy.
Should I charge by the hour or by the project?
By project or by value, almost always. Charging by the hour punishes your efficiency: the better and faster you get, the less you earn, which is exactly backwards. Charging by the project or the outcome unhooks your price from time and ties it to what actually matters, which is what the work solves for the client.
Will raising my prices make me lose clients?
You’ll lose some, and they tend to be exactly the ones you wanted to lose. A higher price filters: the ones who haggled and didn’t value the work fall away, and the ones who choose by judgment rather than by number come closer. It isn’t about raising for the sake of it, it’s about aligning the price with the value you deliver; when you do, you change clients, not just the figure.
How do I justify a high price without sounding arrogant?
You don’t justify it by talking about yourself, you justify it by talking about what you solve. Instead of defending the number, explain the problem you take off the table and what it’s worth to have it gone. Arrogance is setting a high price and hiding it; confidence is setting it and being able to explain, calmly, what’s behind it. If you doubt the price, the client smells it; if you’re clear on it, you rarely need to justify it much.
Before you go
The whole idea fits in one line: your price is already talking about you, so the question isn’t whether you send a message, it’s which one.
Stop pulling the number from fear, from cost, or from what others charge, and start pulling it from the value you deliver and where you want to be. This week, raise your next quote one step and set it by what you solve, not by the hours. And tell me what kind of client starts showing up.
References
- Rory Sutherland, Alchemy (2019) — on how price is perception and signal, information about what you’re buying, not just a figure.
- Blair Enns, Pricing Creativity — value-based pricing applied specifically to creative work.
Reading recommendations
If you want to pull the thread of price and positioning, three books:
- Blair Enns, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto. How to position yourself so you stop competing on price. The most direct one for creatives.
- Alan Weiss, Value-Based Fees. The classic on charging for the value you deliver rather than the hours you put in.
- Rory Sutherland, Alchemy. The psychology of price and perception: why the same work is worth different amounts depending on how you present it.
* The book links use my Amazon affiliate: if you buy through them, I earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you.