7 Pricing Mistakes Keeping You From Getting Paid Six Figures+ Per Client

Most agency owners, firm owners and professional service providers price their services at the number they're comfortable asking for.

And the market will often pay a lot more.

I see this all the time. People who are really good at what they do. They get great results for their clients. And they're still not charging anywhere near what they deserve for the level of expertise they have.

Some of my clients are now getting paid six figures, even multiple six figures, by one client. And in some industries, a single client can be worth seven figures. I want to be really clear. I'm not talking about their client's revenue. I'm talking about what one client is paying them.

How Most People Set Their Pricing

When I ask, it's almost always one of three things.

1. They looked around at what everyone else was charging and priced close to that.
2. They picked a number they felt comfortable with.
3. They're charging by the hour. I heard someone call it taxi meter pricing. I thought that was a funny way to explain it, but it's accurate. The meter runs while you work, and when the work stops, so does the money.

There's a much better way to price your services. One that gets you paid a lot more money for the same thing you're already doing.

What Happens When You Change How You Price, Package and Sell

Let me tell you about a few of my clients.

Nick went from a $7,000 offer to a $25,000 offer. We didn't just raise his price. We innovated his offer and made it more. We built more value into it for the buyer he really wanted to work with. And I want to be really clear about this. Going from about $7,000 to $25,000 only added a few hundred dollars to his cost and about one more hour of his time. He never would have thought of selling what he was selling for $25,000. In one year, he went from zero to nearly $1 million.

Amy went from a $3,500 service to a $50,000 offer in one week. She closed a client at $50,000, and that client grew into more than six figures in revenue for her.

Nancy went from charging by the hour to high five-figure engagements. We changed how she was pricing and selling her offer, and we repositioned her so the market saw her at a much higher level. She closed three of those clients in about 90 days. And it didn't stop there. VIPs at banks wanted her to work with their clients and started bringing her in to speak.

None of these clients suddenly got better at what they do. They were already good. What changed was how their offer was built, priced, positioned and sold to the buyer who could pay for it.

The 7 Pricing Mistakes I See the Most

1. Charging What You're Comfortable With

This is the big one. Most people charge what feels comfortable to them. They're making their pricing all about them. Not about the buyer, and not about what the market will pay.

A lot of times, they've just never been exposed to what's possible. Or they don't believe they could charge a lot more. And that's just not true.

I heard a great saying one time. Don't sell from your own pocket.

What you would pay for something, or how much money you have, has nothing to do with what the right buyer will pay you. Your buyer isn't spending your money. They're investing in your experience, your expertise and the results you get them.

Your buyer doesn't care what you're comfortable with. They care about what the result is worth to them. If you're pricing at your comfort level, you're almost always pricing too low.

2. Charging by the Hour

Here's the problem with charging by the hour. The better you are at your job, the less you get paid.

Think about it. You've gotten really good at what you do. You can do things faster and easier than you could years ago. But if you're charging by the hour, getting faster just means getting paid less.

And now with AI, things that used to take days can take hours. Charging by the hour is a broken model. It's going to keep you broke.

Your clients aren't really buying your time anyway. They're buying the result you get them. So that's what you should be pricing.

3. Pricing Based on What Everyone Else Charges

When you price based on what everyone else is charging, you're putting yourself right next to them. Now you're being compared. And when you're being compared, you're competing.

Don't compete. Win.

The firm owners, agency owners and consultants who get paid the most aren't just charging a little more than everyone else. They've built an offer nobody else has.

4. Pricing the Deliverable Instead of the Result

A campaign. A brand strategy. A plan. A report. When you price the deliverable, your buyer sees it as something they can shop around for.

But what does that deliverable do for your client? If your strategy brings in $2 million in new business, it's not worth $10,000 to them. Price it based on the result.

5. Building Your Offer for the Wrong Buyer

A lot of firm and agency owners build their offer for the clients they've always had. Then they wonder why those clients push back on price.

There are buyers in your market right now who can easily pay $50,000, $250,000 or more for the right result. But your offer has to be built for them. Amy didn't get a $50,000 client by lowering her price. She got it by raising the level of her offer.

6. Reinventing Your Offer Every Time

When every client gets a custom proposal, you're starting over every single time. New scope. New price. New pitch. And a lot of times you end up negotiating yourself down.

This is where an Expert Gateway Offer™ makes a big difference.

An Expert Gateway Offer™ is a clearly defined offer with a clear price that you can sell over and over again. Rinse and repeat.

I like to help my clients create an Expert Gateway Offer™ that's $25,000, $50,000, $75,000 or even more. It's typically something that can be delivered faster, and it's typically a cash offer.

And here's what makes it so powerful. It opens the door. Once a client works with you and sees what you can do, it leads to the bigger contract, the ongoing work, the bigger opportunity. Whatever that is for your business.

If you want help building yours, that's exactly what I do in The $50,000-Per-Client Rinse & Repeat Offer™. In 30 days, you'll have your $50,000+ offer packaged and know exactly how to win clients at that level, again and again.

Learn more about The $50,000-Per-Client Rinse & Repeat Offer™

7. Discounting to Close the Deal

When you discount, you're telling your buyer your first price wasn't real. You're also telling them what you think your work is worth.

So what do you do when a buyer can't do your full price? You have options.

• If cash flow is the concern, give them payment options or funding options.
• If the budget really is the issue, take something out of the offer. Remove part of the scope so the price fits what they can invest. They get less, and they pay less. That's very different from giving them everything for less.
• And sometimes the right answer is to walk away. Not every buyer is in a position to invest in what you have. That's okay. Your work is valuable, and the right buyer will see that. Lowering your price for the wrong one only teaches you to do it again.

Here's What Most People Miss

It's not just about your pricing.

You can raise your price all you want. But if your offer is the same, you're selling it the same way, and the market still sees you the same way, you're just going to hear no more often.

So here's what has to be in place for your price to make sense to your buyer.

1. How the market sees you. You have to look like you can command the price you're asking. Your buyer needs to see you at the level of experience and expertise you really bring.
2. How your offer is built. What's in it, what it does for your client, and why it matters to them.
3. How you sell it. This is a huge factor in what you're able to charge. The same offer sold two different ways can get you two very different fees.
4. How you price it. Based on what the market will actually pay for the result. Not what you're comfortable with. Not what everyone else is charging.

When all four of these are working together, everything changes. You get better clients. You get paid more for what you already do. And you work higher, not harder.

This Isn't Something You Want to Guess At

I'll be honest with you. This isn't easy. I've spent years learning how to do this well.

And here's what I've found. Many times, even the coaches people hire are keeping them small, because they don't know how to price at this level themselves.

A lot of people think they can figure this out in ChatGPT or with AI. Or they guess. Or they fall back on all the reasons we just talked about. And they end up undervaluing themselves and what they could be getting paid.

Pricing at this level takes judgment. It takes someone who has done this, who has deep expertise and experience across a lot of different industries, and who understands the commercial value of what you do. That's what gets you paid what you're really worth.

This Is What Business Elevation Is All About

This is exactly why my Business Elevation work is never just about changing your prices.

We look at all of it. How the market sees you. How your offer is built. How you sell it. And what it's really worth to your clients. Then we elevate all of it together, so you can win higher-caliber clients who pay you six figures, multiple six figures, and in some industries, even more.

You already have the expertise. Now the market needs to see it and pay you for it.

Explore Working Together

Ann Carden is an Elite Strategic Growth Advisor and the Founder and CEO of Expert In You®. She has built seven businesses, sold five, and helped hundreds of clients across 80+ industries win higher-caliber clients and command premium fees.

Disclaimer: The client results shared in this article are real, but they are not typical and are not a guarantee of future results. Every business is different, and individual results depend on many factors, including your experience, market, offer, effort and implementation. Client examples are shared to illustrate what's possible and are not a promise or prediction of what you will earn. Nothing in this article is legal, tax or financial advice.