If you’ve ever quoted a price, got a “yes” in two seconds… and immediately thought “I’ve undercharged, haven’t I?” you probably did.

Most small business owners don’t have a pricing problem, they have a confidence and clarity problem. You know your craft, you care about your clients, but when it comes to putting numbers on your offers, it’s easy to default to “what feels reasonable” rather than “what makes this business sustainably profitable.”

1. Before You Price: Get Clear on the Numbers That Actually Matter

You can’t create profitable offers if you don’t understand your baseline. Profit isn’t just “money left over” it’s the result of deliberate decisions about cost, capacity, and pricing.

Know your minimums

Start with three simple questions:

1. What are your monthly business costs?

   • Fixed: rent, software, insurance, marketing, subscriptions, wages.

   • Variable: materials, freelancers, payment fees, delivery, ad spend that scales with clients.

2. How much do you personally need to earn?

   • Salary/dividends, pension contributions, plus some buffer.

3. How much time do you actually have to deliver work?

   • Hours per week minus admin, marketing, and life. The time that’s truly available for work you get paid for is always less than you think.

Once you have those, you can reverse engineer your baseline rate.

A very simple example

Let’s say:

• Business overheads: £2,000 per month

• Personal income target: £3,000 per month (before tax)

• Combined target: £5,000 per month

• Deliverable hours: 20 billable hours per week → ~80 hours per month

Basic minimum hourly rate:

£5,000 ÷ 80 = £62.50/hour

And that’s just to hit your basic goal. No growth, no buffer, no surprises. If you’re selling a website for £800 that takes you 20+ hours including revisions, you can see the issue.

You don’t have to bill by the hour in practice (in fact, I recommend you don’t), but you must know the underlying maths. That’s your “floor”, not your final price.

2. Build Offers Around Outcomes, Not Just Tasks

If you want to create profitable offers, you need to package what you do in a way that’s easy for clients to understand and easy for you to deliver consistently. That means moving away from “I do a bit of everything” and towards clear, outcome-based offers.

Define the transformation

Ask yourself:

• What specific problem am I solving?

• What changes for the client after working with me?

• How does that show up in numbers, time saved, or reduced stress?

Examples:

• “We reduce your debtor days and stabilise cash flow in 90 days.”

• “We set up your entire onboarding process so new clients are live in under 7 days.”

• “We help you launch a new service and get your first 5 paying clients.”

People pay for results, not deliverables. Your offers should reflect that.

Set clear scope and boundaries

Profit leaks happen in the grey areas: extra calls, endless revisions, “quick favours”, and scope creep. Build these into your offer design:

• What’s included (and what isn’t)?

• How many revisions/calls/check-ins?

• How long does the engagement last?

• How do change requests get priced?

You create profitable offers when you make the value clear and the boundaries clear. Vague offers = vague pricing = vague profit.

Use tiers (but not 9 confusing ones)

A simple 3-tier structure works well:

• Core – the essential solution, stripped of bells and whistles.

• Plus – most popular; adds extra support, speed, or depth.

• Premium – high-touch, bespoke, fast turnaround, or deep strategy.

This lets different budgets self-select without you discounting your Core offer into the ground.

3. Price for Value, Not Just Time

Now we have the foundations, let’s talk numbers. There isn’t one “right” way to price, but there are principles that help you create profitable offers without feeling like you’re making it up.

Step 1: Anchor against value

If your offer helps a client:

• Increase revenue

• Save significant time

• Reduce clear financial risk

• Avoid big future costs

…then your price should be a fraction of that value, not a markup on your hourly rate.

For example:

• You help a client increase monthly recurring revenue by £5,000.

• Charging £500 for that transformation is probably too low.

• Charging £2,000–£4,000 may be far more aligned with outcomes.

Even when the value is “soft” (clarity, reduced stress, better decision-making), there are still knock-on effects but usually in time and money.

Step 2: Check against your floor

Once you’ve anchored to value, sanity check:

• Does the price cover your minimum hourly baseline with margin?

• If this is your main offer, how many do you need to sell per month to hit your income goal?

If you need to sell 30 of something that takes you 8 hours each… the model is broken. Profit-friendly pricing also respects your capacity.

Step 3: Test, don’t guess

If you’ve been undercharging, your nervous system will scream the first time you quote a higher price. That doesn’t mean you’re wrong.

Try:

• Raising prices for new clients first.

• Testing a higher tier alongside your existing offer.

• Quoting a range (e.g. “Packages from £X–£Y depending on scope”) while you calibrate.

If everyone says yes instantly, you’re probably still too cheap. If nobody bites, adjust, but don’t automatically assume the price is the only issue. Positioning, messaging, audience, and offer design all play a part.

4. Make Payment Structure Work For You (and Your Client)

Pricing isn’t just “how much”; it’s also “how and when”. You can create profitable offers and still wreck your cash flow if the payment structure is weak.

Deposits and stage payments

Avoid doing big chunks of work on faith.

Common patterns:

• 50% upfront, 25% midway, 25% on completion.

• 40% deposit, then equal monthly payments.

Deposits do three things:

1. Protect your cash flow.

2. Filter out time-wasters.

3. Increase commitment and project momentum.

Retainers and recurring offers

Where possible, turn one-off projects into ongoing support:

• Monthly finance check-in and management accounts instead of a one-off “sort my books”.

• Website maintenance retainer after the build.

• Monthly strategy calls after a big consulting project.

Retainers:

• Smooth revenue

• Lower your Cost of Acquisition over time

• Make it easier to forecast and invest

Payment plans vs discounts

If affordability is a concern, offer payment plans, not discounts.
£3,000 over 3–6 months maintains your price integrity and de-risks projects for both sides.

Discounts should be strategic and rare (e.g. early-bird for a launch, or a bundle). Don’t train your market to wait for sales.

5. Communicating Your Prices Without Apologising

Even if you technically create profitable offers, you still have to sell them. This is where many owners crumble: mumbling the price, over-explaining, or discounting mid-sentence.

Lead with value, then price

Instead of:

“The cost is £X for [list of tasks]…”

Try:

“Here’s what we’ll achieve together over [timeframe] and why it matters:
– Outcome 1
– Outcome 2
– Outcome 3

The investment for that is £X, which includes [key support elements].”

You’re framing it as an investment in a result, not as a random fee for a list of admin tasks.

Hold the silence

When you share your price, stop talking. Let the other person process. If they’re interested, they’ll ask questions. If they’re not, that’s good data.

Over-talking often sounds like apologising for your own price. You don’t need to justify a fair, thought-through fee.

Handling “You’re too expensive”

Instead of instantly lowering your fee, try:

• “Can you share what you were expecting or what you’re comparing this to?”

• “If we adjusted the scope to focus on X and Y only, we could bring it down to £… Does that feel closer?”

• “If price is the only barrier, we can look at a payment plan instead of changing the scope.”

You create profitable offers partly by protecting your margins in conversations like this. Scope can flex. Values shouldn’t.

6. Common Pricing Mistakes (and How to Fix Them)

Let’s hit a few traps you might recognise.

1. Charging based on what you would pay

You are not your ideal client. You know your industry, you know the behind-the-scenes, and you’re often more price-sensitive than the people you serve. Set prices based on value and costs, not your internal money stories.

2. Matching competitors blindly

“Everyone in my industry charges around £X” usually means “we’ve all copied each other and nobody checked the maths”. Look at the market, sure—but let your own numbers and offer quality lead.

3. Underpricing to “get your foot in the door”

Intro offers are fine if they’re deliberate and time-bound. But chronically underpricing to win work trains clients to expect high value for low fees and makes it hard to ever raise prices. If you discount, be clear: it’s temporary and conditional.

4. Saying yes to every custom request

Custom everything = chaos. Each bespoke deal adds complexity in delivery, pricing, and admin. Productise your core offers, then only customise at the premium tier, with pricing to match.

5. Never reviewing your prices

Costs rise. Experience grows. Demand increases. Your pricing should not stay the same forever. Have a formal price review at least once a year (or every 6–12 months if you’re early-stage and learning fast).

7. A Simple Framework to Create Profitable Offers (You Can Use This Week)

Here’s a practical step-by-step you can run through over a couple of focused sessions.

Step 1: Pick one core offer

Not everything you could do - just the one you’d like to be known for and deliver consistently.

Step 2: Write the “promise”

In one sentence:

“We help [WHO] achieve [OUTCOME] in [TIMEFRAME] by [METHOD].”

This becomes your north star for the offer and pricing.

Step 3: Map the delivery

Break down:

• Stages (onboarding, delivery, wrap-up)

• Key calls/meetings

• Assets you create

• Time you need from the client

• Tools you need to use

Estimate the real time per client, including thinking, comms, and adjustments.

Step 4: Calculate your floor and target

• Apply your minimum hourly baseline.

• Add a profit margin that feels ambitious but fair (e.g. 30–50% above floor for now).

• Sense-check against the value delivered (does it feel like a tiny slice of the outcome, or wildly out of proportion?).

Step 5: Create 2–3 package levels

For example:

• Core (£X) – Essential deliverables and support.

• Plus (£Y) – Adds extras like more contact, implementation help, or speed.

• Premium (£Z) – Deep strategic support, done-for-you elements, or priority access.

Make Plus the one you’d like most people to choose. Design it that way.

Step 6: Test with real people

Run the new offer and pricing past:

• 2–3 existing or past clients

• A trusted peer

• Your accountant (for sanity-checking numbers)

Then put it out there. Adjust based on actual conversations and conversions, not fear.

It’s easy to feel guilty about profit, especially if you care about your clients and your work. But profit isn’t greed, it’s what gives your business stability, choice, and the ability to support people well without burning out.

When you create profitable offers, you’re not “charging as much as you can get away with”. You’re designing:

• A fair exchange of value

• A sustainable business model

• A calmer future for you and your clients

Your pricing should work for everyone involved, especially you.

Learn more about making this work for your business - book a Discovery Call with us for an informal and friendly chat about your options.