Nobody teaches you to charge what you're worth

I learned to build websites for free.

Learning to charge for them was a lot more expensive.

When I was a kid, there were free videos for everything. How to make a menu. How to connect a database. How to centre a div, which is still an unsolved problem for humanity.

There was no video on how much to ask for any of it.

And at home, nobody could tell me. Nobody in my family ran a business. So when it came to putting a number on my work, I did what I suspect most self-taught people do.

I guessed. Low.

Why we all guess low

I don't think it's modesty. I think it's fear dressed up as humility.

When you have no references, every number sounds too high. You imagine the client laughing. You imagine them going to someone else. So you shave a bit off before they've even asked. Then a bit more "to get started".

The client, quite reasonably, says yes.

And that yes, which feels like a win, is where the trouble starts.

Every discount comes back

Here's what I've learned, slowly.

A discount doesn't stay a discount. It comes back. Not as money. As scope.

The client who paid less doesn't expect less. Why would they? They expect the same website, the same support, the same quick answers. Sometimes more, because now there's a relationship, and relationships come with "just one small thing".

So you end up doing full work for a reduced price. And because you set that price yourself, you can't even complain about it.

Every discount comes back as scope. It just doesn't knock before coming in.

That's become one of our rules at Foxnice: no discounts. Rules are easy to write and harder to keep, and I'm sure one day I'll be tempted to break this one. But every time I'm tempted, I try to remember that a discount isn't a gift to the client. It's a loan against my own future time. At a terrible interest rate.

What I'd tell my younger self

Not a formula. I don't believe in formulas for this.

Just three things I wish someone had said.

First: the price isn't about how long it took you. It's about what it's worth to the person paying. If it took you an evening because you've done it fifty times, that's not a reason to charge less. That's the reason they came to you.

Second: a client who only stays because you're cheap will leave for someone cheaper. Usually at the worst moment.

Third: being small doesn't mean being cheap. Small is an advantage. You answer faster. You know the project. That's worth money, not an apology.

None of this is in any free course I know of.

I wish it were. It would have saved me years of guessing low.

So here it is, for free.

Which, I realise, is exactly the problem I'm describing.

P.S. Yes, I see the irony. Consider this article a loss leader.