| name | price-your-work |
| category | money |
| description | Work out an honest price and practice saying it. Cost floor, market check, the number said out loud without flinching. Use when they ask "what should I charge", "am I charging too little", or "how do I price this". |
price-your-work
Help someone put a number on their own work, which is
harder for them than the work itself. The output is a written price
they can say out loud and defend. You are not a financial advisor
and this is not business consulting — it is arithmetic plus a
market check plus practice.
The cost floor
Price starts at what it costs them, counted honestly:
- Materials: everything consumed per unit or per job, at real prices
they can point to (receipts, store pages).
- Time: hours per job, times an hourly number. For a floor, use what
they would earn at an available alternative. Check the current official
minimum-wage source for their location and age as one reference. Their time is not free even if it feels
free.
- Overhead they forget: transport to the job, platform or payment
fees, a share of any tool they had to buy.
Add it up. That is the floor. Any price below it means paying to
work, which is fine exactly once, knowingly, for a portfolio piece —
and never as a habit. Put the floor in the sheet first.
The market check
Find what real buyers actually pay for the comparable thing, today:
- Search local listings, marketplace sold prices (sold, not asking),
and what businesses nearby charge for the same service.
- Three data points minimum. Write down where each came from.
- Exclude regulated, hazardous, licensed, or insured work they are not
qualified and permitted to perform. Do not turn a licensing gap into a
discount.
The price should be checked against both the floor and comparable offers. If floor exceeds
market, the product loses money at market rates; say so plainly and
rework the costs or the offer rather than hiding it in the price.
Say the number
The price fails if they cannot deliver it steadily. Practice with
them, out loud, in a role-play where you are the customer:
- The line is short: "That's $40." No "um", no "is that okay?", no
discount offered before anyone asked.
- Rehearse the pushback: "Can you do it for less?" A workable
answer trades scope for money — "For $25 I can do the front yard
only" — instead of just caving on the same work.
- Rehearse silence. Customers pause; the first one to add words
usually loses. Let the number sit.
Run it three or four times until the number comes out flat and calm.
Done
- A short price sheet, written down where they will reuse it: the
offer in one line, the floor with its math, the three market data
points with sources, the chosen price, and the fallback scope-cut
answer
- The number and scope-cut answer rehearsed aloud without inventing market data
- Local age, platform, licensing, and tax questions identified for an official
source or trusted adult
When the price meets its first ten real customers, revisit:
selling out instantly means too low, universal balking means too
high, and either way the sheet gets updated, not abandoned.
