Back when I first started I had no idea how to charge for my products. Then my friend Jake told me, “no one is paying you for the time that it takes you to do the work. They’re paying you for the thousands of hours that you spent to become an expert.”
When you abandon hourly pricing, you begin to take control of your efficiencies in your business, your money, and your time.
If you are struggling with how to price your services to make more money online, I got you covered! The truth is that hourly pricing sucks, and once you can break this mindset, you will unlock more high-paying clients.
Price Your Services To Make More Money Video Below
Now that you’ve taken the time to learn about how to price your services to make more money, I want you to understand that this is only the case 95% of the time.
You can justify per project pricing based on:
- Your industry
- Your skill level
- The results you can offer
- The clients you target
I recently worked on a project with a friend where he hired a freelancer off of UpWork to do some basic custom CSS coding. The guy custom coded a button in the menu, adjusted some CSS measurements, and added a background to the sidebar. He billed for (I believe) 3-5 hours. In the end, it wasn’t a bad price for what my friend got (with a cheap hourly rate, too!). But on the same day, I managed to complete 26 very time-consuming tasks on the same project (everything from email set up, design, funnel building, etc).
Did my friend get ripped off by the freelancer? Absolutely not.
Did my friend get ripped off by me? No way.
I’m not sharing this to brag (if you’re impressed by website nerd talk) but to show you two different examples of styles of charging based on skills.
You have to target the right clients with per project pricing while also being the most valuable option. You become the most valuable option by learning as much as you can to become an expert in your field.
The first website I built took me 3 months to build… the last one I built took me 2 hours. Take a wild guess which one looks better and cost much more. The first website was barely worth the price of the theme and the most recent website was worth every bit of $5,000 (especially considering the revenue it has generated for my client on the back end).
Do What Works For You
In the end, it is up to you to do what works for you. I’m not here to tell you what to do or to draw a line in the sand. It’s taken me decades to test, try, and experiment what works for me. If you like charging hourly to protect yourself of your time then so be it.
But I do believe that as you work towards being more efficient, more skilled, and more valuable, you won’t have to worry about those types of clients that are worried about nickel and diming you. Take it from me, the guy who started his music recording career mixing for clients that might as well of held a stopwatch trying to bleed everything out of a project. (Go away, $10/hour Soundcloud rappers)
What I can tell you is that when I did switch to per project pricing, I removed a lot of stress from my life. I was able to get paid fairly for my skills rather than my time. That is what is more important to both your mental sanity and your business.
Track Your Time
Just because you don’t charge hourly doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t keep track of your time. But the time tracking should be used to measure yourself and keep you in check. It isn’t for the client.
- Compete with yourself while never sacrificing the quality of your work
- Establish what your strengths and weaknesses are in your operations
- If you identify a weakness in your operation that isn’t efficient, look into outsourcing it
The fact that you are even reading this right now tells me that you care enough to be an expert in your field and to market yourself the right way. You are so much more than just a timecard. Leave the hourly pricing structures to those fields that don’t require highly skilled people and do everything you can to provide more value to your clients to go above and beyond. This is the New Industrial Revolution. The same rules don’t apply. You’ll always hear me saying the same thing…
There are two ways to do something… the right way and the better way which hasn’t been tried yet. I am always searching for the better way.
-Me trying to be Yoda
Read books, take courses, study with mentors, do unpaid work to leverage experience, build relationships, connect people, and offer tremendous value. I was a broke musician, stuck in a shit retail job, without a clue on marketing and recording. Everybody starts somewhere. I hope to be able to help you on your journey.
Now go get some new clients. You got this.