How to Price Your Services

This project guide helps two Sky’s the Limit members work together through four meetings as they collaborate to price your services.

Meeting 1: Break down your costs

Before this meeting:

• Make sure that you’ve had an intro meeting. If you need help navigating your first meeting, visit this Guide to Your First Meeting.

• Review: Startup Budget and How to Price A Service 

In this meeting:

• Identify your main costs to starting or running your business. 

• Use the Startup Budget Template to list your expenses (costs). 

• Include things like: Costs to design a fully functional website with a way to book your services and pay for services, any tools you’ll have to buy, any certifications you’ll need, and a marketing budget.

After this meeting:

• Find more additional competitor pricing examples on Upwork.

• Note any agreed-upon next steps.

Meeting 2: Research the competition

Before this meeting:

• Review: Competitor Research - Identify Your Competition

• Look at competitor websites and try to find prices for similar services on Freelance sites like Upwork.

In this meeting:

• Use  Competitor Landscape Template to:

  • Discuss what your competitors charge and why you should charge more or less for a similar service.

  • Note whether they have one hourly price, price ranges, a subscription, pricing packages, or some other way of pricing their services.

After this meeting:

• Choose a few in different price ranges to discuss next time.

• Note any agreed-upon next steps.

Meeting 3: Research pricing models

Before this meeting:

• Review: How to Price a Service

In this meeting:

• Review the types of pricing models:

  • Time based pricing

  • Flat rate pricing

  • Tier based pricing

  • Variable pricing

• Discuss the pros and cons of each.

• Decide which pricing model and pricing structure will work best for you.

After this meeting:

• Sleep on it! Make sure you haven’t forgotten anything and that you would feel good about providing your service at that price.

• Note any agreed-upon next steps.

Meeting 4: Test your pricing

Before this meeting:

• Create a web page, menu, or price sheet that describes your service and pricing and test it with potential customers.

In this meeting:

• Did anyone want to buy your services at that price? If not why not?

• If they did, do you still feel confident that this price makes sense? 

• Revise your pricing if needed.

After this meeting:

• Finalize your pricing page, sheet or menu and start selling!

• Be sure to mark your project complete, update your business tracker, and start a new project!

Want to talk to someone who can help?

Sky’s the Limit members are connected to a community of volunteer business mentors, more free tools and guides like this one, and exclusive funding opportunities.