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Hey rebel solopreneurs 🦸♀️🦸♂️
Most solopreneurs name a price the same way.
They Google what others charge. They pick something in the middle. They hope for the best.
That gap matters.
Most people undercharge by 40–60% — not because their work is weak, but because they price based on time instead of what the outcome is worth.
Every client signed at the wrong price is months of work handed over for less than it's worth.
There's a fix. It takes 15 minutes.
🧩 You provide:
What your service is and what you typically deliver
Who your ideal client is
What a rough project timeline looks like
🍿 What you get:
First — a value calculation showing what your outcome is actually worth to your client
Then — a clean, scoped offer package with a fixed price and payment terms
Finally — three ready-to-say pricing responses for the three moments that trip most people up
⛳️ Here's the scenario
Meet Alex.
Eight years as a brand strategist at a mid-size agency.
He went solo six months ago — writing positioning and messaging for early-stage startups, pulling in clients through LinkedIn and referrals.
The work was good. The pricing was a disaster.
He'd quoted $3,200 for a full brand strategy — positioning, messaging, visual direction, six weeks of work.
The client signed in under two minutes.
That felt like a win.
Then a colleague mentioned the same project usually runs $15,000–$25,000.
Alex nearly fell off his chair.
He'd left $12,000 on the table without knowing it.
One afternoon at the dog park, he got talking to a woman sitting on a nearby bench watching her dog tear across the grass.
Quiet. Deliberate. She had a worn copy of Priceless face-down beside her.
Turned out she'd spent 20 years as a pricing consultant — helping lawyers, architects, and consultants move from hourly billing to value-based rates. Her clients had doubled their income without adding a single project. (Alex went very still.)
She glanced at the quote he'd been drafting on his phone.
Then she showed him what it should look like.
❌ What Alex had: "$75/hour — brand strategy, estimated 40–50 hours"
✅ What it became: "Brand Foundation — $9,500. Positioning, messaging, visual direction, brand voice. 6-week engagement. 50% upfront."
Same work. Clear scope. Three times the price. No hourly rate in sight.
"How do you even get to a number like that?"
She leaned back.
"Price the outcome, not the time. Your client doesn't care how long it took — they care what they walk away with."
"Find out what the result is worth to them. Then price at 10–20% of that number."
"Then package it so it's easy to say yes. One clean offer with scope, deliverables, timeline, and price. People don't want to build their own offer — they want to buy the thing that solves their problem."
She pulled a bookmark from her book and wrote one prompt on the back.
"Run this before your next pricing conversation. Three steps. Fifteen minutes."
Alex opened his AI sidekick.
🎯 Step 1: Find the value, build the package, write the pitch
⏱️ 15 minutes
This prompt walks through three steps in one run — what the outcome is worth, what the offer looks like, and the exact words to say when a client asks about price.
Here's what it produces:
❌ Before: "I charge $75/hour. A project usually takes 40–50 hours, so around $3,500 or so? It depends on scope."
✅ After: Value calculation "Business outcome: a positioning and messaging system your client can use in pitch decks, sales calls, and marketing from day one. Without it, startups waste $30,000–$80,000 on marketing that doesn't work because no one knows what to say."
"Agency equivalent: a boutique brand agency charges $20,000–$40,000 for this scope."
"Solo specialist range: $7,000–$15,000. Senior-level work without agency overhead. The client works directly with you — not an account manager."
Offer package "Brand Foundation — $9,500
What's included: positioning statement, messaging framework, visual direction guidelines, brand voice guide, 1-hour team handover session.
Not included: logo design, website copy, ongoing content creation.
Timeline: 6 weeks.
Payment: 50% upfront, 50% on delivery.
You leave with a complete brand system ready to use on day one."
Pricing pitch "First call: 'My Brand Foundation runs $9,500 for a 6-week engagement. That covers positioning, messaging, visual direction, and a brand voice guide — everything you need to go to market with a clear, consistent story. Want me to walk you through what's included?'"
"Pushback: 'Most of my clients come from agencies where this scope runs $20,000–$35,000. I work with one client at a time, so you get direct access to me — not an account manager. The price reflects that.'"
[Alex's AI sidekick filled in the proposal follow-up version...]
Here's the prompt that did that:
My service: {e.g. brand strategy for early-stage startups —
positioning, messaging, visual direction}
My typical client: {e.g. Series A startup, 10–30 people,
preparing to raise or go to market}
What I deliver: {e.g. positioning statement, messaging framework,
visual direction guidelines, brand voice document}
Typical timeline: {e.g. 6 weeks}
Step 1 — Find the value:
1. What specific business outcome does my service help them achieve?
2. What would it cost them NOT to have this done well?
(lost deals, delayed funding, wasted spend — be specific)
3. What would a full-service agency charge for the same work?
4. What is a fair fixed-project price range for a solo specialist?
Show your reasoning. Be direct. Give a number range.
Step 2 — Build the package:
Use the price range from Step 1.
Build a clean offer package:
1. Package name (specific and outcome-focused — not just "Strategy Package")
2. What's included (5–7 deliverables, plain English)
3. What's NOT included (2–3 scope boundaries)
4. Timeline
5. One recommended price (a single number, not a range)
6. Payment terms
7. One-line summary of what the client walks away with
Write it as something I could paste directly into a proposal.
Step 3 — Write the pricing pitch:
Use the offer from Step 2.
Write 3 short pricing responses:
1. First call — prospect asks "what do you charge?" before I've explained the offer
2. Proposal follow-up — they've seen it, they've gone quiet, I need to check in
3. Pushback — they say "that's more than we expected"
Rules for all three:
- No apologising for the price
- No "it depends" — give something concrete
- No hedging — confident, warm, direct
- Short: nothing longer than 5 sentences per response
Alex read the pushback response three times.
No apologising. No caving. Just a calm, clear reason why the price made sense.
Wild, right? The offer hadn't changed at all — just the way he talked about it.
🏆 Alex's results
Before:
$75/hour rate copied from a forum post
Left $12,000 on the table on his first real project
No idea what to say when a client pushed back on price
After:
A clear package at $9,500 with defined scope and deliverables
A pricing pitch he could say out loud without flinching
First proposal at the new rate — signed within 48 hours
Total time: 15 minutes. Not another $12,000 mistake.
His AI sidekick calculated the value, built the package, and wrote the pitch. Alex made the call. BAM.
One prompt. A price anchored to value, not guesswork. Words that make clients want to say yes.
That's it, my fellow outliers!
Yours 'proving you don't need a team to build something big' Vijay Peduru 🦸♂️