Pricing Design Work Without Flinching

The number is not the hard part. Saying it out loud, once, without stapling a discount to it before anyone has answered — that is the hard part.

I flinched for years. Here is what stopped it.

Price The Outcome, Not The Hours

Hours are a terrible unit. They punish experience: the faster you get, the less you earn for the same result, which is an incentive nobody should design into their own business.

• Anchor on what it is worth. A checkout redesign is worth a percentage of the revenue that passes through it.
• Quote a range early. Ranges filter badly-matched projects before either side has spent a week.
• Charge for the thinking. The deliverable is a byproduct of the decisions. Bill for the decisions.

If a client is comparing you on price, the proposal did not explain what they were buying.

The Silence

Say the number and then stop talking. The pause will feel like a minute. It is four seconds, and whoever speaks first negotiates against themselves.

The discount you volunteer is the one nobody was going to ask for.