---
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.