Pricing Points
Startup Skills has a superlative and absolutely correct post on pricing products and services. It is just so easy to be swayed by emotion or your own subjective perception when determining a price.
I know this will be a problem when we ever finish the software we have in crudely early beta right now. (Which I found I worked best on at home, so I meant to bring the development machine home while I was on more or less paternity leave, even if it meant just a little chipping away, but never did get it here.) We need to be able to justify spending the time and effort improving and supporting it, but that means charging real money, and that means a tougher time getting market share.
It’s also been a problem with support services. The rate I charge is the same rate we settled on charging back in 1997. I still perceive it as high, yet it’s increasingly looking too low from a “here are the costs it should cover” perspective, and even a “here’s what some people charge” perspective.
I’m not the only one to perceive it as too high, but the clients I’d truly want understand that it’s reasonable.
Speaking of which, another attorney is leaving my big client’s firm and talking about hiring me where she’s going, which will be a two-person firm when she gets there. It’s kind of different, adding new clients through turnover.
Anyway, good post over there, and it’s definitely easy to start higher and move lower. Don’t misunderestimate your value.
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