I’ve watched many people tangle themselves into knots trying to justify their prices, assuming the client values their effort, rather than the result.
But answering the “how much” question by going through the laundry list of costs shifts the conversation away from value and towards scrutiny – it makes pricing feel like a negotiation on labor costs rather than a reflection of the impact you will create.
The worst thing is: that’s not really what they wanted to know. Buying an expert service is more like buying a contraception pill than buying a bag of cookies. The clients are way more interested in the reliability of the promised outcome than they are in the ingredient list.
When someone asks you “How much do you charge” you are free to interpret it in one of two ways:
1. Demand to “show your work” to get the budget approved by a boss.
2. Request to clarify “why is this investment a good idea” by a client
Choosing between the two is the difference between responding with it costs as much because it takes me hours, and I needed to renew my license and it costs as much because it will solve x and get you promoted based on the y metric.
Which “justification” would you prefer, as a client?
So unless costs directly impact the value delivered, never justify based on them. Instead, justification anchored in value and impact is a much better conversation to have for both sides.