Pricing Your Services | Bloggers Lair | Yakezie Forums

I am thinking about offering services for hire, commenting, editing, carnival submissions, roundups, article writing, email, social media, virtual assistant, and similar, but am afraid of over or under valuing my services/time.

For those that do this, how did you decide how to price your services?

Feel free not to tell me at all, or email me directly instead of posting sensitive information. I'm not an ass who's jumping to undercut anyone who's doing this. I'm more looking for an average price so I can determine which opportunities I should pursue.

Thank you!

Edward Antrobus said:

When I started my ebook file conversion service, I priced myself on what seemed fair and affordable. After I had posted my prices and started getting customers, I looked at my competition and discovered that my prices are a quarter of my cheapest competitor, and then prices rise to over 10x what I charge.

On the one hand, I worry that my price being so much lower than others makes me look amateur and "cheap" (as opposed to budget concious).

On the other hand, I can't really justify raising my prices above what I originally considered fair, just because others charge more than I do.

In some respects that's exactly what I'm worried about. Also, it's not like there's a listing somewhere of what people charge for their services, so it's hard to figure out what's considered fair and affordable for most services.

Modest Money said:

I think you'll just have to search out competitors that offer similar services and e-mail them for pricing if necessary.  People may be a little more hesitant to list their specific pricing here.  It is a good idea to do the pricing research before you start so that you can lock in those prices long term.

Yeah, just to be clear I don't think anyone should say, "Hey, I charge x amount" in these forums, but anyone who feels comfortable emailing me with some background I would much appreciate.

Andi B. said:

In some respects that's exactly what I'm worried about. Also, it's not like there's a listing somewhere of what people charge for their services, so it's hard to figure out what's considered fair and affordable for most services.

What I started out with was: how much would I pay for this? Of course, I'm cheap, so that probably wasn't the best plan. :)

I would not post your rates, I would respond to customer inquiries. Try a few things and find a sweet spot where you can make the most. You know what Ramit would say, charge more than everyone else because your service is better.

Just curious? Why wouldn't somebody post their rates? Also, why would somebody not post their rates, but tell it to a competitor?

Personally, I don't think that pricing should be a black box. For one, I think it leads to a lot of dead ends where a potential client contacts you, then sees a number out of their range and leaves you hanging.

I'll be happy to do the math and give you a number, but you should be able to find my rates on my site and have an estimate of how much it would cost.

Thanks guys. The different thoughts and information helped quite a bit. I think it comes down to how I value my time, what I would pay for a service and finding the right clients. Thank you!