Here’s a question I get asked more than almost any other in my work with small business owners: “Am I charging the right amount?”
Usually it comes wrapped in something else. “I’m worried the market won’t support higher prices.” “Clients keep pushing back.” “I just don’t know how to justify charging more.” But strip all that back and what most people are really asking is simpler and more uncomfortable: is my pricing correct, or have I just got used to undercharging?
The honest answer, in most cases, is the second one.
The Real Cost of Underpricing
Most business owners charge less than they should. This isn’t opinion — it’s the pattern I see again and again when I sit down with a new client and we get into their pricing. Their prices haven’t changed significantly in a year or more. They feel vaguely uneasy about what they charge. When I ask if they’ve ever properly tested a higher price and held their nerve on it, the answer is almost always no.
That’s not a market problem. That’s a confidence problem. And it’s costing many business owners more than they realise — not just in revenue, but in the quality of work, the quality of clients, and the energy they have left at the end of the day.
Here’s the maths that changes the conversation. If you’re running a service business at around 70% gross margin — not unusual for freelancers, consultants, coaches, and agency owners — and you raise your prices by 30%, you could afford to lose 30% of your clients and still earn exactly the same revenue. The same money. With a third less work.
Think about what that means in practice. More time to focus on the clients who stay. More capacity to find better clients at the new price. Less of the grinding work that comes with clients who were only with you because you were cheap enough. Typical UK coaching and consulting clients charge £500–£1,500 per month. If you’re below that range and delivering real value, the question worth asking is why.
The clients who leave when you raise your prices are almost never the ones you’d miss. They tend to be the ones who haggle, push scope, call at odd hours, and take twice as long to manage as anyone else. They’re dragging your hourly rate down without you even realising it.
John’s View: Three Questions to Ask About Your Pricing
Rather than some elaborate competitor analysis or market benchmarking exercise, I find these three questions cut to the heart of it far more quickly. They’re the same ones I use with clients at the start of our work together.
Question 1: Am I covering my time and expertise?
This sounds obvious, but most people haven’t actually done the maths. Not the surface maths — the real maths. What does it cost to deliver this work, including your time, your overheads, the admin, the back and forth, the things that happen after the contract that you didn’t charge for? When you lay it out properly, the picture is often very different from what people assumed.
Your expertise has a value that goes beyond the hours on the clock. If a client comes to you precisely because you’ve spent years developing knowledge and judgement they don’t have, then your rate should reflect that. You’re not just selling time. You’re selling the shortcut — the fact that what would take them two years of mistakes to figure out, you can help them navigate in six months. That’s worth something real.
Question 2: What’s my client’s ROI from working with me?
This is the question that tends to unlock the biggest shifts in thinking. Most people price based on what they think they can get away with, rather than the value they’re actually creating. But if your work helps a client add £50,000 to their revenue, or saves them 10 hours a week, or prevents a decision that would have cost them £20,000 — what’s that worth?
I’m not suggesting you charge a percentage of the client’s upside. But I am suggesting that if you’re delivering genuine, measurable value, your pricing should bear some relationship to that value — not just to your time. Using our business success formula, the focus should always be on making the business work better, not just on billing hours. When you start thinking about pricing through the lens of value delivered rather than time spent, most business owners find they’ve been significantly undervaluing what they do.
Question 3: Am I comfortable defending this price?
This is the one that tends to cut through all the theory. If you feel a slight wince when you send a quote, if you find yourself pre-emptively apologising for your prices, if you’re mentally bracing for pushback before the client has even responded — that’s your gut telling you something.
The discomfort isn’t coming from nowhere. But here’s the thing: in most cases, that discomfort isn’t a signal that your prices are too high. It’s a signal that you haven’t yet built the confidence to back them up. And confidence comes from clarity — clarity about your value, your results, and why you’re worth what you’re asking. When you have that clarity, defending your price stops feeling like an argument and starts feeling like a conversation.
If any of those three questions made you uncomfortable, I’d gently suggest the problem isn’t external. The market isn’t the issue. The issue is somewhere between your gut and your confidence — and that’s actually good news, because it means it’s fixable.
Pricing Benchmarks: What Are Others Charging?
One of the most common things people want when they’re reviewing their pricing is a sense of what’s normal in their market. Here are some realistic benchmarks for UK service businesses and coaches.
| Service Type | Monthly Range | Who It’s For |
|---|---|---|
| 1:1 Coaching | £500–£2,500 | Growing businesses needing individual support |
| Group Coaching | £200–£1000 | Cohort-based learning and peer accountability |
| Mentorship | £300–£1000 | Advisory and experienced guidance |
| Workshops | £100–£500 | One-time focused sessions |
These ranges aren’t limits — they’re starting points. Where you sit within or above these ranges depends on your track record, the specificity of your niche, the outcomes you deliver, and how well you communicate your value. The business owners I work with who consistently sit at the top of these ranges — or above them — aren’t necessarily the most experienced. They’re the ones who are clearest about what they do and who it’s for.
It’s also worth noting that these benchmarks shift over time and vary by sector. A business coach working with professional services firms will typically command a different rate to one working with early-stage e-commerce businesses. The benchmark is a context — not a ceiling.
If you’re sitting significantly below these ranges and have been for a while, that’s worth examining honestly. Not to immediately jump to the top of the range, but to ask what’s kept you there — and whether that reason still holds.
How to Test Your New Price
Start small if you need to. The goal isn’t to double your prices overnight and see what happens. It’s to take a measured, intelligent look at where you are and make a deliberate decision about where you want to be.
Work out what a 10, 20, or 30% increase would mean in practice. Use the maths above. Look honestly at which clients would likely leave, and ask yourself whether that’s actually a problem. In most cases, the ones most likely to leave are the ones costing you the most energy.
Test it with new clients first if repricing existing relationships feels too daunting. New enquiries are a natural opportunity to quote at a higher rate. You don’t have to have a big conversation with anyone. You just present a new number and see what happens.
Track the feedback properly. Not just whether people say yes or no, but what they actually say. Genuine price objections sound very different from a prospect who just isn’t the right fit. If you’re consistently hearing “that’s more than I expected but let me think about it” followed by a yes, your price is probably about right. If you’re losing everyone on price alone, look at how you’re presenting the value before you look at the number itself.
For more context on what investment in business support typically looks like, read our article on cost of coaching — it walks through what to expect at different price points and how to think about the return.
Ready to test if your pricing is holding you back?
Let’s discuss your pricing and what’s possible. A 10-minute call is often enough to get a clear picture of where you are and what one change could mean for your business.
Or read our article on coaching costs for more context before you’re ready to talk.
