#241 | How To Price Your Services With Erin Halper
September 14, 2026
Let’s talk about one of the most uncomfortable questions for anyone selling their expertise: What should I charge? It’s tempting to look around, find someone doing something similar, and borrow their number. Problem solved, right? Not quite. When I sat down with Erin Halper, founder of The Upside, she made the case that there isn’t one universal “market rate” for consultants. Your pricing depends on the value you create, the clients you serve, and the kind of business you’re building.
Stop Letting the Clock Set Your Price
Hourly pricing can be a useful place to start. Erin recommends figuring out what you’d want to earn as a full-time employee and using that to create a rough hourly baseline. But that number shouldn’t necessarily become your business model. When you charge by the hour, clients can start comparing you based on a number instead of the work itself. Project-based pricing, retainers, and scoped engagements give you more room to account for complexity, urgency, and, most importantly, the result you’re helping create.
Four Categories To Consider When Pricing Your Services
This is where the pricing conversation gets really interesting. Erin breaks the value of consulting work into four categories: growing revenue, cutting costs, creating access, and solving a headache that’s blocking growth. In other words, clients may come to you asking for a website, a strategy, a campaign, or a process fix. But that deliverable is only the surface. Underneath it is a business problem they need solved. The more clearly you can connect your work to that problem and the result on the other side, the easier it becomes to talk about your value.
What If You’re New to This?
One of the easiest ways to talk yourself into a discount is to say, “But I haven’t done this exact thing before.” Erin’s response? New doesn’t automatically mean unqualified. You may decide to price a new project differently while you build experience, but there’s a big difference between making a thoughtful pricing decision and deciding your expertise is suddenly worth nothing. The same goes for working for free. If you do offer a lower price, Erin recommends knowing exactly what you’re getting in return, whether that’s experience, a strong client name, a testimonial, or the potential for future work.
How To Know If You’re Not Charging Enough
Sometimes the biggest clue that your pricing needs a second look is surprisingly simple: everyone keeps saying yes. Erin points out that an extremely high close rate can be a sign that there’s room to test a higher price. And if you’re feeling frustrated or resentful about a client relationship, the problem may not always be the client; it may be that the work isn’t priced high enough to make the relationship worthwhile. Add in the need for visibility, consistent outreach, and making the occasional big swing, and the bigger lesson becomes pretty clear: building a consulting business isn’t about squeezing more hours into the day. It’s about getting clearer on the value you bring and making sure your pricing reflects it.
Timestamps:
03:58 The relationship between pricing and self-worth
09:55 How to create a pricing playbook
15:02 Pricing strategies for first time projects
19:55 Different client types and adjusting rates
29:57 Signs that it’s time to raise rates
35:05 Spicy take on entrepreneurship
39:52 Adapting to changing trends and market needs
49:53 Big swings in business
Links:
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