How To Decide What To Charge For Your Products And Services

You have your business up and running and you have some products and services set up to offer to clients and prospects. Sometimes this is the part where you might begin to feel a little stuck, because you begin to wonder how to set your prices.

Maybe you have a business where prices are already set, that’s fine because then you don’t have a choice – or maybe it’s bad because you don’t have a choice. More than likely you have a business where you need to really think about what you’re going to charge your clients for what you’re offering.
Now, this might sound a little strange at first, but you’re going to charge whatever you want for the products and services you have. It’s your business - so you can do that. You might be thinking that sounds just a little crazy, but you have the freedom to set your own prices.

Here’s the thing, you can decide to charge prices that are on the high-end, the middle or the low-end of your industry. So, you’ll have a tendency to look at what everybody else in your industry is charging.

For example, if you sell a computer program or software, and it’s similar to what some others are selling, you’ll look at what they’re charging for their software. Then, you’ll more than likely decide whether or not you want to squeeze in with them and be in the mid-range, or if you want to try and take all their customers by charging less, or if you want to stand out in the market place and charge more than they’re charging.

You get to make those decisions. There’s nothing wrong with being on the high-end. There’s nothing wrong with being on the low-end. And if you want to be average, if you want to fit in with everyone else, by all means, that’s your choice to do that too.

If you’re going to be on the high-end, you’ll want to decide what sets you apart. What’s the value of what you’re selling over the value your competition is offering?

Value is the key to setting prices in the range you see fit, as opposed to feeling like you have to fit in with everyone else. If what you’re selling has less value, or no additional value, than what your competition is selling, you can expect to run into some problems or challenges if you’re trying to sell in a different price range than they are.

Here’s something else, though, it’s your business, and you have the freedom to change your prices. You can test and adjust your prices until you get the results you’re after. That might mean you have to add a bonus or take away a bonus – just keep modifying and changing what you’re offering until you get the results you want.

Your prices will change based on a variety of factors like the economy, current trends, the need for what you have and even your clients. You will have clients who will drop thousands of dollars on things and not give it a second thought and you will also have clients who won’t spend hardly anything, and everything in between. So you’ll have to test and modify, and test again, until you find the amount your clients are willing to invest.

There’s no perfect formula for setting prices. It’s your business, so you can charge whatever you want. But you do have to be willing to test and modify, and change prices when your business and clients tell you to.