Pricing Strategies for Coaches, Consultants and Course Creators

When my husband Murray and I bought our house, the asking price ended in 8888.

It got me thinking about all the strange conventions we've made up around pricing. Why do so many prices end in 7? Why does $97 feel cheaper than $100 when it's only three dollars less?

Here's the short answer to how to price your coaching, consulting or courses: price the result you deliver, not your hours or your self-worth. Build a ladder of offers where each step costs about 3 to 5 times the one before and gives people more access and a bigger result. Choose prices on the right side of the thresholds buyers notice. Then say them like you mean it.

That's the whole strategy. The rest of this guide is how to do it.

Your price reflects your value, not your worth as a person

Pricing gets tangled up with self-worth faster than almost anything else in business.

You say a number, the other person pauses and suddenly it feels like they're judging you. They're not. They're weighing what they'll get against what they'll pay.

That's good news, because you can't easily change how you feel about yourself on a Tuesday afternoon. You can change the value of an offer: the result it promises, the support around it, how much access people get to you and how sure you are that it works.

The faster you take your self-worth out of the equation, the faster you'll be able to charge premium prices.

Price the outcome, not your hours

Hourly pricing puts a ceiling on your income the day you set it. There are only so many hours to sell. And the better you get, the faster you work... so you end up paid less for being good.

Your clients don't want your hours anyway. A business owner who hires a consultant to fix their sales process wants more sales. A student who buys a public speaking course wants to stand up at the conference and not freeze.

So name the result, put a timeframe around it and package what it takes to get there:

• "Three coaching sessions" becomes "Your first paid workshop booked in 60 days."
• "A 6-week course" becomes "A finished book proposal, ready to send to agents."
• "Website consulting" becomes "A sales page that's live and ready for traffic."

Once you're selling a result, the question stops being "What's an hour of me worth?" and becomes "What's this result worth to them?" That's a far better question to price against.

Build a ladder of offers, each 3 to 5 times the last

Ever felt like you were pushing too hard, too fast in your business?

You NEED sales. So you push a big offer at people who've only just met you... and they back away.

Instead, think of your offers as stepping stones in a relationship. From a casual coffee to an intimate dinner, each step builds trust and value. If the coffee date goes well, people are much more likely to take the next step with you.

Here's the progression I recommend. Each offer is roughly a 3 to 5 times jump in price. And as the price goes up, so do the access, the promise and the commitment.

Offer 1 - The coffee date (under $500)

A low-priced, low-commitment offer people can say yes to easily. For example:

• A $27 video training with a PDF workbook
• A $47 pack of done-for-you templates
• A $97 50-minute consultation with you
• A $197 entry-level online course
• A set of 3 coaching sessions for $497

Offer 2 - Dinner ($500 to $2,000)

Your second offer raises the commitment. If your first offer is a $197 entry-level course, your second might be a fuller $997 program.

Good second offers include:

• A $997 in-depth online program
• A $1,497 live 3-day retreat
• A $1,997 program with small group coaching

One rule at this level: don't sell a big transformation that takes serious work for less than $1,000. People value what they invest in. Underprice a big promise and you'll attract people who aren't ready to do the work... and then they don't get the result.

Offer 3 - The inner circle ($2,000 to $5,000)

Your third offer is like being welcomed into someone's inner circle. To design it, ask yourself:

• What's the bigger problem someone has now that they've had a result from your second offer?
• How can people get more direct access to you and the value only you can give?

The more direct access people have to you, the more you can charge. Some good third offers:

• A $1,997 30-day private coaching program
• A $2,997 small group coaching program
• A $4,997 done-with-you service, where you or your team guide a client through writing a high-converting sales page or designing their website

Done-with-you means they do the work with your guidance. Done-for-you is the next rung up.

Offer 4 - The backend offer ($5,000 to $20,000)

Now it's time to pop the big question.

People are far more likely to say yes to your biggest ask after they've invested with you and you've delivered, again and again. That's your backend offer: a high-ticket offer most people don't see until they're already a customer.

It can look a lot like your third offer at a higher level:

• A $4,997 one-on-one VIP day with you
• A $7,500 done-for-you service, such as writing a sales page or designing a website for your client
• A $9,997 mastermind for a small group

This is where the income in your business starts to add up. Woohoo! For how to design an offer at this level, read How to Build a High-Ticket Offer People Say Yes To.

Offer 5 - Renewing your vows ($20,000 to $100,000)

This one isn't for everyone, just as renewing your vows isn't a priority for most couples.

I usually suggest waiting until you've been in business for at least 3 to 5 years, or you're bringing in $250,000 or more a year. Then you can create an ultra-premium offer for a small group of your most successful clients:

• A $20,000 yearlong mastermind or group coaching program
• A $30,000 yearlong private coaching program
• A $50,000 premium done-for-you service, such as ghostwriting a book, a complete brand overhaul or a full marketing funnel

Your fifth offer asks much more of you and your team. Make sure you're ready before you build it.

With three to five offers that lead naturally from one to the next, you have a business that can grow toward 7 figures and beyond. That takes time. So start with one offer, or add the missing rung to the offers you already have.

What a ladder looks like for one coach

Say you're a career coach who helps classroom educators move into corporate training jobs. Your ladder might look like this:

1. $197 - A self-paced course on rewriting your resume and landing your first corporate interview
2. $997 - An 8-week group program with weekly live coaching and interview practice
3. $3,500 - Three months of private coaching, including mock interviews and salary negotiation
4. $9,997 - A VIP package for senior educators moving into leadership and training director roles

Look at how each step solves the problem the last one created. Someone who's landing interviews now needs to win them. Someone who's winning them needs to negotiate. Someone who's negotiated a great offer wants to move up fast.

That's what makes a ladder feel natural instead of pushy. Nobody's being upsold. They're being offered the next thing they need.

Starting out? Build your third offer first

Here's a twist that surprises people: if you're creating your very first offer, start with your third one.

When you're starting out, you have limited time and limited money. Your focus should be getting your value and your message really dialed in before you spend much on attracting leads.

An offer in the $2,000 to $5,000 range needs far fewer buyers. Four clients at $3,000 is $12,000. To get there with a $47 product, you'd need about 255 sales... and an audience big enough to find them.

It also puts you close to your first clients, so you learn exactly what they struggle with. That's what you'll build the rest of your ladder from. If you're working on those first few buyers, start with How to Get Your First 3 Clients Without an Audience.

Already in business? Look at the offers you have, find the missing rungs and fill them one at a time.

Price on the right side of the thresholds buyers notice

Want one more way to charge more right away? It comes down to human psychology.

Some prices are harder to say yes to than others, even when they're only a few dollars apart. To most buyers, $100 feels like A LOT more than $95, $97 or $99. Price testing has shown it again and again: more people say yes to $97 than to $100.

You won't miss the $3.

The thresholds buyers notice go roughly like this: $100, $200, $300, $500, $700, $1,000, $1,500, $2,000, $3,000, $5,000, $7,500, $10,000, $12,000, $15,000, $20,000... and onwards and upwards.

Here's where it gets interesting. The prices between thresholds barely register.

• If someone will invest $397, they'll probably invest $497.
• If they'll invest $897, they'll probably invest $997.
• If they'll invest $4,000, they'll probably invest $5,000.

Most people choose $397 because they're scared to ask for $497. But that extra $100 rarely changes how many people buy, as long as you've shown them the value. So price just under the next threshold, not halfway between two of them.

Every price you choose says something about you

That house price ending in 8888? I call it "spiritual pricing." Repeating a number amplifies its meaning, and many of my spiritual students love it: $111, $222 or $333, or $1,111 and $2,222 for bigger offers.

There's nothing wrong with that if it fits your audience. The point is that the numbers you choose say something about you. A repeated number can say "I'm spiritual." A price just under a threshold says you understand how people buy. A round $10,000 says "This is a serious investment for serious results."

And every price says something about your level of confidence.

Confidence separates a $1,000 offer from a $10,000 one

What stops most people from charging $10,000 instead of $1,000 isn't whether a client would pay it.

Given the value, the quality and something that sets you apart, people will spend $1,000 or $10,000 on the same kind of thing in the same category. What separates those two prices is your level of confidence.

When you believe with every cell in your body that your offer is worth $10,000, you can share the price without hesitating or wavering. And the person you're talking to is far more likely to believe in it too.

I started out charging $15 an hour. Later I charged $1,000 a day, then $15,000 a day. Now I can look someone in the eye and say a day with me costs $15,000 and believe it, because I know a day together can shave years off their business-building journey. There's no doubt in my mind -- no doubt in my being.

(To be clear, I'm not trying to sell you a day with me! I want you to look hard at your own numbers.)

So ask yourself:

• Am I undervaluing what I do? Or overvaluing it?
• Do I believe the number I'm charging?
• If not, what's holding me back -- the offer, the proof or my own nerves?
• Who in my audience is ready to invest at the level I want?

If it's the offer, make the offer better. If it's proof, get a few clients great results and collect their stories. If it's nerves, practice saying the price out loud until it bores you. Sales Calls That Don't Feel Like Selling will help with that part.

Price for what AI can't hand your clients

Your clients can get a decent first draft of almost anything from an AI tool, for next to nothing. That changes what they'll pay you for.

They won't pay much for information. They'll pay for judgment, for someone who's solved their exact problem before, for accountability and for a result. So put those front and center in every offer, and cut anything a chatbot could hand them in five minutes.

I go deeper on this in How to Price Your Expertise When AI Is Doing It "for Free".

Where coaching fits

Plenty of business owners between $30K and $99K a year don't have a pricing problem so much as a ladder problem. They have one offer (maybe two) and no clear path from one to the next... so every month starts from zero.

That's the stage Momentum Accelerate is built for. Over 12 months, your Momentum Coach helps you build your Message to Money Pathway, stop trading hours for dollars and get past your income ceiling toward $100K and beyond. Read more about growing your business with Momentum.

Treat today's price as a stepping stone

No matter what you charge right now, there's a whole other level of value and transformation you can deliver when you own your prices, because you know you can deliver the outcome.

If you're just getting started and charging $100 or $200, that's fine. That's where you are today.

Think of the price you charge now as a stepping stone to the next level and the next and the next. When you're ready to take the next step, here's when and how to raise your prices.

You're more valuable than you know. The expertise and life experience you've built up until now can really help someone.

It's just a matter of living into it.