If you charge less, you'll get more clients.
You've probably told yourself that. Maybe this week, when you sent a quote and lowered it before you even pressed send. That's okay. I told myself the same thing for years.
I'd look at designers charging three times my rate and think, they must be struggling to find work. Meanwhile I was the one working nights and weekends just to pay rent.
So let's talk about why low prices feel safe, what they actually bring you, and what changes when you stop.
Why you keep your prices low
It's rarely about the work. Your skills got better. Your work improved. More people want to work with you. But your prices? Still the same.
Usually it's one of these:
- You think you're not experienced enough to charge more yet.
- You're afraid clients will leave if you raise your rate.
- You believe nobody will pay higher prices for your work.
- You compare yourself to the cheapest designer on the internet.
- You plan to raise your rates later, once you have more experience.
Every one of these sounds sensible. And every one of them keeps you exactly where you are.
What cheap prices actually bring you
Here's what nobody tells you. Low prices don't bring more clients. They bring the wrong ones.
The clients who pay the least usually ask for the most. They push for extra work. They pay late. They micromanage. And when you try to set a boundary, they push back, because your price already told them you don't have one.
Meanwhile the best clients go somewhere else. Not because your work is worse. Because your price made you look inexperienced. A good client sees a very low price and wonders what's wrong.
And think about the effort. A $100 project and a $10,000 project often take the same energy. The same calls. The same revisions. The same late nights. The only difference is what you get paid for it.
The discount you say yes to
For me, it came down to one moment.
After months of work on a project, the client asked for a discount. Again. I wanted to say no. But I was scared they'd leave. So I said yes. That's when it hit me. Undercharging wasn't helping me. It was keeping me stuck.
On my next project, I raised my rate by 10%. I didn't overthink it. I just tested it. The client said yes without hesitating. I was the one holding myself back. Not my clients.
You don't have to double your price overnight. A small, steady raise on each new client is enough to see it for yourself. Most of the time, the client doesn't even notice. You do.
Your price is a boundary
For a long time, you might think you have a pricing problem. You don't know what to charge, so you guess, and every quote feels like a gamble. But most of the time it isn't a pricing problem. It's a boundary problem.
My worst project taught me this. The client had no clear idea what they were building, there were too many decision makers, and the feedback changed every week. After a month and a half of work, I still lost the money and had to refund it. The price wasn't the problem there. The missing boundary was. No clear floor, no clear scope, no clear limit on revisions.
A boundary is simple. It's the number you don't go below, no matter how nice the client is. Once you have it, you stop guessing. You can still be flexible above it. But you never apologise for it.
It also changes who speaks first. Your client usually knows their budget long before they talk to you. They've already spoken to other designers. I used to say my number first and lose all my room. Once I started asking about their budget before giving mine, the conversation felt completely different. One call, a client mentioned a budget almost three times what I had in my head.
And you can set the boundary before the call even starts. When people can see roughly what you charge, the wrong clients filter themselves out, and the right ones arrive already expecting your price.
And it changes where your time goes. I once spent 3 hours on mood boards that no client ever looked at. When your price has a floor, you start asking which hours the client is actually paying for.
What changes when you stop
When you charge what your work is worth, a few things happen.
You work with fewer clients, but they respect your time. You can say no to the ones who don't. Your portfolio and your words start sounding confident instead of apologetic. And the clients who are willing to pay more show up. They exist. You just have to stop hiding from them behind a low price.
There's a lot more to how you put that price in front of a client. How you show it in a proposal so they focus on the result instead of the number, and how you give a range instead of one scary figure. That's the part most designers get wrong, and it deserves its own letter.
For a long time I thought a lower price would bring more clients. It brought the wrong ones and kept me stuck. A small raise on every new project changed that.
Your price isn't a number. It's a boundary you set once and protect.
When did you last raise your price?
See you in another one!
Let's grow together 🙌
P.S. If you want to see how I put the price into a proposal, page by page, it's all in the Proposal Kit.
