What do I actually say when a client asks what I charge?
When a client asks what you charge, give a real number using the words "starts at," then ask one question and stop. My full version runs: "So for the work we just talked about, that starts at" your number, "does that sound like what you were expecting?"
Each part is doing a specific job:
- "Starts at" anchors the range while leaving you room once the work is scoped. It names the floor you would show up for rather than a final quote.
- A real figure beats a range so wide it tells the client nothing. Vagueness reads as uncertainty about your own value.
- "Does that sound like what you were expecting?" asks whether they can afford it without making anybody admit anything, because people carry ego about money even when the money is not theirs.
- The silence afterward belongs to the client. My own description of the method is that I state the price and then stop talking.
The answer you get back is useful either way. Expecting that number means you are in the same ballpark. Not expecting it opens a real conversation: "tell me what you had in mind," and now you have data instead of a guess.
What if a client asks for my price before we've talked about the work?
When a client asks for a price before you have talked about the work, invite them to a conversation instead of sending a number. A price quoted before any discussion of value is a number with nothing attached to it, which is why the value questions come first, and my rule is that you do not talk about price without talking about value first.
I call the instinct to answer immediately the automatic yes, and I'm direct about where it comes from: corporate careers train people to deliver whatever is asked, quickly. Running your own business, that reflex costs you the conversation.
What to send instead
My own email to a client who asked for pricing up front did four things: it validated the initiative, proposed a short call, explained that the call is what lets her make the best recommendation, and made scheduling effortless. No price, no defensiveness, no explanation of why she would not send one.
Why it matters more than it looks
Sending the number on request turns the start of a relationship into a transaction. The client compares your figure with somebody else's figure, and nobody ever hears what your work is for. You have the right to lead the process your way, and a first call is a reasonable next step to ask for.
What do I do when a client reacts to my number?
Let the reaction happen and stay quiet. Everybody is allowed to have a reaction to a price, and the reaction belongs to the person having it.
Consultants tend to read every reaction as a verdict on their pricing, and it usually is not:
| What you hear | What it often means |
|---|
| "That's more than we expected" | They had a different figure in mind, and now you can talk about it |
| "Oh, that's fine" | They allocated more, which is data worth using |
| A pause | They are doing arithmetic, not judging you |
Your own instinct in that pause is worth distrusting. Alison Wood Brooks found more than 90% of people believe calming down is the right way to handle pre-performance nerves, and across her studies it was the weaker strategy. Softening the moment is the reflex, and it is the wrong one.
People price their own work around financial and personal factors that have nothing to do with you: what pays their bills, what supports their family, what their own retirement plan needs. A consultant charging a fraction of your number is answering questions about their life, not grading yours.
Getting to this moment at all means you have already made the turn into describing your work. Two things to avoid in the seconds after: filling the silence, and negotiating against yourself before anybody has pushed back. The second is common enough that I gave it a name, and the story underneath it is its own subject.
Should I ask what their budget is?
No, and the reasoning is that your price does not come from their budget. Asking hands the client the job of setting your number, and the answer you get is shaped by what they think you want to hear.
What replaces the budget question:
- Know your floor before the call. The figure you would show up for, decided when nobody is watching.
- Name it with "starts at." That is the anchor, and it comes from your side of the table.
- Ask whether it matches their expectation. Same information, none of the awkwardness, and no ego in the way.
- Use market rates as a floor rather than a ceiling. Knowing what your kind of work commands is useful; letting it cap you is not.
The wider point is that this conversation exists to answer one question early: are you both in the same ballpark. Consulting contracts in this market run anywhere from $2,500 to $250,000, so two reasonable people can be very far apart and neither is wrong. Finding out on the first call saves a proposal nobody was ever going to accept.
Leah's take
The moment somebody asks what you charge, something happens in your body and then in your mouth. You hear yourself hedge. You add qualifiers. You explain your process. You say a number and keep talking, and every extra sentence tells the client the number needs defending.
State it and stop. That is the entire technique, and the hard part is the silence rather than the number.
One worry off the table, because it comes up constantly: naming a price will not scare off anybody who was going to hire you. If a client is not in your ballpark, no amount of relationship-building or beautiful proposal writing closes a gap that big. Finding out on the first conversation is a gift to both of you.
I walk a client through this on the podcast, in "When to talk price with your clients," and the warning holds: skip the conversation and you go into a proposal blind.
Your price comes from you. Not from their budget, not from what somebody in your network charges, not from what you charged two years ago when you were less sure. You say it plainly, and you let people have their reaction. Their reaction is about them.
