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Nov 1 • Business & Strategy 🧠
The Pricing Mistake That Cost Me $8,000 🔥
My third client asked: "How much?"
I panicked. Counted the hours in my head. "Uh... $600?"
They said yes immediately. Too immediately.
Three months later, they casually mentioned: "This saves us about $3,000 per month in admin costs. Best investment we made this year."
I felt sick. I priced based on MY effort (12 hours of work), not THEIR savings ($36,000 annually). Left $8,000+ on the table easily.
HERE'S WHAT CHANGED:
Now I do ROI calculations BEFORE pricing discussions. I ask questions during discovery:
1. How many documents per month?
2. How long does each take manually?
3. What's your staff hourly cost?
4. What happens if documents aren't processed on time?
REAL EXAMPLE - Small Accounting Firm:
Their situation:
- 80 client invoices monthly
- 12 minutes each to manually enter
- $25/hour bookkeeper cost
- 16 hours monthly = $400/month = $4,800/year wasted
My pricing math:
- Annual savings: $4,800
- My setup fee: $1,800 (37% of first year savings)
- Monthly maintenance: $120 (includes PDF Vector Pro + my monitoring)
- Their net year 1 savings: $1,440
- Year 2+ savings: $3,360 annually
They didn't hesitate. Actually said "That's very reasonable."
THE WORKFLOW:
Gmail receives invoice → Parse Document (PDF Vector) → Extract Structured Document with schema → Post to QuickBooks Online → Slack notification
Make.com template I use here
PRICING FRAMEWORK I NOW USE:
- Setup fee: 30-40% of annual savings (minimum $1,200)
- Monthly fee: $80-150 depending on complexity
- Enterprise clients: 20-25% of annual savings (they expect higher prices)
The psychology shift: When you show them they're spending $4,800/year on manual processing, your $1,800 fee feels like a bargain. Because it IS.
Calculate their pain in dollars. Then price accordingly. You're not selling hours. You're selling freedom from expensive manual work.
How are you pricing your automations right now?
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The Pricing Mistake That Cost Me $8,000 🔥
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