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Comment by adamcharnock | Hacker News Reader

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adamcharnock·

The (related) advice that has always worked well for me:

"You know you're charging the right amount when a client complains about the price but still pays you."

Or, to put it another way, if no one complains about your prices then you're not charging enough.

YMMV.

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The part that often gets missed with "raise your prices" is that for a lot of that price increase range you may lose customers but you'll make more money for less time commitment.

Cheap clients have a cost.

I find cheap clients have the most unrealistic expectations as well.

That holds true when you take it to the extreme.

The most unrealistic expectations come from those that aren't paying you at all.

Thank goodness the cloud came along. When friends/family ask me about computer problems I now explain that I work on computers that nobody sees.

Reminds me of the ol' poker advice: "If you're almost never caught bluffing, then you're just not bluffing often enough".

Interestingly this was my approach to haggling. If the vendor is smiling when you leave the store, you badly bargained.

"You know you're charging the right amount when a client complains about the price but still pays you."

Another related thing I've had the misfortune of experiencing is that people who don't intend to pay you from the outset generally don't complain about the price.

Working on retainer weeds those clients out pretty quick.

I think this is good advice, but sometimes you never really know what work you are missing out on. Non-essential projects may be put on hold or farmed out to others because your price is too high.

Tip: you don't want to work on non essential projects.

If your plate and your bank account are full enough, does it matter?

Just out of interest, do you think this applies when (re-)negotiating your salary as well?

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