Match the model to the work
Hourly fits genuinely open-ended work where scope cannot be known: disputes, interim roles, exploratory advisory. Project pricing fits defined outcomes with knowable scope, which is most consulting, and rewards your efficiency instead of taxing it. Retainers fit ongoing access and accountability, a monthly fee for availability and a defined cadence, and they are the practice’s stability layer. Value pricing fits the rare engagement where the outcome is large, measurable and attributable, and it requires the confidence to walk away.
A healthy small practice often runs a spine of two or three retainers with project work layered on top, and hourly reserved for the genuinely unknowable.
The day rate arithmetic
Work backward from income, not forward from your old salary. Target income plus business costs, divided by realistic billable days, which for a solo consultant is 100 to 140 days a year once selling, administration and holidays take their share. That arithmetic is why credible day rates surprise new consultants: the rate carries the whole business, not just the day.
Then check it against the market for your niche and seniority, and against the value of the problems you solve. If the numbers refuse to meet, the niche or the offer needs work, because discounting your way to volume is the trap the arithmetic exists to expose.
Raising prices without drama
New clients simply get the new rate; pricing pages and proposals are forward looking documents. For existing clients, give one billing cycle of notice, tie the change to a date rather than an apology, and where a relationship warrants it, honor the old rate through the current engagement. The script is two sentences: from March, new work is priced at the new rate; everything currently underway finishes at the rate we agreed.
Expect to lose almost no one. Clients anchored on your value barely notice; clients anchored on your cheapness were leaving eventually anyway, on a worse day.
Price it once, reuse it forever
The Consulting Desk keeps your pricing structures with your engagement templates: project fees, retainer cadences and option ladders attach to the proposals Velora drafts, so every quote starts from your standards instead of a blank negotiation with yourself.
Milestone plans and invoicing connect through the same workspace, which means the price you set becomes the invoices that get paid without retyping. From the Plus membership, alongside every other desk a small practice runs on.
Frequently asked questions
What should a new consultant charge?
Work backward: target income plus costs divided by 100 to 140 billable days gives the day rate floor, then sanity-check against the niche market. Most new consultants undercharge by pricing the day instead of the business.
Are retainers better than project pricing?
They serve different jobs: retainers stabilize revenue and keep you close to the client; projects monetize defined outcomes. A spine of retainers with projects on top is the common healthy mix.
When does value based pricing make sense?
When the outcome is large, measurable and clearly attributable to the work, and the client relationship supports an open value conversation. It is powerful there and forced everywhere else.