When selling to enterprises, founders can feel intimidated asking for large contract values. A powerful yardstick is to frame the price relative to a fully-loaded engineer's salary (e.g., 'is this worth half an engineer to you?'). This contextualizes the cost against a familiar, significant budget item.

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High prices are not inherently 'expensive'; their affordability is relative to the customer's income. For a high-earning client, a premium purchase can be an impulse buy, equivalent to a fast-food meal for an average person. This reframes pricing from absolute cost to a measure of the buyer's resources.

Customers don't care about your P&L or that a competitor is a "side hustle." To justify a higher price, you must clearly communicate tangible benefits like better organization, time savings, or superior staff, which directly improve their experience.

Instead of asking for a budget, which can feel confrontational, state a typical investment range for your solution. This anchors the price, makes the conversation less awkward, and positions you as a transparent consultant by asking where they fall within that range based on their research.

To set your price, ask clients what they would do if your service didn't exist. Their answer, like hiring a full-time employee, reveals the 'replacement value.' This figure provides a concrete benchmark for your pricing and uncovers powerful marketing language.

Price objections don't stem from the buyer's ignorance, but from the seller's failure to establish clear economic value. Before revealing the cost, you must build a business case. If the prospect balks at the price, the fault lies with your value proposition, not their budget.

To make a high price seem reasonable, anchor it against a different, more expensive component of the customer's total budget that delivers less long-term value. For example, compare a $100k entertainment package to a $300k flower budget, arguing budget should align with memorability.

Selling a small, cheap "land" deal to an enterprise customer is dangerous. When you try to expand, they will question the 10x price jump, making it nearly indefensible. Start with a price ($75k-$150k) that reflects enterprise value to avoid being trapped by a low initial anchor.

When starting out, don't just charge a low fee. Instead, state your full market-rate price and offer a significant discount (e.g., 50%) as an introductory offer. This establishes your true value from the beginning while still winning the client. Then, systematically raise your price every few clients.

Lacking market comparables, Nexla priced its initial enterprise deals by first understanding the customer's internal cost to solve the same problem. They then proposed a price that was a clear fraction—like one-fifth or one-tenth—of that internal cost, making the ROI immediately obvious and justifiable for the buyer.

To see if an offer is scalable, factor in your own labor as a direct cost. Ask, "What would I have to pay someone to do this work?" Including this "founder salary" in your unit economics reveals the real profit margin and whether you can afford to hire help to grow.