Pay What It’s Worth: Perceived Value Pricing

What It Is

It’s a product/service pricing system and marketing strategy based upon the billing practice of allowing the customer to decide what to pay for your work.

Perceived Value pricing asks the customer, when paying in an exchange, to make a conscious and honest decision about what the value is they place on the thing they are receiving. It also shifts the buyer-seller exchange from a perspective of “what can I get?” to “what can I give?”.

Why I Use It

I run a business that is value-driven, not profit-driven. My purpose in the market is to provide value, not make a profit. I know it is through the creation of true value that my profit comes.

I don’t think my value is stationary, and unchanging. I don’t think that everyone sees and measures money, and thus worth, in the same way. I see it as a disservice to myself, my work and my growth – financially and otherwise – to pin down a set value for what it is worth. What if you valued me greater than I value myself? I believe that you can pay me what I am worth. I trust you.

The way we work together will be different than how I work with anyone else. And how valuable you find the experience, can only be accurately determined by you.

I’ve also found that ‘market’ rates are not reflective of my value, as they are based on two ideas I find faulty — the fundamental economic assumptions of supply/demand scarcity and the markets perfectly rational behaviour. I believe nothing run by humans is rational and I make a conscious choice to live in a world of abundance not scarcity, and thus my pricing reflects so.

I believe my business will grow best if it’s economics are based upon integrity. I am asking for us to make a mutual decision to treat each other with honesty and respect and to really invest in each others growth.

Want to Learn More?

Here are a whole bunch of articles I’ve written on pay what it’s worth pricing.

There’s a Book Coming Soon…

I’m writing my first book and it’s on Pay-What-It’s-Worth Pricing. To be infrequently updated on it’s progress via email, click this sexy little link.

You can also pop by my Facebook page and check out the Notes section where I share my struggles with writing this bad boy.