How to answer the price question when you do not know what to charge

How to answer the price question when you do not know what to charge

A client's second message asks the price while the task has not been established — and more deals collapse here than at every other stage. Three obvious reactions lose. Below is the fourth: a four-step formula, a ready script, and the mechanics behind why it works.

A client's second message asks the price while the task has not been established — and more deals collapse here than at every other stage. Three obvious reactions lose. Below is the fourth: a four-step formula, a ready script, and the mechanics behind why it works.

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The second message, and straight to "how much?"

You sent ten applications. Some did not answer, some did — that is called conversion, nothing frightening. And then one writes: "Is this still available? How much will it cost?"

And here it starts. What figure do you name? Say too little and you cannot raise it later, and the client decides cheap means bad. Say too much and they vanish silently, and you never learn whether there was a chance. Dodge the question and it looks unprofessional, especially in front of somebody who counts money.

Most beginners freeze exactly here. Not on the work, not on the portfolio — on one message.

In my survey the first of three reasons people do not earn is stated verbatim: *"I genuinely don't understand what people pay for, why they would pay, or how to get into this market."* And that is not about the market in general. It is about this specific moment in a conversation.

Let us take it apart in full, on a real exchange.

The situation

The client is Zakhar Fomin, a dental clinic. His vacancy: an automation specialist, needed for a bot that answers standard questions, books appointments and sells services, plus a website and content.

The type from the text of the listing: a Controller with a streak of Driver. The markers are right there in the requirements: proactivity, self-sufficiency, the ability to find solutions without constant supervision, the ability to sell and build funnels.

His main pain, drawn from those markers: the fear of pouring budget into a theorist who will have to be chased, supervised and taught basic business processes. His motivations: independence, order, saving time, a measurable result.

I sent a cover letter. Back came the price question, cold.

Why the price question gets asked so early

The root cause: this question is almost never about budget. Somebody asking the cost in their second message knows nothing yet about you or about what will actually be done. They cannot assess it — and they are not trying to.

They are testing you. They lack confidence either in you as a freelancer or in the whole idea. Price is the fastest way to confirm or remove that uncertainty.

Which is why both obvious reactions lose.

Naming a figure off the top of your head loses. It is attached to nothing, you cannot justify it, and from there the conversation is about haggling rather than the task. Worse: for a Controller, a figure with no justification is a direct signal that they are dealing with a theorist. Exactly what they feared.

Dodging the answer loses too, and harder. "Let's discuss it", "it depends on a lot of things", "we should get acquainted first" — that is what irritates Controllers most. They asked directly and you evaded.

The misconception getting in the way here: "first name the price, then defend it". The reverse. First move the conversation somewhere the price means something at all — and that is a conversation about their task and their money, not about your rate card.

The answer I sent

Here it is in full, with the analysis below:

> "Zakhar, good evening. The cost of a project is always calculated individually and depends on the scale of the automation: which CRM you have, how many chairs and specialisms the clinic has, how deeply the assistant needs configuring.

>

> On average a full receptionist build pays for itself in the first month, because it replaces the functions of a front-desk administrator while working with no days off or holidays, round the clock.

>

> So that I'm not naming figures off the top of my head, let's have a call today — fifteen minutes. I'll show you on screen in real time how assistants like this work and we'll fix an exact quote for your tasks. Does today evening suit — 7:30 or 8:15?"

Three mechanics, each doing its own job.

1. Taking the initiative

We do not dodge the answer — we explain why the price is calculated individually, and we do it concretely: the CRM, the number of chairs, the depth of configuration. Three named parameters turn "it depends on a lot" into "it depends on this".

The difference is enormous. The first sounds like an excuse. The second sounds like somebody who has done projects like this and knows what makes up a quote.

And those three questions are also the start of the diagnosis. Answering them, Zakhar will tell you about his business himself.

2. The value anchor

The sentence about paying for itself in the first month ties the cost not to your rate card but to their spending. In the client's head the right comparison then happens: not "is this expensive for me" but "is it more or less than an administrator".

A live employee means a salary, taxes, sick leave, holidays, the human factor and burnout. The system works round the clock and does not fall ill. The comparison runs not against zero but against a real cost line they already have.

Important: the anchor is set before the figure, not after. When the sum finally gets said, it lands inside a frame already prepared.

3. A choice of two rather than an open question

Not "when would suit you to talk" — a question easy not to answer. But two specific slots: 7:30 or 8:15.

It works for two reasons. Choosing between two is easier than inventing your own, so people answer more often. And you show that you too are busy with a schedule: this is not only for your benefit.

What is not in the answer

Worth looking at what did not make it in.

No figure. No range, no "from", no "roughly". At this stage any figure works against you: there is nothing to justify it with, and after it the client stops listening to everything else.

No apologies. No "I understand this is an important question", no "sorry I can't say straight away". An apology is an admission that you should have known and do not.

No "are you interested?" question. Instead, a concrete proposed action with two times to choose from. "Interested?" is easy to answer with "I'll think about it".

And nothing about you. No experience, no tools, no portfolio. The whole message is about his clinic, his costs and his diary.

What can be repeated here

The structure is universal: justify an individual calculation through three concrete parameters → tie the cost to their spending or losses → propose a short call with two slots to choose from.

The content is not. Zakhar's anchor is an administrator's salary. A design job has a different anchor: what a missed launch or an idle department costs. The anchor comes from their business, not your rate card.

And one limit, honestly. This answer does not remove the need to know the market. On the call a figure will have to be named, and it has to make sense. The script gives you not the right not to know the price but the time to understand the task and name it with justification.

What to do if the client presses anyway. Sometimes after an answer like that comes "just give me a ballpark". That is not a failure, it is a test. Answer with a range and the condition stated explicitly: "at your scale projects like this usually come in within such a range, but the lower end is one integration with no knowledge base and the upper end is the full setup. Where you land will be clear after four questions on the call." A range with a condition is not a figure off the top of your head, because you have said straight away what determines which end you fall at.

How this gets done in two minutes

I did not compose that message. I sent the sales assistant the exchange as two screenshots and wrote: "here is a conversation with a potential client, tell me what to write, I'm thinking of closing them on a call this evening as a free consultation."

It produced both the text and the explanation — why exactly that, which mechanics are inside, what this particular type will respond to. Everything you read above about taking the initiative and the value anchor is its analysis.

From there it guides you through the conversation: you show it a screenshot of the client's reply and get your next move, allowing for who you are dealing with.

The sales assistant is one of more than 140 AI assistants across 14 categories: sales, marketing, legal, HR, analytics, creative, media, engineering. Plus the ten-lesson sales module, where handling objections is worked through in detail — not only about price but about "too expensive", "let me think", "we already work with somebody else".

Registration is free and opens three days of full Basic access — the sales module, all the assistants, the prompt texts and six foundational express courses.

Today, one message. If an unanswered price question is sitting in your inbox, answer it to the structure above: three parameters, an anchor to their spending, two slots to choose from. Not "a few thousand" but a conversation in which the price will finally mean something.

If you know somebody who has spent three days unable to answer a client's "how much", forward this to them.

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Where an understanding of the market comes from

An answer to the price question rests not on confidence but on understanding what people pay for in a specific niche.

The sales module has a lesson devoted to exactly this — understanding the market's demand and shaping an offer around it. The key thought from it:

Demand for your skills is objective. Businesses have tasks whether or not AI was ever invented: enquiries get lost, listings do not sell, there is nobody to produce content. You do not need to create demand or convince anybody — you need to find a problem that already hurts.

And the formula that explains your ceiling: you perform fewer actions because AI does 80% of them, but you take on more work — and earn more.

Hence the answer to "how much does it cost": you name not the price of your hours but the price of a problem closed.

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The series: one deal step by step

Eight pieces about one real deal — from a listing in a chat to the payment received. The client, Zakhar Fomin, owner of a dental clinic, gave permission to use his name and the figures.

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What to read next

[AI freelancer price list](/en/blog/ai-freelancer-price-list) — where to get the range for your answer.

[An itemised quote instead of buttons](/en/blog/quote-not-buttons) — what to show once the figures are due.

[Four client types](/en/blog/four-client-types) — who suits which answer.

[The fifteen-minute client call](/en/blog/fifteen-minute-sales-call) — where to take the conversation next.

[AI API pricing in 2026](/en/blog/llm-api-pricing) — what a request costs and how to work out your own costs.