What If You Didn't Have to Choose Between Hourly and Value-Based Pricing?
Let’s talk about money. Specifically, your money.
If you're a marketer transitioning from doing to advising—from delivering websites and writing copy to guiding clients strategically—you've likely hit the same wall many of us have:
How the heck do I price this?
You likely feel confident pricing deliverables: a brandscript, a wireframe, a full rebrand. Been there, done that.
But when it comes to pricing strategy? Welcome to the Wild West. It's uncharted, uncomfortable, and a little terrifying.
So we default to what we know: hourly billing.
It's tangible, measurable, and familiar.
But here's the thing: that would be a mistake.
Hourly Is Safe. But Strategic Work Deserves More.
Hourly pricing feels safe, but it undercuts the very thing you’re selling: your brain.
It incentivizes inefficiency. As strategists, our job is to find the fastest, smartest path to a result. Charging by the hour punishes that.
It reduces transformation to a transaction. Your clients aren’t buying your time—they're buying clarity, momentum, and business growth.
Time isn’t the value. If it takes you 3 minutes to solve a $100,000 problem because you have 30 years of experience, you're not charging for 3 minutes. You’re charging for the outcome.
Jonathan Stark puts it bluntly in his manifesto Hourly Billing is Nuts. And he’s right. Once you see it, you can't unsee it: hourly billing is incompatible with transformational work.
Here’s another way of thinking about it:
Clients aren’t laying awake at night saying “If only I had an expert I could pay for 10 hours of their time!” They are saying “If only I could find an expert who can solve X.”
You’re getting paid to solve X. Charge the value of solving for X, not the hours.
Other inspiring and challenging thought leaders in this area include:
Blair Enns - Win Without Pitching has been foundational to my thinking and business.
Alan Weiss - Value-Based Fees: How to Charge-and Get- What You’re Worth
Value-Based Pricing Sounds Great. But Where Do You Start?
Value-based pricing is the dream. You price according to the outcome, the ROI, the transformation.
But implementing it? That’s a whole new muscle.
It requires a mindset shift, a high tolerance for risk, and a sales process most of us weren’t trained in.
Here’s the good news: you don’t have to leap straight into value-based pricing.
Welcome to Hybrid Pricing (aka the Practical Middle Ground)
At Heights, we live in the middle. We believe in value, but we also believe in making progress over perfection. So we built a pricing approach that’s grounded, flexible, and easy to start using right away.
Here’s how it works:
We estimate the time, talent, and tools required. Internally, we calculate roles involved, assign hourly billing costs based on seniority, and factor in vendor or hard costs.
Then we reality check that number against the strategic value: average client value, size and stage of business, potential business impact, market tolerance, and the client’s goals.
The final number lands somewhere between effort and impact.
It’s not strictly hourly.
It’s not purely value-based.
It’s a hybrid—a bridge from where you are to where you want to be.
Hybrid Pricing in Action
One of our Mastering Strategic Advisory alums had the dream scenario. One of her favorite clients recommended her to a peer, raving about the transformation he’d received. She had a discovery call and realized they needed a TON of help.
She was about to price a major 9-month engagement that included a new 60 page website, monthly strategic advisory, and complicated tech stack integrations at $25-30k because she’d never written an engagement much larger. She was scared to charge more. But once we dug into the scope—the time, the transformation, the contractors she would need to bring in, the client's potential ROI—it was clear the work was worth closer to $250k.
Imagine doing $250k of work for $25k. She’s a mom of five beautiful kids, and the thought of her slaving away for 10% of what she should charge broke my heart. She would have spent late nights unpaid working for a fraction of the value provided. She needed the sounding board to help her to know it was OK to charge more than she had before if the value was there.
Another alum had priced a one-off diagnostic but hadn’t connected it to the larger implementation path. With coaching, he adjusted his offer, clarified the value, and built a retainer model that served the client better and gave him consistent revenue.
These aren’t just pricing tweaks. They’re mindset shifts. They’re huge leaps forward in being paid at the level of value you’re providing.
At the end of the day we want to engage deeply enough with our clients to make an impact. If we’re scared to charge more than X and that keeps us from really diving into what is needed to make the outcome happen, we’re not going to bring about the change our clients need.
Do the work of understanding the need. Accurately estimate what it will require of you (and anyone you’re bringing in to solve the problem), and ensure you’re profitable and on par with the market value and proposed impact.
Pricing Isn’t Just Math. It’s Positioning.
If you’re navigating this shift, know this: you’re not alone, and you don’t have to master value-based pricing overnight.
Start with what you know (your time, your team, your tools) and layer in what you’re learning (client outcomes, strategic value, market context). Think of hybrid pricing as your on-ramp to value-based work.
Because ultimately, pricing isn’t just about getting paid. It’s about setting the tone for the strategic partnership you’re creating.
And THAT kind of partnership is worth more than an hourly rate will ever capture.
At Mastering Strategic Advisory, we walk with our mastermind participants to avoid the extremes of undercharging on the one hand and fluffy, inflated pricing on the other. Figuring out what to offer and how to price often gets easier when you have a trusted community of peers and experts to weigh in. If you’re lacking that, it might be time to apply to join.
