Pricing by imitation is how firms end up underpaid

Most new firms adopt the schedule they inherited. That number was built for a different cost base and a different service.

The default

Copy the previous firm, or copy the industry convention. Both are anchored to businesses with different economics from yours.

Start from your cost of service

What it actually costs you to serve a client properly for a year — your time, staff time, technology, and the compliance overhead attributable to them.

Most founders have never computed this, and are surprised by it in both directions.

The first hard-to-reverse mistake: pricing low to win early clients

It works, and those clients are with you for a decade at that price. Raising fees on existing clients is possible and it is the least pleasant conversation in the business.

Better to discount explicitly and temporarily, with a stated end, than to set a low price permanently.

Every early client priced too low is a decade-long decision made in a month when you needed revenue.

The second: a schedule with no minimum

Small accounts consume nearly as much service as large ones. Without a minimum, the bottom of the book is served at a loss, subsidised by the top.

A minimum fee is easier to introduce at the start than to add later.

Complexity, not just assets

Two clients with the same assets can require very different amounts of work. Pricing purely on assets guarantees systematic mispricing in both directions.

Some firms price on complexity, some add a planning fee. Both are more honest than pretending assets measure the work.

Decide what you will not negotiate

Before the first prospect asks. A schedule that always moves is not a schedule, and staff cannot apply a policy that the founder overrides.

Then say it out loud early

See how to talk about fees. The pricing decision and the pricing conversation are different problems, and firms conflate them.