5 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Setting Your New Rate

The number is not the hard part. The number is the output of a harder process — one that requires honesty about what the work produces, what the practitioner needs, and what the market actually looks like for this specific practice. Practitioners who skip the questions and reach for a number often end up with a rate that feels either arbitrary or apologetic.

What nobody explains about setting the new rate is that the process of arriving at a number is itself a form of preparation. A practitioner who has thought through the right questions will be able to hold the number when it is questioned — not because they have rehearsed a defense, but because the number has an actual foundation.

Here are five questions worth sitting with before the number is named.

1. What has the work actually produced in the past year?
Not what it is capable of producing, and not what it has produced in theory — what it has actually produced for actual clients in the past twelve months. Document this as specifically as possible: decisions made, outcomes shifted, skills developed, patterns changed. Building the case before naming the number: the outcome evidence is not for the sales page — it is for the practitioner. A clear accounting of what the work has done is the foundation of a rate that is neither inflated nor diminished.

2. What would I need to earn for this practice to feel sustainable?
Sustainability is not a ceiling — it is a floor. A practitioner who has done the math on what they need to cover their costs, their time, and their capacity to keep showing up fully is working from a real number rather than a hope. If the current rate does not produce sustainability, that is information. If the proposed new rate does, that is a grounded reason for the increase — one that does not require justification to clients but does require clarity internally.

3. What do I currently believe a client of mine is able to invest?
The readiness context for this decision: this question is worth examining carefully, because the answer is often shaped more by projection than by data. What a practitioner believes clients can afford is frequently lower than what actual clients have demonstrated. Before accepting the belief as data, check it against evidence: what is the actual financial profile of the clients who have been in the practice? What have they invested in other professional services? What have they said — explicitly — about price?

4. Am I arriving at this number from a position of strength or from need?
Whether the number comes from strength or need: a rate increase made from a full practice, strong outcomes, and genuine demand is a different decision than one made from financial pressure or resentment. This question is not meant to disqualify practitioners who are raising rates under pressure — it is meant to surface the origin of the decision, because the origin affects both the number chosen and the ability to hold it.

5. If I charged this rate starting tomorrow and held it for a year, how would I feel?
This is the prospective test — not “how does the number feel right now” but “how does it feel when inhabited for an extended period.” Some rates that feel high in the present feel ordinary after six months. Some rates that feel safe now will feel insufficient by the end of the year. The practitioner who can imagine living with the number — in client conversations, in their own private accounting, in their sense of the practice — is likely closer to the right number than one who cannot.

These five questions do not produce the number automatically. They produce the clarity that makes the number possible. What to do once the number is decided: the preparation that follows the decision is what gives the number its stability when it enters the world.

The Abundance GPS Skool community supports practitioners in doing this kind of structured thinking before the rate is named. Join us here.