The Price of Survival
Let me tell you about hunger pricing. That place where you set your rates so low because the rent is due and the school fees are looming and Ashwagandha only gets you so far. I have been there. At Klaasic Prints, in the early days, I would quote a job and feel my stomach turn, not because it was too high, but because I knew it was too low. Too low to cover my time. Too low to cover the blanks, the ink, the electricity, the transport. Too low to respect the skill I had spent years building.
I priced from desperation. From trying to fill a gap in my household budget. From the fear that if I asked for what I was worth, the client would walk. And sometimes they would have. But more often, I was teaching them that my work was cheap. That it was disposable. That it was not worth investing in.
That is a hard lesson to unlearn.
Why We Undermine Ourselves
The Scarcity Mindset
When rands are tight, any rand feels like a win. So we say yes to prices that hurt us. We justify it as exposure, as portfolio building, as getting our foot in the door. But a foot in the door at a loss is just a slower way to go broke.
The Comparison Trap
We look at competitors. The big printing shops with bulk discounts. The online sellers undercutting everyone. The hobbyists doing it for fun. We price to match them instead of pricing to reflect our value. Our quality. Our reliability. The fact that a church in another province can trust us to deliver exactly what they approved.
The Fear of Rejection
Asking for what you deserve feels vulnerable. It feels like putting your self-worth on a price tag and hoping someone agrees. Rejection stings. So we preempt it by rejecting ourselves first, setting the price low before the client even has a chance to say no.
How I Learned to Price Right
1. I Calculated My Real Costs
Not just materials. Time. Skill. Overhead. The hours sourcing quality blanks. The back-and-forth with distant clients over digital proofs. The reprints when something goes wrong. The Ashwagandha, honestly, because stress has a cost too. I built a spreadsheet. I faced the numbers. I stopped pretending my labour was free.
2. I Added Profit, Not Just Survival
There is a difference between breaking even and building something. Survival pricing keeps you alive today. Profit pricing keeps you alive next year. It lets you invest in better equipment. It lets you say no to bad clients. It lets you breathe. I started adding a margin that honoured the future me, not just the desperate today me.
3. I Practised Saying the Number
Out loud. To my husband. To the mirror. To the client on the phone. The first few times, my voice shook. Now I say it clearly. I do not apologise. I do not mumble. I state the price and I stop talking. Silence is uncomfortable, but silence is where the client decides. Filling it with discounts and justifications is where I used to lose myself.
4. I Walked Away When I Had To
This was the hardest. Some clients want champagne at water prices. Some want custom work at mass-market rates. Some genuinely cannot afford you, and that is okay, but it does not mean you become affordable. I learned to say, with kindness, “That does not work for me, but I wish you well.” Every time I did, I reclaimed a piece of my value.
5. I Delivered Worth Every Time
Price is only half the equation. The other half is what the client receives. When I price fairly, I show up fairly. Quality blanks. Careful printing. Clear communication. Reliable delivery. The church order that went wrong? I still handled it with grace because my price included the cost of integrity. That is value money cannot buy, but it can support.
The Truth About Your Worth
You are not your price tag. But your price tag tells the world how you see yourself. When you undermine your pricing, you teach clients to undermine your work. When you stand firm, you attract clients who respect craft, who value reliability, who understand that cheap often costs more in the long run.
I still feel the pull sometimes. The hunger. The gap. The voice that says, “Just take the job, any job.” But I have learned to answer it differently now. I have learned that saying no to underpricing is saying yes to sustainability. To dignity. To a business that can carry my family without breaking my back.
To the One Setting Prices Tonight:
Look at your numbers. All of them. The materials, the time, the skill, the overhead, the profit you need to grow. Add them up. That is your floor. Now look at the value you deliver. The trust you build. The problems you solve. That is your ceiling. Your price lives somewhere in between, and it deserves to be closer to the ceiling than the floor.
Do not price from hunger. Price from worth. The clients who matter will meet you there. And the ones who do not? They were never yours to keep.
Now go update that quote, drink your Ashwagandha, and remember: you are allowed to be expensive. That is how you stay in business.
