People ask. Often. Just tell me the number. What should I be charging? I'll do the work. I just want to know the right answer.
I don't tell them. Not because I'm being precious about it. Because I genuinely don't know, and the engineers who get told a number by someone else are mostly the ones who keep needing to be told a number, forever.
Here's why I think prescription doesn't work for pricing, and what I think actually does.
The number is an output, not an input
When an engineer arrives at the right number for their next project, it's the result of looking at a dozen variables at once. Their cost of living. Their savings runway. The state of their pipeline. The specific project. The specific client. The leverage in the room. Their positioning. Their willingness to lose the gig. The relationship history.
A coach who tells you "charge $1,800" has, by definition, ignored most of those variables. They're not in the room when you write the quote. They don't know what your runway looks like next week. They don't know what the artist's manager said in the last email. They don't know whether you're full or hungry this month.
So the number they gave you was a guess. A guess on top of less information than you have. The fact that it came from someone with experience doesn't change that it was made without seeing the situation.
Being told a number doesn't build the muscle
Even if I gave you a number that happened to be right, it wouldn't help you with the next quote. Or the one after that.
The work isn't the number. The work is the ability to look at an inquiry, weigh the actual variables, and arrive at a defensible price. That ability gets built by practicing it, one decision at a time. It doesn't get built by being told the answer.
The engineers who repeatedly ask other people for the number tend to keep needing to ask. The engineers who build the muscle stop asking. They don't need to. They look at the situation, and they know.
This is uncomfortable to hear, because it means the shortcut isn't actually a shortcut. It's a maintenance contract. You pay it forever.
Prescription protects me from accountability
If I tell you the number, and the client says no, what happens? You feel like you did what the expert said. The fault lies somewhere. With the client, with the market, with the framework. You did your part.
That's a comfortable position, but it's not a useful one. The lesson available in that moment, about your specific business, was lost. The decision you would have made about whether to negotiate, hold, or walk away, was lost. The judgment you would have built about this kind of client was lost.
When someone else gives you the number, the responsibility for the outcome travels with them. Which means the learning travels with them too. The next time, you're in the same place.
What I'll do instead
I'll share patterns. I'll share what I've noticed in thousands of conversations. I'll point at the variables that tend to matter in your specific situation and the ones that tend to be distractions.
I'll ask you what you've been quoting, what you've been closing, what your runway actually looks like, what your positioning supports.
And then, if we're working together, I'll watch you reason through a specific quote in real time. I'll point out where the reasoning is sound and where it's flinching. I'll ask the question the rationalization is hiding from.
The output is a number you arrive at. Not a number I gave you. That number tends to hold, because you understand why it's the number. The next quote, you don't need me. You've built the thing that makes the decision.
Why people don't like this answer
It's slower. It feels less concrete. It doesn't reduce well to a tweet.
Telling someone "charge $1,800" is exciting. It feels like permission. It feels like solving the problem. It generates engagement.
Walking someone through how to think about pricing in their specific situation, so they can arrive at a number themselves and stop needing to ask, is genuinely useful. But it's not as satisfying in the short term. It's slower. It's harder. And it doesn't promise certainty about the next quote.
I'm willing to lose the engagement that comes from prescription. The reason is that the only work I think actually changes a mix engineer's business is the work that's specific to them. Prescription, by definition, isn't.
If you've been waiting for someone to just tell you what to charge, the Strategy Call is not that. It's the structured version of working through your specific pricing situation with someone who's seen thousands of others. You'll leave with a number you can defend, because you arrived at it. Not because I handed it to you.
