What’s Your Numba?

How much are you charging for your work? Whatever it is, it’s probably not enough.

It may feel like there’s a limit to how much you can charge, some number fixed in six yards of concrete. But that limit isn’t real. It’s a construct of your mind.

Years ago, I worked as a mason’s tender, mixing mortar and lugging bricks, blocks, and stone. I made thirteen dollars an hour. I had no idea at the time, but that number would act as a pricing anchor for much of my career.

A few years later, when I took on my first solo project for a family friend, he asked me my rate. A fair question. But somehow, I hadn’t thought about it. I didn’t really think it was up to me. Nervously, I said $18 an hour. He shook his head, said it made for difficult math, and we settled on $20.

I thought I was rich. Compared to my previous rate, I was.

But this created a problem: I didn’t know what my time was worth, so I let someone else decide for me. Rather than stating what I wanted, it was easier to accept someone else’s idea of what I deserved. That single decision laid the groundwork for a mindset that would be hard to shake, leading me to underprice my work for years.

Of course, I didn’t realize any of this at the time. Don, that family friend, was just trying to help me out. And twenty dollars an hour felt immense, until it didn’t. Eventually, I found the courage to charge a new client five dollars more an hour. To my surprise, the world didn’t stop. They didn’t even blink. Why would they? They didn’t know I used to charge twenty. They didn’t know I used to make thirteen. I didn’t realize it then, but they were still getting a hell of a deal. And I felt like I was rich again.

This cycle has continued for years. The new, impossibly high rate I fretted about charging soon begins to feel like not enough. And slowly but surely, I find the gall to raise it again.

There are better, more strategic ways to approach pricing. You can research market rates, consider value-based pricing, or understand the full worth of your skillset. But this has been my path: a series of gradual adjustments, each one challenging the boundary of what I thought I could charge.

Sure, market forces play their role. Our rates need some grounding in reality. But the true limit has always been internal. The rate I charge today would have been unfathomable to my younger self. And yet, I’m already starting to feel that familiar sense that this rate too isn’t enough.

Maybe deep down no rate will ever feel like enough. We’re assigning a monetary value to something priceless: our time. Even though I love what I do, my rate represents an hour of my life I’m trading for money. I’d better make sure each hour is worthwhile.

So, what’s really holding you back from raising your rates today? Trust me, you’re probably not charging enough.