--- title: "Figuring It Out - Lesson 2: pricing yourself" description: Second in a series of blogs on the learnings from two founders building a business. This one on how to value your time and business. image: https://rowntreesquared.com/hubfs/Figuring%20it%20out%20lesson%202.jpeg --- [Go Back Up](https://rowntreesquared.com/rowntree-blog/figuring-it-out-lesson-2-pricing-yourself#top) [Skip to Content](https://rowntreesquared.com/rowntree-blog/figuring-it-out-lesson-2-pricing-yourself#body) [![Rowntree2\_Final](https://rowntreesquared.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Rowntree2_Final.png?width=300&height=81&name=Rowntree2_Final.png "Rowntree2_Final")](https://rowntreesquared.com/) Toggle Menu - [What we do](https://rowntreesquared.com/services) - [How we do it](https://rowntreesquared.com/elastic-marketing) - [Who we are](https://rowntreesquared.com/who-we-are) - [Work we love](https://rowntreesquared.com/work-we-love) - [Blog](https://rowntreesquared.com/rowntree-blog) - [Talk to us](https://rowntreesquared.com/talk-to-us) [back to blog](https://rowntreesquared.com/rowntree-blog) # Figuring It Out - Lesson 2: pricing yourself [Story telling](https://rowntreesquared.com/rowntree-blog/topic/story-telling) • 26 August 2026, 09:00:00 BST • Written by: Matt Rowntree ![](https://rowntreesquared.com/hubfs/Figuring%20it%20out%20lesson%202.jpeg) Share article There's no textbook for this one. No formula you can plug your experience into and get a number back. When [Jessica Rowntree](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicarowntree/) and I set up [Rowntree²](https://www.linkedin.com/company/rowntree%C2%B2/), pricing ourselves was one of the first hard decisions we had to make, and it's one we're still making, deal by deal, a year in. **The traditional starting point** Like most people leaving employment to go it alone, we started with the obvious: take the salary, convert it to a day rate, done. Except it's not done, because that maths only works if you're paid every single working day of the year, never take a sick day, never go on holiday, and never spend an hour on admin, business development, or the hundred other things that keep a business running but that don't get billed to a client. So, we extrapolated. We factored in the paid holiday we'd have had as employees. We factored in sick days. We factored in the reality that a meaningful chunk of any given month is going to be non-chargeable – new business conversations, proposals, invoicing, the actual running of a company. Once you strip all that out, the 'simple' salary-to-day-rate conversion looks nothing like where you started. **Then the harder questions start** That's the mechanical part. The harder part is putting a number on the things that don't convert so neatly. How do you price 25+ years of experience each? What's that worth, on a given Tuesday, to a client who's never met you before? And who's your client, realistically? Not who would you like them to be, but who can actually afford what you do. Set the bar too high and you price yourself out of the room. Set it too low and you've undervalued two and a half decades of getting things right (and wrong and learning from both). We went back and forth on whether to run multiple rates: strategy at one level, tactical execution at another, for example. On paper it made sense. In practice, we tried it with a client once and it fell apart almost immediately, because you can't cleanly separate the two. The moment you're executing a piece of tactical work, you're doing it with the judgement that comes with decades of strategic experience behind it. There is no line. We stopped pretending there was one. **The test comes when someone pushes back** Pricing feels solid right up until a client tries to negotiate you down: same scope, less money. We had exactly that conversation with a new business prospect not long ago. After we held our ground, they said: *"you can afford to turn down £15,000?!"* Our answer: "When the work costs £21,000, yes." That's the whole thing in one exchange. It's not that we can afford to turn down money. It's that we can't afford to do £21,000 of work for £15,000 and still be a business worth being in a year from now. **The doubt doesn't go away** Every time that happens, it makes you question yourself. Did we get the number right? Are we worth what we're charging? Should we just take the lower fee to get the work in the door and worry about margin later? We believe the answer is no. That holding the line on price is holding the line on the value you know you bring. So far, that's been the right call. But the questioning doesn’t stop. Until the client roster is full and the pipeline isn't something we're worrying about, every negotiation is going to reopen the same debate in our heads. That's just the reality of pricing yourself when the business is still young: you make the call, you stand by it, and you keep figuring it out. ### Talk to us about how we can help kick start, elevate or refresh your marketing. [TALK TO US](mailto:hello@rowntreesquared.com) ![](https://rowntreesquared.com/hubfs/Matt%20avatar.jpg) [mailto:matt@rowntreesquared.com](mailto:matt@rowntreesquared.com) ###### Matt Rowntree You May Like These ## Related Articles ![](https://rowntreesquared.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Figuring%20it%20out%20lesson%203.png?width=700&name=Figuring%20it%20out%20lesson%203.png) ### [Figuring It Out - Lesson 3: what we actually needed (and what we didn't)](https://rowntreesquared.com/rowntree-blog/figuring-it-out-lesson-3-what-we-actually-needed-and-what-we-didnt) ![](https://rowntreesquared.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Figuring%20it%20out%20lesson%201.png?width=700&name=Figuring%20it%20out%20lesson%201.png) ### [Figuring It Out - Lesson 1: the client that wasn't](https://rowntreesquared.com/rowntree-blog/figuring-it-out-lesson-1-the-client-that-wasnt) ![](https://rowntreesquared.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Lightning%20on%20calm%20water-1.jpeg?width=700&name=Lightning%20on%20calm%20water-1.jpeg) ### [The Series A marketing gap](https://rowntreesquared.com/rowntree-blog/the-series-a-marketing-gap) ![Rowntree2\_FinalWO\_NoStrap](https://rowntreesquared.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Rowntree2_FinalWO_NoStrap.png?width=350&height=91&name=Rowntree2_FinalWO_NoStrap.png "Rowntree2_FinalWO_NoStrap") If you'd like to hear more, please book a free, 30-minute introductory call on [hello@rowntreesquared.com](mailto:hello@rowntreesquared.com). ```json { "@context" : "https://schema.org", "@type" : "BlogPosting", "author" : { "@type" : "Person", "name" : "Matt Rowntree", "url" : "https://rowntreesquared.com/rowntree-blog/author/matt-rowntree" }, "dateModified" : "2026-10-08T13:34:44.171Z", "datePublished" : "2026-08-26T08:00:00.000Z", "headline" : "Figuring It Out - Lesson 2: pricing yourself", "image" : [ "https://rowntreesquared.com/hubfs/Figuring%20it%20out%20lesson%202.jpeg" ], "mainEntityOfPage" : { "@id" : "https://rowntreesquared.com/rowntree-blog/figuring-it-out-lesson-2-pricing-yourself", "@type" : "WebPage" }, "publisher" : { "@type" : "Organization", "logo" : { "@type" : "ImageObject", "url" : "https://rowntreesquared.com/hubfs/Rowntree2_Final-2.png" } } } ```