[tertius]

When you build your client base and you start off by charging a low price, any referral work you get (and it gets to be a large portion of your work as the base grows) will have a harder time with raised rates.

The underlying psychology shows us that we undervalue ourselves whereas other people tend not to since they view us as experts. They are generally willing to pay a lot more to have a solved problem than we would want to charge.

Start high and go higher until you meet resistance.

[sanderjd]

> any referral work you get … will have a harder time with raised rates.

This does not seem to mesh with the posted article where they interviewed lots of successful people who started out charging on the low side and were able to aggressively increase over time.

I get what you're saying in this thread, that people tend to not charge enough. Sure, I'm right there with you. What bugs me is this meme that seems to suggest that there's something wrong with doing whatever you can (like charging less) to get your foot in the door. It's intimidating.

[tertius]

I agree with your sentiment, my point is that people too often believe that low rates will get their foot in the door.

Many times what would happen is someone would get two or three bids and avoid the lowballer because quality is associated with higher pricing. So you're shooting yourself in the foot.

Now this doesn't always happen but I would suggest to stick on the side of trying to charge more than you're comfortable with. You'll be surprised what you can get your foot in the door with.