Most coaches price their work backwards. They look at an hour of their time, pick a number that feels safe, and sell sessions one at a time. Meanwhile the client isn’t buying an hour, they’re buying a new job, a saved marriage, or a calmer life. Value based pricing for coaches closes that gap: you charge for the outcome you create, not the minutes you spend creating it.
This prompt turns your raw inputs, what you deliver, what it’s worth, and what you charge now, into three packages priced on results, plus the exact words to hold that price when a prospect flinches. And by the end of this page you’ll understand why it works, so you can re-price any offer you ever build.
When to use this
- You charge per session or per hour and your income is capped by your calendar.
- You suspect you’re underpriced but freeze when it’s time to name a higher number.
- You’re launching a new package and want a clean Good / Better / Best structure.
- A prospect keeps saying “that’s a lot” and you don’t have a confident reply.
- You’re moving from one-off calls to a real program and need to anchor the price to the transformation.
The prompt
Copy this whole block into ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini:
You are a pricing strategist who specializes in value-based pricing for coaches and independent service providers. Your job is to redesign my offer so the price is anchored to the outcome I deliver, not the hours I spend.
Before you build anything, ask me up to 3 clarifying questions if any input below is vague or missing. Otherwise, proceed.
CONTEXT
- My niche: {{NICHE}}
- The transformation I deliver: {{CLIENT_OUTCOME}}
- What that outcome is worth to the client: {{CLIENT_VALUE}}
- What I charge now: {{CURRENT_PRICE}}
- How I deliver: {{DELIVERY}}
- Why clients pick me: {{POSITIONING}}
TASK
1. Briefly explain the value gap: the distance between the value I create and the price I currently charge. Use my numbers.
2. Design exactly 3 value-based packages (Good / Better / Best). For each, give: a plain-English name, who it's for, what's included, the headline outcome it promises, and a specific price (a number, not a range).
3. Make the middle package the obvious best value (price anchoring) and the top package a credible premium option.
4. Tie every price to the client's outcome, never to my time. Do not list prices as a per-hour or per-session rate.
5. Write 3 short scripts I can say out loud when a prospect pushes back on price, each reframing cost as the value or risk of NOT solving the problem.
CONSTRAINTS
- Prices must be realistic for my niche and never exceed the client value I stated.
- No jargon, no 'synergy', no filler. Plain language a real prospect would understand.
- Do not invent client results, testimonials, or statistics I did not give you.
- Flag any place where my inputs are too thin to price confidently, and tell me exactly what to clarify.
End with one sentence on the single biggest change I should make to my offer this week.
How to customize it
Replace the six {{VARIABLES}} before you send it. The two that matter most are {{CLIENT_OUTCOME}} and {{CLIENT_VALUE}} — they’re the anchor the whole price hangs from.
| Variable | What to put | Example |
|---|---|---|
{{NICHE}} |
Your specific coaching niche | career coaching for mid-career professionals switching into tech |
{{CLIENT_OUTCOME}} |
The concrete transformation you deliver | land a tech job with a 20-40% pay bump within 6 months |
{{CLIENT_VALUE}} |
What that outcome is worth in money, time, or risk avoided | a $25,000 salary increase, plus escaping a job they dread |
{{CURRENT_PRICE}} |
What you charge now, and how | $150 per 60-minute session, sold one at a time |
{{DELIVERY}} |
How you actually work with clients | weekly 1:1 calls, async support, resume/LinkedIn teardown |
{{POSITIONING}} |
Why clients choose you over the alternatives | I made this exact switch and placed 40+ clients in tech |
See it in action (full example)
Here is the exact prompt, filled in for a career coach. This is the whole input, nothing hidden:
You are a pricing strategist who specializes in value-based pricing for coaches and independent service providers. Your job is to redesign my offer so the price is anchored to the outcome I deliver, not the hours I spend.
Before you build anything, ask me up to 3 clarifying questions if any input below is vague or missing. Otherwise, proceed.
CONTEXT
- My niche: career coaching for mid-career professionals switching into tech
- The transformation I deliver: land a tech job with a 20-40% pay bump within 6 months
- What that outcome is worth to the client: a $25,000 salary increase, plus escaping a job they dread
- What I charge now: $150 per 60-minute session, sold one at a time
- How I deliver: weekly 1:1 calls, async message support, and a resume/LinkedIn teardown
- Why clients pick me: I've personally made this exact switch and placed 40+ clients in tech roles
TASK
1. Briefly explain the value gap: the distance between the value I create and the price I currently charge. Use my numbers.
2. Design exactly 3 value-based packages (Good / Better / Best). For each, give: a plain-English name, who it's for, what's included, the headline outcome it promises, and a specific price (a number, not a range).
3. Make the middle package the obvious best value (price anchoring) and the top package a credible premium option.
4. Tie every price to the client's outcome, never to my time. Do not list prices as a per-hour or per-session rate.
5. Write 3 short scripts I can say out loud when a prospect pushes back on price, each reframing cost as the value or risk of NOT solving the problem.
CONSTRAINTS
- Prices must be realistic for my niche and never exceed the client value I stated.
- No jargon, no 'synergy', no filler. Plain language a real prospect would understand.
- Do not invent client results, testimonials, or statistics I did not give you.
- Flag any place where my inputs are too thin to price confidently, and tell me exactly what to clarify.
End with one sentence on the single biggest change I should make to my offer this week.
And here is the complete output the model returns:
The value gap
You help someone earn $25,000 more a year, every year, and escape a job they dread. At $150 a session sold one at a time, a client who works with you for six months might spend somewhere around $3,000 to $3,600 — roughly 12-15% of the first year of the raise alone. You’re priced like a tutor for an outcome that’s life-changing. The gap isn’t small; you’re leaving most of the value on the table, and per-session pricing also pushes clients to ration your help to save money, which slows their results.
Three value-based packages
1. The Self-Starter — $1,500 For: people who are close to ready and mostly need direction and accountability. Includes: a 90-minute strategy intensive, your resume/LinkedIn teardown, a written 6-month switch plan, and 6 biweekly 1:1 calls over 3 months. Promise: a clear, tested plan and the materials to start applying with confidence.
2. The Career Switch (Most popular) — $4,000 For: people who want hands-on guidance the whole way to the offer. Includes: everything in Self-Starter, plus weekly 1:1 calls for 6 months, unlimited async message support, mock interviews, and offer-negotiation coaching. Promise: land a tech role with a 20-40% pay bump within 6 months, with someone in your corner at every step. Why it’s the best value: it’s roughly 2.7x the entry price but more than doubles the support and adds the negotiation help that often recovers far more than the package costs — against a $25,000+ raise, it’s a small fraction.
3. The Fast-Track Partnership — $7,500 For: senior professionals who want speed and a high-touch, done-with-you experience. Includes: everything in Career Switch, plus twice-weekly calls, same-day async replies, warm introductions where I can make them, and priority scheduling until you sign an offer. Promise: the most direct path to a senior tech role and the strongest possible negotiation position.
Three scripts for price pushback
“I hear you — it’s real money. Here’s the frame I’d use: the package is a one-time cost, and the raise it’s built to get you shows up every year you stay in tech. Most clients earn it back in the first few months of the new salary.”
“Totally fair to weigh it. The more expensive option is usually staying where you are for another year in a job you’ve told me you dread — that’s both the money you’re not earning and a year you don’t get back.”
“You can absolutely do this on your own; plenty of people eventually do. What you’re paying me for is to make it happen in months instead of years, and to not fumble the salary negotiation, which alone can be worth more than the whole package.”
The single biggest change to make this week: stop selling single sessions and put the $4,000 Career Switch package in front of your next discovery call as the default option.
That’s a complete pricing menu plus objection scripts, ready to drop onto a sales page or say on a call after a quick human review of the numbers against your market.
Why this works
Four LLM principles are doing the work here. Learn them and you can re-price anything you sell:
- Role priming. Opening with “You are a pricing strategist who specializes in value-based pricing” tells the model which expertise to draw from. “Help me price my coaching” pulls the bland internet average; naming the specialist pulls sharper, more confident pricing logic. Always assign the exact role you’d hire.
- Specificity in, specificity out. The output is only as good as
{{CLIENT_VALUE}}. Feed it “a $25,000 salary increase” and it can anchor real numbers; feed it “I help people grow” and you get mush. The value figure is the hinge the entire price swings on, so make it concrete. - Constraints as quality control. Each rule kills a common failure mode: “a number, not a range” stops the model hedging; “never exceed the client value” keeps prices credible; “no invented testimonials” stops it fabricating proof; “never per-hour” forces it off the very thinking you’re trying to escape. Telling the model what NOT to do is as powerful as telling it what to do.
- Clarifying questions before output. The “ask up to 3 questions first” line lets the model fill gaps by asking instead of guessing. If your client-value number is fuzzy, it will pause and pin it down rather than inventing a price on top of a weak foundation — the single biggest fix for generic AI answers.
Do this now
- Copy the prompt above into ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini.
- Replace the six variables, spending the most effort on
{{CLIENT_OUTCOME}}and{{CLIENT_VALUE}}. - Send it. If it asks clarifying questions, answer them honestly — that’s where the price gets sharp.
- Sanity-check the three numbers against your market, then put the middle package in front of your next discovery call.
Pro tips
- Quantify the value or the price stays soft. “Worth a lot” gives weak pricing. “A $25,000 raise” or “saves 10 hours a week” gives the model something to anchor to.
- Run it twice. Once with a conservative client-value figure and once with an ambitious one, then compare the price ranges to find your real ceiling.
- Keep the objection scripts. Read them aloud until they sound like you, not a script. The reframe — cost of the problem vs. cost of the solution — is what holds a premium price.
- Re-run it after every big win. When a client gets a bigger result than you priced for, feed the new value back in and let it re-anchor your next offer upward.
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