Win Pricing Options

---
name: win-pricing-options
description: Builds one to three real pricing options for a proposal that differ in scope and outcome, each price worked from your own numbers, the assumptions each rests on and the value to the client in their numbers, with no decoy and no unasked discount. Use for "run win-pricing-options", "price this proposal", "give me pricing options", "should I offer three tiers", "the client says AI should make it cheaper", "I always discount", "how do I justify my fee", part of the Claude Guide for Finding Clients Pack by Polar Bear.
---

# Pricing Options

## When To Use
You discount before anyone asks, or the client says AI should make it cheaper. You have a proposal taking shape and need options and prices you can defend in the room without flinching, built from your numbers rather than a guess at the market.

## When Not To Use
If you want a fixed offer you sell again and again, run Productized Service Offer instead; this prices one proposal. If the client has already pushed back on a price you sent, run Objection Response first and come back here only if the scope should change.

## Inputs
- The scope by phase (from your Consulting Proposal or notes)
- Your own numbers: days or hours per phase, your rate or cost basis, any outside costs, the risk you carry
- The value the client named in discovery, in their numbers, if they named one
If you have none of this, I start from the phases alone, leave every figure as a [placeholder] and mark the output as a first draft.

## Approach
Value-based, tiered options, a common practitioner approach described here generically: each option is a distinct answer to the client's objectives that you would gladly deliver, and the price follows from the work and is set against what the outcome is worth to them. The failure it prevents is the three tier table where the middle option is the real one and the other two are decoys the client can feel, followed by a discount nobody asked for. I can lay the arithmetic out as a spreadsheet with file creation if you want to adjust it.

## Workflow
1. Ask three questions: what the client said the outcome is worth to them (or that they did not say); your floor, the price below which you would rather not do the work; and whether AI shortens any part of delivery for you.
2. Decide how many options. Each must differ in scope and outcome, and the client must be able to say in one sentence what option two does that option one does not. If only one honest answer exists, one option it is, and the proposal says so.
3. Price each option from your numbers as visible arithmetic: effort by phase, times your rate or cost basis, plus outside costs, plus a risk margin you set. I show the sum; I never suggest a market rate or what others charge.
4. Write what each price rests on: client availability, the state of their material, review rounds, start date, what triggers a change. These are the lines that protect you in month three.
5. Put the value to the client beside each option, only in their own numbers from discovery. If they gave none, the column says "not discussed" and becomes a question for the walk-through.
6. Handle AI honestly. If AI makes part of delivery faster, say so, and say what the client pays for that AI does not do (judgement, accountability, the decision you stand behind). If the work is genuinely smaller, the price can be smaller; if they want less, remove scope rather than cut the price of the same work.
7. Check before handover: no decoy, no anchor you do not expect them to take, no discount written in, and payment terms or tax points marked "check with a qualified adviser".

## Output Format
```markdown
# Pricing Options: [project]
## The options
| | [Option name] | [Option name] |
|---|---|---|
| What it delivers | [scope] | [scope] |
| Outcome for the client | [outcome] | [outcome] |
| Price | [your figure] | [your figure] |
## How each price is worked out
| Option | Phase | Effort | Rate or cost | Outside costs | Risk margin | Subtotal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| [option] | [phase] | [days] | [your rate] | [cost] | [your margin] | [sum] |
## What each price rests on
- [assumption that, if wrong, changes the number]
## Value to the client, in their numbers
| Option | What they said it is worth | Source |
|---|---|---|
| [option] | [their figure or "not discussed"] | [call on date] |
## How AI changes this work
[Honest line: what AI speeds up, what you still do and stand behind]
## Decision
You approve every figure by [date] before it goes into the proposal; [client role] chooses an option at the walk-through on [date].
```

## Done When
- Every option differs in scope and outcome, not only in price.
- Every price shows its arithmetic from your numbers, with assumptions listed.
- Value appears only in the client's numbers or reads "not discussed".
- Payment terms and tax points carry "check with a qualified adviser".

## Quality Bar
- No benchmark, market rate or competitor price, ever.
- One honest option beats three where two are filler.
- A lower price always comes with less scope, said plainly.
- Every price comes from your own numbers; no decoys and no discount nobody asked for.

## Next
Run win-proposal-deck (Proposal Deck) when the buyer needs slides to take to their boss.

## About the makers

This pack is made by Polar Bear, a consultancy built by ex-McKinsey founders with a dream to make AI work for People, not instead of them. We help our clients build people systems and AI-first ways of working, and we run our own company on Claude. If your team has outgrown the self-serve version, message Pauline (linkedin.com/in/paulinebertry).