Have you ever paid a doctor or a lawyer for just 15 minutes of their time? Sounds crazy, right?
You book a consultation. It takes them 15 minutes to diagnose the issue, point you in the right direction, and give you the roadmap. When you go to pay, you don’t expect to hand over 25% of their rate. You pay the full hour. Why? Because that’s how professionals price their expertise.
So why are you, as a marketer, a consultant, a service provider… letting your clients chop up your time like a discount pizza?
Let’s get real. Marketing is the only place where I see this happening. Marketers auto-degrade their profession by not being able to correlate their value to their rate, and allowing clients to pay for the miliseconds. This needs to be fixed...
Hourly rates are a broken model for high-leverage, high-value service work.
It works for someone clocking in at Starbucks. It works for someone laying bricks. It doesn’t work for you. Because you’re not selling labor. You’re selling outcomes. Strategy. Thought. Execution. Leverage.
You might track hours to measure capacity or manage your team. And even then, be fair; do not shortchange your teammates by paying them anything below their full hour.
But if you let clients buy hours, here’s what actually happens:
They treat you like a task rabbit.
They judge your value by how long something takes, not how much it’s worth.
You spend more time explaining invoices than doing meaningful work.
You didn’t go out on your own to be treated like a vending machine.
You did it for freedom. For leverage. For impact.
But here's the irony:
You’re still selling your time like you're punching a clock.
Years ago I paid a doctor $250 for a consultation. Took 11 minutes.
Was I mad? No, I was relieved.
Because in 11 minutes, I got what I needed: clarity. A diagnosis. A plan. Peace of mind. In and out. No fluff. No wasted time.
If anything, I was impressed. More than happy to pay full price...FULL HOUR!
That doctor didn’t charge for his time. He charged for the value of the time.
Big difference.
You don’t pay a surgeon based on how fast she can finish. You pay her to make sure you wake up.
And yet, I see marketers, consultants, and creators charging $35, $50, $75, $100/hr.
They work 2.5 hours and send an invoice for $250. Holy cow!
It’s the adult version of babysitting money.
Meanwhile, that 2.5 hours might’ve saved the client 3 weeks of screw-ups, brought in $10k in leads, or closed a $50k deal.
But they charged like they were doing admin support.
Let that sink in.
Cool. You can give them transparency.
Just don’t give them control.
Let me tell you what happened when I stopped pricing by the hour and started pricing by value.
Clients stopped asking, “How long will this take?”
They started asking, “When can we start?”
Because they weren’t buying a block of time anymore. They were buying certainty. Confidence. Results.
Hourly pricing keeps the conversation in the wrong place: activity.
Value-based pricing keeps the conversation where it belongs: outcomes.
You don’t pay the gym for minutes on a treadmill. You pay to lose weight, look good, feel confident.
You don’t pay a copywriter for words. You pay for conversions.
So stop letting people nibble at your time like pigeons at a hot dog bun.
Now, you'll notice that my offer DOES include an estimate of hours, but trust me, I do not send a single timesheet anyone's way; it's a monthly, fixed fee, tied to outcomes. Period.
I believe in showing hourly estimates. That's transparency. What I don't believe in, is in fractioning your hourly rate. Fractioning your value.
I once had a client ask why I could've taken so long creating a form, since they generally take about 10min. And that's when I told them the story of the doctor...
Here’s where it gets ugly.
You agree to a 1-hour strategy session at $200/hr.
Client cancels 15 minutes in. Asks to “carry over the remaining 45 minutes to next time.”
They treat your brain like a prepaid punch card.
Now you’re spending the next two weeks managing calendar credits like a damn spa receptionist.
Multiply that by 5 clients, and you’re not just losing money. You’re killing momentum. Context-switching. Energy-draining. All for what? To be “flexible”?
Flexible doesn’t pay the bills. Structure does.
If someone books you for an hour, that’s your time.
Not half of it. Not a slice. The hour.
Even if you solve their issue in 45 seconds.
They used it or they didn’t. That’s on them. You showed up ready.
Do you think Tony Robbins prorates his seminars if someone leaves early?
Come on.
This isn’t just about charging more. It’s about repositioning what you sell.
Here’s what I did when I finally got fed up with hourly games:
I turned “time” into a product.
1-hour audit?
Cool. That’s not “$300 for 60 minutes.”
That’s a $497 strategy call with a follow-up brief and roadmap.
2-hour intensive?
Cool. That’s a $1,500 half-day strategy sprint with recorded insights, templates, and action steps.
Monthly retainer?
That’s not 10 hours of Slack pinging.
That’s a flat fee to own a seat at the decision table. You get insights, implementation, and leverage. Not line items.
See the shift?
The same time becomes more valuable when you package it right.
You’re not selling time. You’re selling trust. Confidence. Results. And people pay good money for that — if you frame it right.
This is the part nobody wants to hear.
You want to build a six-figure remote business?
Then stop pricing like you’re doing chores for beer money.
Professionals get paid for results.
Amateurs get paid by the hour.
If you keep letting clients fraction your time, you're teaching them that your value is divisible. That it can be paused, reset, refunded, or delayed. WTF?
But value doesn’t work like that.
You don't pause value. You don’t refund outcomes.
You show up. You solve the problem. You deliver.
You get paid in full.
If you’ve read this far, you’re probably thinking, “Okay, how do I fix this?”
Here’s a quick path to un-fraction your value:
Kill the hourly rate from your website and proposals.
Replace it with offers. Packages. Outcomes. No more “$125/hr.” You’re not a plumber. And even if you were, you wouldn't charge $3 if you fixed something in a minute and a half...you'd charge FULL price.
Name your products, not your time.
You’re not selling 60 minutes. You’re selling a “Growth Audit” or a “Positioning Sprint” or a “Campaign Lab.”
Include deliverables.
People need to see the value. Not the minutes.
Price it high enough that you feel slightly nervous.
If you feel too comfortable, you're undercharging.
Enforce boundaries.
Stop carrying over unused time like it’s a phone plan from 2009. If they no-show, they lose it.
This isn’t about being harsh. It’s about being professional.
Anyone can spend 3 hours Googling solutions.
But only you — with your insight, experience, and reps — can cut through the noise and tell them what actually works.
That’s not worth $35/hr.
That’s worth real money.
You’ve spent years getting good.
Don’t sell that time like it’s a bucket of rice.
Stop fractioning your value.
Start charging like the professional you are.
Next time you take only 3 minutes and 45 seconds to perform a HubSpot-Google Ads integration, please remember this article. Then do the right thing...
CHARGE THE FULL DANG HOUR!
God's speed.