Anyone who owns a business knows that one of the key components is creating a price list for their goods and services that is competitive yet also profitable. The idea is that you want to create something that keeps people coming back for more while allowing you to make a living in the process. As such, creating a service price list is one of the most important things you’ll likely ever do.
What Is a Service Price List?
A service price list is a list that lets people know how much you charge for your goods and services. Think of it this way. When you go to purchase something, you want to know upfront how much that item is going to cost you. It’s the same way here. It doesn’t really matter if you’re selling a service or if you’re selling a product, having an upfront price list that lets people know what they can expect to pay immediately is a good basic business practice. The last thing you want to do is get a potential customer and then lose them at the last minute because they’re shocked at the price, and they never knew it until they were actually getting ready to make the purchase.
What Is a Service Price List Template?
A service price list template is a specially designed template that can help you figure out how much you should be charging for various services. There are a lot of factors that go into deciding how much to charge for services. Much of that will depend on where you live and what your competitors are charging. Ideally, you want to find a template that will help you walk through the process without allowing you to forget about important things that should be included. This is especially important if you’ve never operated a business before or if you don’t have a great deal of experience, as it can be a lot easier to forget those little items that eventually add up if you don’t have a template to base your decisions on.
Service Price List Template
The Importance of a Service Price List
A service price list is vitally important to any business. As a matter of fact, it can be the difference in getting a customer to do business with you or not. It isn’t at all uncommon for people to base their decisions on who they will do business with on price and price alone. Therefore, you need to have that price list if you are claiming that your prices beat all of your competitors. Even if that’s not the case, you still need to let people know what they’re paying upfront. Therefore, the list should be as complete as possible and should be kept updated on a regular basis.
How to Price Business Services: Planning Your Price List
When you’re planning your price list, the first thing you need to do is figure out what everyone else in your area is charging for the same goods or services. That will give you a good starting point when it comes to knowing how much you can charge yourself. As previously mentioned, the idea is to keep customers coming back, but remember that you have to be able to make a living in the process. That’s why a great deal of planning needs to go into your price list. It’s also why it’s so important that you include the use of a template that will walk you through all of the aspects of planning those prices so that you don’t miss anything.
Mistakes to Avoid When Pricing Your Products or Services
There are some mistakes that should be avoided when you’re pricing your products or services. One of the mistakes that people often make is charging too much for their products or services. If you start out asking a price that’s already too much, you’re going to have a hard time getting customers. However, there is another mistake that people often make, and it’s one that you might not think of. Sometimes, people don’t charge enough. If you’re trying to undercut your competition, or you’re so desperate to get business that you’re practically giving your goods or services away, you could inadvertently be sending the wrong message. That makes people wonder why they’re getting a product or a service for next to nothing, and they begin to question its quality. It also doesn’t leave you any wiggle room because if you’re not charging enough to get by and you have to start raising rates, people might begin to question why your prices are fluctuating so much.
FAQs
Value service pricing is a special type of pricing that sets a price for a service based on the perceived value that the public has, not the actual monetary cost of the service itself. Think about it this way. Most massage therapists charge roughly $60 to $80 an hour for their services. It may not cost them that much to keep the lights on or put gas in the car to travel to your location in order to give you a massage, but you perceive the value of that service to be worth the money that you’re paying because of the relief that it can potentially provide.
Typically, there are four different types of pricing- value service, economy, skimming, and premium pricing. Value service pricing has already been discussed. If you’re working with economy pricing, you’re providing a good or service for less money than the competition. If you’re skimming the pricing, you’re asking slightly more than you would in economy pricing, but you’re still not even approaching what you might be asking if you were talking about premium pricing. That particular category is reserved for those who want only the best and are willing to pay extra money in order to get it.
A good pricing strategy is to find out what other people in your area are doing and then do something that provides a slightly better deal. That gets you the most potential customers, and if you strike the right balance, it also provides you with as much income as possible. You certainly don’t want to drive customers away by asking too much money, but you don’t want to run yourself into the poorhouse by providing everything at such a discount that you can’t sustain it, either.
Final Thoughts
Now that you have a better idea of why service pricing is so important and what a service price template is, you can find the one that works best for you. The best part is that you can use it as a guide to help you determine your own pricing. That, in turn, gives you the chance to spend more time on other aspects of your business that also need attention.
