Three Reasons You’re Underpaid (And How to Put Each One Right)

business development charging what you are worth coaching fees consultant fees fee confidence paid book peter thomson price elasticity pricing models raising fees raising your fees underpaid value based pricing value based pricing for consultants why you are underpaid Jun 16, 2026

What We’ll Cover

Reason One: You Undervalue What You Deliver
Reason Two: You Compete on Price, Not Value
Reason Three: You Fear Losing the Client
A Quick Recap of the Three Reasons
Where to Go From Here

If you’ve ever had that quiet feeling that your fees don’t quite match the difference you make for your clients, this one is for you. In the next few minutes I’ll walk you through the three reasons talented people stay underpaid, and exactly what to do about each one. Take whichever idea resonates most and put it to work this week.

Let me start with a number that might sting a little. Most of the consultants, coaches and professionals I meet are charging fees that are far too low for the value they actually deliver.

Not a little too low. Far too low.

I was exactly the same for years, so I am not pointing a finger here. I am simply telling you what I learned the hard way, so that you do not have to learn it the same slow way I did.

Over time I managed to narrow the whole problem down to three reasons. Three reasons why so many genuinely talented people, doing genuinely brilliant work, simply do not get paid what they are worth. Sort these three out and everything changes. I have seen it happen again and again.

You will never get paid more than you truly believe you are worth.

Reason One: You Undervalue What You Deliver

The first reason is the one almost nobody likes to admit to. We undervalue the value we deliver.

And here is why it happens. We set our fees by looking at ourselves. We think about our day, our time, our effort, and we put a price on that. I call this the Pricing Attribution Error, and it is one of the most expensive mistakes you can make in your business.

Here is the truth that puts it right. Your fee should not be based on the value of your day. It should be based on the value of the benefit your client receives from your advice, your guidance and your help. That is a completely different number, and usually a far bigger one.

The questions that let the client sell themselves

So how do you find that bigger number? You ask better questions, and then you stay quiet and let the client tell you. When the client describes the value in their own words, they are, in effect, selling themselves on your fee before you have even mentioned it.

These are the kinds of questions I mean:

What would be the ideal outcome for you from us working together?
How much extra would you like to be earning because of that, say, a year from now?
How many more years are you aiming to be in business?

Add those numbers together and you arrive at a large figure. A figure the client has said out loud, in their own words. And set against that figure, the fee you are about to quote suddenly looks very modest indeed. That is the power of contrast, and it does the persuading for you.

Try this before your next client meeting.

Write down three questions that let the client describe the value they want from working with you. Then practise the hardest skill of all: saying nothing while they answer. The pause is where the value is revealed.

There is one more thing worth naming here, because it sits quietly underneath everything. Imposter Syndrome. That nagging voice telling you that you do not really deserve the higher fee. We must not let that voice set our prices. If this is something you wrestle with, my thoughts on fee confidence will help you quiet it.

Reason Two: You Compete on Price, Not Value

The second reason is that we compete on price rather than on value. And here is something that may surprise you. I do not believe there is any such thing as the competition. That is a conversation for another day, but hold the thought.

For now, let me give you the single idea that changed the way I price everything. Price has to be elastic. And I mean that quite literally.

The elasticity of price

Let me show you what I mean with a simple example. Imagine you and I work with a client and we help them make an extra one thousand pounds. Would it be fair for us to be paid ten per cent of that, so one hundred pounds? I should think so.

Now imagine we help them make ten thousand pounds. Would a fee of one thousand pounds be fair? Yes, of course it would.

What about one hundred thousand pounds. Would ten thousand pounds be a fair and reasonable fee? Again, yes.

And if we helped that client make a full million pounds, would one hundred thousand pounds be fair, right and just, assuming that was the figure we agreed at the outset? Of course it would.

Now here is the part that trips people up. In every single one of those examples, we may have spent exactly the same hour with the client. The same hour. Wildly different value. Wildly different fee. And every fee was completely fair.

That is the elasticity of price. It is not the hours you put in. It is what you put into the hours.

It is not the hours you put in. It is what you put in the hours.

Jim Rohn said it beautifully: you do not get paid for the hour, you get paid for the value you bring to the hour. So the question is never how long did this take me. The question is always, what is this worth to the person sitting in front of me?

Let me give you a real example. I once worked with a trainer who taught executives how to speak confidently in public. He was charging around one thousand five hundred pounds a day, and badly undercharging for the results his clients went on to achieve. We changed nothing about his skill. We simply changed the way he priced. He moved to a delegate rate, a price per person rather than a price per day, and his effective daily rate sailed past four thousand pounds. His clients were perfectly happy, because they were paying for the value, not for the clock. There are several models like this, and I walk through them in my work on proven pricing models.

Reason Three: You Fear Losing the Client

The third reason is fear. Specifically, the fear that if we quote our real fee we will lose the sale, or worse, lose the client altogether.

I understand that fear completely. I have felt it myself. But let me offer you a reframe that takes most of the sting out of it.

Without any disrespect to anyone, there are thousands of clients out there. But there is only one you. And there is only one me. We are unique.

There is only one you

And you cannot qualify the word unique. You cannot be very unique, or almost unique. You either are or you are not. And you are.

Here is why this matters so much for your fees. If you are frightened of losing the client, that fear leaks out of you. Out of every word, every phrase, every gesture, every flicker of body language. The client picks up on it long before they hear your price, and it quietly tells them that even you are not sure you are worth it.

But when you know you are unique, when you truly know there is no competition because nobody else on earth is you, you show up differently. Calmer. More certain. Worth it. And people happily pay for that certainty.

There is also a hidden cost to low fees that almost nobody talks about. When a client does not pay enough, they do not have enough skin in the game. Their belief stays low, so they do not take consistent action, so they do not get the result they said they wanted. And then they are unhappy, even though they paid you very little.

Charge a fee that genuinely reflects the value, and the opposite happens. The client is invested. They act. They get results. They are delighted, even though they paid far more. So the right fee is not only fair to you. It serves your client too. That is worth sitting with for a moment.

Most people reach the limit of their belief well before they reach the limit of their talent.

A Quick Recap of the Three Reasons

So there you have it. Three reasons, and three sets of ideas to put each one right.

You undervalue what you deliver. Put it right by asking better questions and pricing the client’s outcome, not your day.
You compete on price, not value. Put it right by remembering that price is elastic. It is what you put in the hours that counts.
You fear losing the client. Put it right by knowing there is only one you, and that the right fee serves the client as much as it serves you.

I proved every one of these over many years in my own business. I have since watched hundreds of consultants and coaches prove them too. If being underpaid has been a problem for you, I am confident you can prove them as well.

Where to Go From Here

If this struck a chord, you will get a great deal more from my book, PAID! It goes well beyond these three reasons and hands you the full toolkit: the attribution errors in detail, six proven pricing models you can test this very month, and the questions that help clients happily pay you what you are truly worth.

You can get your copy of PAID! here: https://www.peterthomson.com/paid-book

And if you would like to go deeper on the conversations that let a client sell themselves on your value, my free Persuasion Book is the natural next step.

Until the next time, I wish you continued success in all your adventures, in business and in life.

It is not what the money makes for us. It is what it makes of us.

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