Headline options
- I Stopped Giving Discounts. Now I Earn More and Stress Less. (recommended)
- Smaller Scope, Never a Lower Price
- What 30% Off Actually Bought Me
Subtitle: Why I'll shrink the work but never the price, and what that did to my revenue and my evenings.
I Stopped Giving Discounts. Now I Earn More and Stress Less.
Eleven rounds of revisions.
That's what 30% off bought me. Not a loyal client. Not a portfolio piece I was proud of. Eleven rounds of revisions over two months, and then they were gone.
I want to talk about discounts, because I think most of us offer them for the wrong reasons. I certainly did. And I want to tell you what happened when I stopped, because the numbers surprised me more than anyone.
Let's start with the 30% client.
They got in touch about [ADD: the project, e.g. a brand identity for a new café]. We talked it through, I sent the quote, and the reply came back with one question: could I do it for 30% less?
I said yes. Obviously I said yes. I told myself it was an investment. Get them through the door, do brilliant work, and the full-price projects would follow.
They did not follow.
What followed was a revision process that never quite ended. Round after round after round. Each one was supposed to be nearly the last. By round eleven I wasn't designing anymore. I was negotiating. Two months in, they left.
And here's the bit that took me far too long to see. The discount didn't cause the revisions. But it set the tone for them.
When you drop your price before you've even talked about the work, you're teaching the client something. You're teaching them that your numbers are a starting point. That the first answer isn't the real answer. That if they push, you'll move.
So they push. On the price, then on the scope, then on the deadline, then on the eleventh round of "just one more version". Why wouldn't they? You showed them it works.
A discount looks like a gift. It's actually a lesson, and the client learns it faster than you do.
So now I have a rule. I'll offer a smaller scope. I'll never offer a lower price.
It sounds like a small distinction. It isn't.
Say someone needs a full brand identity and their budget covers about half of it. Old me would have done the whole thing for half and quietly resented every minute. Now I'll say: here's what I can do properly for that budget. Maybe it's the logo and a core colour palette, done well, at my rate. The rest can come later, when they're ready.
Notice what changes. The price stays a fact, not an opening bid. The conversation moves away from "how cheap can you go?" and towards "what do we actually need first?" That's a much better conversation. It's the one I'm good at.
And it sorts people, quickly. Clients with a genuine budget limit are usually relieved. They weren't trying to squeeze me; they just needed a way in that didn't involve pretending they had more money. Clients who were only testing me tend to reveal themselves just as fast. Which is useful information to have before the contract, not after.
I'll be honest about the first time I said no, though. It was terrifying.
Not mildly uncomfortable. Terrifying. There's a voice in every freelancer's head that treats each enquiry like it might be the last one ever, and that voice was very loud. Saying no to a discount felt like turning away rent. I was convinced they'd vanish, tell their friends I was difficult, and leave me staring at an empty calendar.
[ADD: what actually happened after that first no. Did they book, walk away, or come back later?]
The fear didn't disappear after one go. But it got quieter every time, mostly because the disaster I kept bracing for never really showed up.
Then the numbers came in.
Last quarter, my revenue went up 18%. And I took on fewer projects to get there.
Fewer projects. More money. I had to read that twice.
It makes sense once you think about it. Every discounted project costs more than the discount. It costs the extra revision rounds. It costs the emails. It costs the evenings spent fixing things that were fine three versions ago. When every project is priced properly and scoped honestly, you're not subsidising anyone. You're just doing the work you agreed to do, for the price you agreed to do it for.
Less chaos, too. Fewer clients means fewer inboxes to keep track of, fewer deadlines stacked on top of each other, and more room to actually think. I didn't expect "less stressful" to show up in the same quarter as "more profitable". I'd always assumed you had to trade one for the other.
Now, the nuance, because I don't want to pretend this is magic.
Some people walk. Not everyone who asks for a discount books anyway, and when one walks in a quiet month, it stings. A no has a real short-term cost, and if your savings are thin, I understand why that feels like a risk you can't take.
I'm also not saying a lower price is never right. If you want to support a cause you care about, or take on a project purely because you love it, go ahead. The difference is that it's your decision, made on your terms. It isn't something squeezed out of you in the first email.
And if you're brand new with no portfolio? I get the temptation. I'd still say cut the scope, not the price. You're setting your rate for the next client, too.
Anyway. That's where I've landed. Price is part of the product. When it stays put, clients trust it. When it moves, they keep pushing to see how far it'll go.
Now I want to hear from you.
Hit reply and tell me the worst discount request you've ever got. The cheekier, the better. I'll read every one, probably with a cup of tea, definitely with a wince.
Voice notes
- Voice traits matched: Short, punchy sentences and lots of one-line paragraphs for emphasis. Fragments like "Not mildly uncomfortable. Terrifying." Questions you answer yourself ("And if you're brand new with no portfolio? I get the temptation."). Your "Anyway." pivot and "here's the bit"