Ask HN: Should I raise my rates?

  • I think it depends on what your business goals are.

    Do you want to have a one-man business that provides a good and reliable income for you? Then raise your rates -- that's one of the knobs you can turn to reduce your workload to something that won't consume your entire life.

    Do you want to grow your business into something larger, supporting employees and having numerous clients? Then lower rates will help with this.

    Both things are legit, and each has their own advantages and disadvantages. My advice is to clarify what your goal is here so you can better aim for it.

  • You advertise as "premium".

    Advice I once heard; if you're commodity price as _low_ as _you_ can bear. If you're premium, price as _high_ as _they_ can bear.

    Dunno much about your product and I just glanced at your site but feeling I get is if AI is really going to reshape markets the way some people suppose and destroy the commodity side, then human design is going to become a luxury anyway. So you may as well jump into that fully as a premium service now and go for the top.

  • Pricing page is a bit weird. If someone can pay $1000 they can probably pay $1500 a month. It sounds like its a service that can replace an in house designer so probably.

    However pricing pages shouldn't have prices like that. Is there any way to change the model to have Free, $5, $30, Enterprise (call)?

    Free gets customers but you don't need to mentally worry - there would need to be something that automates everything.

    $5 is also automated, but maybe one of the features that you don't get "free" is available...

    Maybe this is not really what you're going for though, so treat this comment as a half grain of salt.

  • Interesting model. As a designer currently exploring options outside of the increasingly competitive full-time market, I’d love to learn some more about how you’re making this work.

    On the pricing front, I would suggest this: look at how your customer base breaks down between your two pricing tiers. If it’s weighted toward the higher tier, that may be a signal that you can push higher. Maybe experiment with raising that tier first?