"You Know You're Worth More. So Why Can't You Charge It?"

Last Tuesday at 11:47 PM, I got an email from a designer:

“I just saw another designer post that they closed a $15K project. My site builds are just as good — maybe better — but I can’t imagine anyone paying me that. What am I missing?

That fear keeps talented professionals trapped in the undercharging cycle.

You know the feeling: you wrap up a $3K website and realize you just solved a $50K business problem.

The client’s revenue jumps 40% in the first month. They send you a bottle of champagne. Their friends start asking for your number.

And instead of pride, you feel... nauseous.

Because you know you left $47K on the table. Again.

You promise yourself: next time, I’ll charge more.
But next time comes, and out of your mouth slips the same old number. $3K.
Because what if they say no? What if they laugh? What if they realize you’re “just some person with a laptop who learned Squarespace from YouTube”?

Here’s what’s really happening:

• You see competitors charging $15K and assume they know something you don’t.

• You struggle to explain why your work should cost more, even when clients tell you you’ve changed their business.

• You’ve seen results — revenue jumps, full transformations — but never tied them back to your pricing.

You’re solving $50K problems for $3K fees because you can’t see the magnitude of what you do.

But the reason you can’t see your value isn’t because it’s missing.

It’s because when you’re inside the system, it’s invisible.

A fish doesn't know it's wet.

In the same way, your expertise is invisible to you. That’s the curse of knowledge: the more you know, the harder it is to see the value of what you do.

This isn’t a confidence problem. It’s a perception problem.

Think back to when you first touched Squarespace. Remember how overwhelming it felt? The CSS injection, the broken mobile views, all the hidden settings. Now you fly through it without thinking.

Your brain filed all that complexity under basic. You literally can’t recall how hard it once was. So when a client says “I just need a simple website,” you hear simple and price it that way.

Except that “simple” website actually requires you to:

• Translate a scattered vision into a coherent user experience

• Navigate customer psychology

• Solve technical problems they don’t even know exist

• Make conversion, messaging, and positioning decisions

• Hold their entire business in your head while they change their mind seventeen times

That’s not simple. That’s business transformation disguised as web design.

You’ve been in the water so long you forget not everyone can swim. What feels obvious to you is magic to your clients. What takes you two hours would take them two months — if they could even pull it off at all.

Remember that designer who was afraid to bring up pricing?

She finally had the conversation.

And what happened next changed how she saw everything.

By the end of the year, she had doubled her income. Same skills, same expertise. She just learned to see — and communicate — the value that was already there.

Now that you know why you can’t see your value, here’s why raising your rates never fixes it—and what actually does → 2 of 5.

Now that you understand WHY you can't see your value, I'll show you why every attempt to fix it with pricing tactics and confidence tricks fails... and the one approach that actually works.