Are you still believing you have to charge less because you’re a newer personal chef? Your experience level might not actually be the thing keeping your prices low.
There’s a difference between strategic beginner pricing and choosing a lower price because you’re afraid someone will say no. In this video, I want to help you figure out which one is actually driving your pricing, what undercharging can cost you, and how to become more confident in your prices based on the realities of your service instead of how comfortable you feel saying the number.
I’m Chef Shelley. I built my own personal chef business around weekly meal prep services, and on this channel I teach passionate cooks how to build a successful personal chef business of their own. It’s the best way to get paid to do what you love on your own terms with steady clients, schedule and money. If you want to learn how to do weekly meal prep services you can get my free guide there’s a download link under this video.
One of the biggest misconceptions I see around pricing is this idea that being new automatically means you should be cheap. There may be very good reasons to price strategically when you’re getting started. You may still be refining your service, learning how long everything takes, or figuring out your actual expenses. That’s strategic beginner pricing.
But pricing low because you’re worried nobody will hire you otherwise is something different. And that’s what I want you to pay attention to.
The first thing you need to do is identify what’s actually driving your price.
Look at the number you’re currently charging, or the number you’re thinking about charging, and ask yourself where that number actually came from. Did you calculate what it takes financially to provide the service, or did you choose a number that simply felt safe to ask someone to pay?
Because sometimes what looks like a pricing decision is really fear showing up in the number.
Maybe you’re afraid someone is going to tell you that you’re too expensive. Maybe you’re worried about losing an inquiry. Maybe you’re comparing yourself to personal chefs who have been in business much longer than you have. Or maybe you feel like you need to somehow earn the right to charge more.
One of the common mistakes I see newer personal chefs make is starting with the question, “What do I think someone will be willing to pay?” Then they build their price around that number.
The problem is that a price someone will easily say yes to isn’t necessarily the price you need to run a sustainable personal chef business.
Remember, personal chef services are a premium convenience service. Your client isn’t simply paying for the food you cook. They’re paying for the planning, shopping, preparation, cooking, cleanup, organization, customization, and the convenience of having their meals handled for them.
So you really need to separate two questions: What does this service actually need to cost, and what am I comfortable asking someone to pay? Those can be two very different numbers.
If you’re struggling to separate your feelings about pricing from the actual numbers, this is exactly what my Personal Chef Services Pricing Worksheet can help you with. It gives you a practical starting point for evaluating your pricing instead of picking a number primarily because it feels safe. You can download the worksheet through the link below.
Now, the second thing I want you to understand is what undercharging actually costs you, because this is where people can accidentally create a problem they don’t see until they’re already serving clients.
When you’re focused on getting clients, charging less can seem like the safer decision. You think, “If I lower the price, it’ll be easier for someone to say yes.” But getting someone to say yes is not the only job your pricing has to do. Your pricing also has to allow you to sustainably provide the service after the client hires you.
Think about everything that happens behind one weekly meal prep service. There’s menu planning, client communication, grocery shopping, travel, cooking, cleanup, and all of the administrative work required to keep that client’s service running. Then you have your business expenses, and at the end of all of that, your business still needs to make a profit.
When your price is too low, something eventually gets squeezed. Maybe you start rushing because you can’t afford to spend as much time on the service as it actually requires. Maybe expenses take a much bigger portion of the payment than you expected. Or maybe you fill your schedule with clients and discover that even though you’re busy all week, the business isn’t generating enough income.
I’ve seen chefs get excited because they booked a client, only to realize after doing the service several times that they dramatically underestimated how much time was involved. Now they have a different problem. They either keep providing a service that doesn’t make financial sense, or they have to go back to the client and make a significant pricing adjustment.
That’s why undercharging isn’t necessarily the safer choice. Sometimes it simply delays the pricing problem until later.
The third thing I want you to focus on is building confidence from evidence instead of feelings.
And this is an important shift, because if you’re waiting until you feel experienced enough or confident enough to raise your prices, you may be waiting for something that doesn’t happen the way you expect it to.
Instead, look at the realities of the service. How much time does it take you? What are your expenses? How many clients can you realistically serve each week? What does the business need to generate for this to make financial sense?
Those answers give you something much more useful to base your pricing on than asking yourself, “Does this number feel scary to say?”
Because feeling uncomfortable stating your price does not automatically mean your price is wrong.
That was an important perspective shift for me around pricing. Confidence didn’t have to come first. I could look at the numbers, understand everything that went into providing the service, and know why I was charging what I was charging. That gave me something concrete to stand behind.
And with experience, saying the number gets easier. But if you keep lowering your price until you finally feel comfortable saying it, you can end up creating a business model that simply doesn’t work.
So if you’re a newer personal chef and you’re questioning your pricing, don’t automatically assume that being new means you have to charge less. Instead, look at what’s really behind the number you’re charging. Is it a strategic business decision based on the realities of your service, or is fear making that decision for you?
Being new and undercharging are not the same thing. You can be thoughtful about where you are in your business while still making pricing decisions based on what your service actually requires.
And when you find yourself feeling uncomfortable about your price, go back to the evidence. Clarity creates confidence. Understand your numbers, understand your service, and know what it actually costs to deliver that service sustainably.
If you want some help working through those numbers, download my Personal Chef Services Pricing Worksheet using the link below And then watch my video on how to set your personal chef prices, because that’s the natural next step once you understand why fear shouldn’t be the thing setting them.
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