# Why your cost does not decide what you can ask [Home](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en) › [Study](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/study) › [Articles](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/study/articles) author: [Axel Jedlitschka](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/about) published: 2026-10-13 updated: 2026-10-13 language: en reading time: 4 min topic: Marketing & sales source booklet: [What to Charge](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/shop/introduction/pricing-exchange) Cost tells you the price below which you must not go and says nothing about how much you can ask, because that depends on what the buyer wants and sees as valuable. Most self-employed people set a price in two steps: they work out what the job costs them and add a percentage. According to the source, the first step is needed, and it sets only the floor of the price. About the ceiling it says nothing. ## A painting that sells for half a million The source says outright that pricing does not necessarily limit itself to covering the immediate cost of a product. Its example ends the argument: a painting whose paint and canvas cost one dollar can still be priced at half a million. That is a ratio of one to five hundred thousand, and nobody believes the paint is worth that. The buyer is paying for something else entirely. This brings us to the point most self-employed people miss. **Cost sets the floor only.** It marks the line you must not go below and says nothing about how high you can go. These are two separate calculations. Most people do the first, add a percentage and call the result a price. Suppose a designer who prices a logo by the hours she works. To a chain with twenty branches that logo is worth ten times what it is to a single shop, yet her hours are identical. Or a technician who calls every visit a service hour, even when the fault had shut down a client's business. His time is identical, and what he saved is very different. Or a consultant who charges by the day. The hour in which she caught an error in a client's contract was worth more than all the other hours combined. ## What raises the ceiling If cost does not set it, what does? According to the source, the value in the buyer's eyes is shaped by the desire created in them for the thing. Take that sentence apart and it holds three conditions: - **Desire was created.** The buyer wants it. Without that there is no sale at any price. - **It is a real value.** It actually solves something for them. Without that you get one sale, and then it is over. - **Delivery can occur.** You can actually supply it. Without that the promise turns into a debt. Only when all three are in place does selling become very easy. Even then, the source adds, it remains a skilled action. Suppose an owner with an excellent service that nobody wants. The second and third conditions hold and the first does not, so there are no sales. Or an owner who is skilled at creating desire and then supplies less than he promised. Only the first condition holds, so he has sales and no customers. And the other way: a clinic owner who checked all three conditions against every service she offers. One service was cut, and another got a higher price. ## When what you offer and what they want do not meet The source adds a warning that speaks straight to pricing. What people regard as a valuable service can be surprising, and so can what they overlook. That is why you have to find out what people want that you can deliver. Until you do, you are in what the source calls an **exchange blockage**. You have something good, someone needs something, and still nothing happens, because what you offer and what they are looking for are different things and neither of you knows it. According to the source, you can guess, but until you find out there is little you can do about it. For pricing, this means the ceiling follows what the customer believes they are buying, and that can differ from what you stress. Suppose an owner who marketed his twenty years of experience. When he asked his customers, what they had actually bought was that he answers the phone. Or a studio owner proud of her design quality, whose clients talked about meeting deadlines. Or an installer who promoted a two-year warranty at every turn. No customer brought it up, and each of them mentioned that he cleans up after himself. ## What the booklet adds This chapter includes two exercises: a separation exercise and a survey exercise. From there the booklet moves to who pays for what a business gives away without a price, and to one sentence that names the two directions in which exchange breaks. Cost is the line you do not go below. How far above it you can climb is something only the buyer knows, and until you have asked, you are guessing. The booklet is general knowledge, not financial advice for your business. - [What to Charge](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/shop/introduction/pricing-exchange): A method for pricing instead of copying, and one test that tells you whether the price was right: not on the day they paid, but on the day they came back. --- [עברית](https://theonlyaxelj.com/he/study/articles/price-ceiling-is-not-your-cost) · [Español](https://theonlyaxelj.com/es/study/articles/price-ceiling-is-not-your-cost)