Advisory pricing

Pricing and packaging advisory work.

Useful advisory work is easier to buy, deliver, and improve when the problem, scope, output, and follow-through are visible before the engagement begins.

Type: Working note Status: Working note Updated: 2026

Core idea

Advisory work can be valuable and still hard to explain. That is usually a packaging problem, not only a pricing problem. The client needs to understand the situation, the scope of work, the decisions being supported, and the output they can expect.

A package should make the work legible without reducing it to a commodity. The goal is to define enough structure that the client can say yes with confidence and the team can deliver consistently.

Package shape

  • Problem: What recurring client situation does this solve?
  • Inputs: What information, documents, or decisions are needed?
  • Work: What review, analysis, planning, or coordination will happen?
  • Output: What will the client receive or understand by the end?
  • Follow-through: What happens after the recommendation or meeting?

A strong package does not promise certainty. It promises a clearer path through a specific kind of complexity.

Questions to answer

  1. What makes this work valuable to the client?
  2. What makes it costly or complex to deliver?
  3. What should be standardized, and what must remain customized?
  4. What is the smallest useful deliverable?
  5. How will the client know the engagement created progress?