The 10x Value-Based Pricing Method
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- —
Godbey prices community offers from the customer's outcome, not from the creator's delivery cost. The method: enumerate the concrete transformations members achieve, put a conservative dollar value on them, then price so you are aiming to deliver roughly a ten-times return on what you charge. Price is also a filter — the same promise at $100 and at $10,000 attracts entirely different rooms, different questions and different problems, so the number you pick designs the community as much as the curriculum does. He walked Ali's head of product through exactly this on Productivity Lab, moving him from 'a thousand dollars is too expensive' to 'this is clearly worth it' in one conversation. Cost-based thinking and emotional discomfort about money are the main obstacles, not market resistance.
Origin
Extracted from Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal
How to run it
- 1
Map the transformation, not the deliverables
Write out what it actually means for a member to succeed — what changes in their work and life. For a productivity program that meant promotions, raises, career switches, more closed clients, and on the personal side more time at home, more holiday and more exercise.
Pro tip Separate professional outcomes from personal ones; both justify price.
- 2
Put a conservative dollar figure on the outcome
Estimate what one realistic outcome is worth to the member. A raise is plausibly worth five to ten thousand dollars; more clients sold is worth more still. Assume they implement only half of what you teach and still get there.
Pro tip Also count the durability of the skill — some outcomes compound for decades, not twelve months.
Watch out Do not price on the best-case member; price on a reasonable half-effort implementer.
- 3
Price at roughly one tenth of delivered value
Aim to deliver at least a 10x return on what you charge. If the outcome is credibly worth ten thousand dollars, a thousand-dollar price is defensible and pays for itself on a single result.
Pro tip This is the exact argument to use when your own team says the price is too high.
- 4
Choose the room your price creates
Treat price as customer selection. The same promise — double your productivity — at $100 attracts a large, less experienced crowd; at $10,000 it attracts a smaller group of CEOs for whom the outcome is worth millions. Questions, problems and environment all change.
Pro tip Ask who you best serve and who you most enjoy serving before setting the number.
Watch out A price that is affordable to everyone produces a room you may not want to facilitate.
- 5
Align delivery intensity with the price
Check that what you promise to deliver matches the tier. Team-facilitated small-group accountability, daily calls and coaches are high-ticket delivery; running them on a low-ticket price creates an unsustainable offer.
Pro tip If members want more intimacy than the price supports, let them self-organise groups with vetted volunteer leaders on fixed terms.
Watch out Charging low-ticket and delivering high-ticket is the classic squeeze.
- 6
Serve the priced-out audience elsewhere
You cannot serve everyone with the same offer. Put pieces of the material on YouTube, into lead magnets or into a cheap entry product so people who cannot afford the main program are still served — without discounting the core offer.
Pro tip A free long-form video version of the material can strengthen, not cannibalise, the paid tier.
Watch out Audience complaints about price are usually from people outside the target customer.
In the wild
Just before Productivity Lab launched, Ali's head of product told Godbey he did not think they could launch at a thousand dollars — too expensive, not enough stuff inside. Instead of adding features, Godbey walked him through the transformation: what becoming productive actually changes, which outcomes members would plausibly reach, and what those outcomes are worth. A raise alone justifies five to ten thousand dollars of value; the underlying skill lasts a lifetime. By the end of the call the objection had reversed and the price held.
→ The program launched at $1,000/year with internal conviction instead of a discount.
Godbey's illustration: take one program promising to double someone's productivity. Charge a hundred dollars and it attracts a student audience who would struggle to pay but find a way. Charge ten thousand for the identical promise and it attracts CEOs, for whom doubled productivity means millions and the fee is trivial. Neither price is wrong — but they build different environments, surface different questions and demand different facilitation. The price is therefore a design decision about who is in the room, not just a revenue lever.
→ Price chosen deliberately as a customer-selection filter rather than by comparison to competitors.
Common mistakes
Pricing from your delivery cost
Ali admits his instinct is cost-based: four Zoom co-working calls, some reflection sessions and a quarterly webinar 'feels like a hundred dollars a month' because it is not that much work to run. That reasoning ignores what the member achieves, and systematically underprices offers whose value is disproportionate to the effort of delivering them.
Letting audience pushback set the number
When a high price is floated publicly, some followers react as though charging it is immoral. Godbey's position is that money is emotional and someone who cannot afford the price simply is not the target customer — designing the offer around their objection prices you out of the customers you can actually transform.
Assuming value is universal
The same program can be worth an enormous amount to one buyer and effectively worthless to another. Founders who look for one 'correct' price miss that value-based pricing implies choosing a segment first — the number follows from who you serve.
From the transcript
“Well, if someone got a raise, you would argue that probably be worth at least five or ten thousand dollars, right?”
“So I am very much a fan of value-based pricing.”
“And price is one of the best filters that you have for customer selection.”
From the episode
How to make $10k/month from a community - Jordan Godbey
Jordan Godbey