Founders often pick a price because it looks round, or because a competitor’s website showed a number last week. Plans need a clearer basis.
Three anchors
Cost floor. What it costs to deliver one unit or one engagement, including your unpaid hours valued at a living wage you can defend.
Comparable offers. What buyers already pay for imperfect substitutes — not aspirational peers in another country.
Willingness signals. What early conversations or pilot quotes revealed about budgets.
Write the logic in the plan
Lenders and co-founders care less about the exact dollar than about whether you can explain it. A short paragraph on floor, comps, and early signals is enough for a first-year plan.
Common trap
Raising price on paper to “look premium” while delivery costs stay high and demand is unproven. If the model only works at a price no one has accepted, mark it as a hypothesis, not a fact.