You're Not Charging Enough: The Indie Maker's Guide to Pricing Without Fear

I launched my first product at $5. Five dollars. I remember agonizing over that number like it was a life-or-death decision. I thought, "If I price it low enough, nobody will complain. Nobody will ask for a refund. Nobody will say it wasn't worth it."

You know what happened? I got 14 customers in the first week. I was thrilled. Then the support emails started rolling in. People wanted custom features. People wanted phone calls. People wanted me to rebuild the entire thing to fit their specific workflow. For five dollars.

I spent the next two months drowning in requests from people who had paid me a combined total of $70. Meanwhile, a friend of mine launched a similar tool the same month at $39 per month. He got 6 customers. That's $234 in monthly recurring revenue. His customers sent polite emails, left positive reviews, and never once asked him to "hop on a quick call."

That was the moment I realized: I didn't have a pricing problem. I had a belief problem. I didn't think what I built was worth more than $5. And because I didn't believe it, nobody else did either.

The Psychology of Underpricing

Let's talk about why you're charging too little. Because if you're reading this, you probably are.

It's not because you've done careful market research and determined that $7 is the optimal price point for your product. It's because you're scared. And that fear has a few very specific flavors.

Imposter Syndrome: "Who am I to charge $30 for this? I'm just one person. I built this in my apartment. Real companies charge $30. I'm not a real company."

The Simplicity Trap: "But it only does one thing. It's so simple. How can I charge real money for something so simple?" (More on this in a minute.)

Fear of Rejection: "If I price it at $29, nobody will buy it. At least at $5, some people will give it a shot."

The Comparison Game: "That other tool does way more than mine and it's only $12/month. I can't charge more than that."

Every single one of these thoughts feels rational. They feel like good business sense. But they're not. They're emotional responses disguised as logic. And they will keep you broke if you let them.

Here's the truth that took me way too long to learn: the market does not care how you feel about your product. The market cares about the value it provides. And value has almost nothing to do with how many hours you spent building it or how many features it has.

Why $9 Attracts the Worst Customers and $29 Attracts the Best

This is the part that sounds counterintuitive until you experience it firsthand.

When you price something at $5 or $9, you attract people who are optimizing for one thing: spending as little money as possible. These are not your ideal customers. These are bargain hunters. They are, by definition, the people who value your product the least.

Here's what I've seen over and over again, both in my own products and in conversations with dozens of indie makers:

$5-$9 customers tend to:

Send the most support emails
Leave the harshest reviews over minor issues
Request the most features
Churn the fastest
Ask for refunds over things that are clearly documented
Treat you like a corporation with a 50-person support team

$29+ customers tend to:

Read the documentation before asking questions
Provide constructive, specific feedback
Stick around longer
Refer other customers
Understand that you're one person building something valuable
Respect your time

This isn't a universal law. There are wonderful $5 customers and terrible $50 customers. But the pattern is real, and it's strong enough that you should pay attention to it.

Why does this happen? Because price is a filter. When someone pays $29 for your product, they've already made a more deliberate decision. They've thought about it. They've decided that the problem you solve is worth at least $29 to them. That self-selection process filters for people who actually need what you built, not people who are just clicking "buy" because it's cheaper than lunch.

Pricing is Positioning

Here's something most indie makers don't think about: your price communicates something about your product before anyone ever uses it.

Think about the last time you were comparing two tools and one was $7/month and the other was $35/month. What did you assume about them before reading a single feature description?

You assumed the $35 tool was better. More reliable. More polished. More "serious." You might have even assumed it had better support, better uptime, and a more dedicated team behind it.

Maybe that was true. Maybe it wasn't. But the price told you a story before the product did.

Cheap products signal:

"This might disappear tomorrow"
"The maker isn't committed to this long-term"
"If it breaks, there's probably nobody to fix it"
"It's probably missing something important"

Premium products signal:

"Someone put serious thought into this"
"This is a real business, not a side project"
"If something goes wrong, someone will care enough to fix it"
"This is built to last"

Now, here's the uncomfortable question: Which of those lists do you want associated with the thing you spent months building?

When you price low, you're not being generous. You're telling the market that your product is disposable. And disposable products get treated like disposable products.

The "It Only Took Me a Weekend" Trap

This is the single most destructive thought in the indie maker's brain: "I can't charge much for this because it only took me a weekend to build."

Let me tell you something. Nobody cares how long it took you to build it. Literally nobody.

Your customer has a problem. Your product solves that problem. The value of your product is determined by how painful the problem is and how well you solve it, not by how many hours you spent in VS Code.

A plumber doesn't charge you $500 to fix a burst pipe because it took him four hours. He charges you $500 because you have water flooding your kitchen and he knows how to make it stop. If he fixed it in 15 minutes, would you say, "Actually, that only took you 15 minutes, so I should only pay $30"? Of course not.

Your weekend build represents years of accumulated knowledge, expertise, and problem-solving ability. You didn't build it in a weekend. You built it in a weekend plus the five years of experience that made that weekend possible.

So stop discounting your price based on your timeline. Your customer doesn't know or care that it took you two days. They care that it works.

Here are some real examples from the indie world:

A Notion template that took 3 hours to build but saves freelancers 5 hours per week. Worth $29? Easily.
A browser extension that took a weekend but eliminates a daily annoyance for 10,000 people. Worth $4.99/month? Without question.
A simple API that wraps a complicated process into a single endpoint. Built in a day, saves developers hours of research. Worth $19/month? Absolutely.

Time spent building is a cost to you. Value delivered is the price to them. These are completely different things.

Value-Based Pricing vs. Time-Based Pricing

This leads us to the core framework shift that will change everything about how you think about pricing.

Time-based pricing says: "I spent X hours building this, my time is worth $Y per hour, so the product should cost Z."

Value-based pricing says: "This product saves my customer X hours per week (or X dollars per month, or X headaches per day), so it's worth a fraction of that saved value."

Time-based pricing will always lead to undercharging because you're anchoring to your labor, which feels cheap to you because you did it yourself. Value-based pricing leads to fair pricing because you're anchoring to the customer's reality.

Here's a simple framework for calculating value-based price:

1. Identify the pain you're solving. What is the customer currently doing instead of using your product?

2. Quantify the cost of that pain. How much time, money, or energy does it cost them? Be specific. "It takes them 2 hours per week to do this manually" or "They're paying $200/month for a bloated tool that does 50 things when they only need 3."

3. Price at 10-20% of the value you create. If your tool saves someone 8 hours per month and their time is worth $50/hour, you're creating $400 in monthly value. A price of $39-$79/month is completely reasonable. Most customers will happily pay 10% of what they save.

4. Test and adjust. Start at the higher end of your estimate. It's easier to lower a price than to raise one (though raising prices is also fine, as we'll discuss later).

The key insight here: your customer is not paying for your product. They are paying for the gap between their life before your product and their life after it. The bigger that gap, the more you can charge. The size of that gap has nothing to do with how many hours you spent coding.

The Free Tier Trap

Let me guess. You have a free tier. You offer a generous free plan because you want people to "try it out" and then upgrade later.

How's that working out for you?

If you're like most solo founders I've talked to, the answer is: not great. You have hundreds (maybe thousands) of free users and a tiny fraction of paying customers. Your free users consume your server resources, fill your support inbox, and request features. But they don't pay.

The free tier trap is one of the most common mistakes indie makers make, and it's devastating because it feels like it's working. You see the sign-up numbers going up. You see "traction." But traction without revenue is just a liability.

Here's when a free tier makes sense:

You're a funded startup with runway to burn
Your product has strong network effects (each user makes it better for other users)
You have a clear, proven conversion funnel from free to paid
You have the infrastructure to support thousands of free users without going broke

Here's when a free tier does NOT make sense:

You're a solo founder
Your product solves a specific problem for a specific audience
You don't have a dedicated growth team optimizing conversion
Every free user costs you real money in hosting, support, or bandwidth
You added a free tier because you're scared people won't pay

If you're a solo maker building a tool for a niche audience, a free trial is almost always better than a free tier. Give people 7 or 14 days to use the full product. Let them experience the value. Then ask for payment.

The difference is enormous. A free trial says, "This is valuable, and I'm confident you'll agree after trying it." A free tier says, "You can use this forever without paying, and maybe someday you'll decide to give me money." One communicates confidence. The other communicates desperation.

If you already have a free tier and you're drowning in free users, here's what to do:

Don't kill it overnight. That will make people angry.
Announce a transition. "Starting next month, the free plan will be limited to X. All current free users keep their access for 90 days."
Make the paid plan obviously worth it. The gap between free and paid should be so large that upgrading is a no-brainer.
Accept the churn. You will lose free users. That's the point. The ones who stay and pay are the ones you want.

A Practical Framework for Setting Your First Price

Alright, enough theory. Let's get practical. Here's a step-by-step process for setting a price when you have no idea where to start.

Step 1: Find Three Competitors

Search for tools that solve a similar problem. They don't have to be identical. They just need to serve a similar audience with a similar value proposition. Write down their prices.

If you can't find any competitors, that's either very good news (untapped market) or very bad news (no market). Assuming it's the former, skip to Step 3.

Step 2: Position Yourself in the Market

Look at the prices you found. You have three positioning options:

Below the market: You're the budget option. Lower price, simpler product, fewer features. This works if you genuinely offer a streamlined alternative. But don't go here just because you're scared.
At the market: You're a comparable option. Similar price, different angle or niche focus. This is the safest bet for most indie makers.
Above the market: You're the premium option. Higher price, better experience, more focused solution. This is where most indie makers should aim, because a focused tool built by someone who deeply understands the niche is inherently worth more than a generic tool built by a big team.

Step 3: Apply the 3x Rule

Whatever number you first think of, multiply it by three. Seriously.

Your first instinct is almost always too low because of all the psychological biases we talked about earlier. If your gut says $9, start at $27. If your gut says $15, start at $45.

This isn't arbitrary. Most indie makers underprice by 2-5x. Multiplying by 3 usually lands you in the right range.

Step 4: Set Two or Three Tiers

Keep it simple. You don't need five plans with a comparison table that takes 20 minutes to read.

A classic structure:

Starter: The core product with reasonable limits. This is your entry point.
Pro: The full product with higher limits and a few extra features. This is where most people should land.
Team (optional): For small teams that want to share access. Only add this if teams are a realistic use case.

Price the tiers so that Pro feels like the obvious choice. The Starter plan should feel slightly restrictive (not painfully so, just enough that upgrading is appealing). The Pro plan should feel generous.

Step 5: Launch and Listen

Set your price and launch. Don't overthink it. You can change your price later. The goal is to get real data from real customers, not to find the "perfect" price on your first try.

Watch for these signals in the first 30 days:

If everyone is buying without hesitation: Your price is probably too low. Consider raising it.
If nobody is buying: It might be a pricing problem, but it's more likely a positioning or marketing problem. Don't lower the price as your first response.
If some people are buying and some aren't: That's healthy. You're in the right range.

When and How to Raise Your Prices

Your first price is not your forever price. One of the best things about being an indie maker is that you can raise your prices whenever you want. No board approval needed. No committee meetings. Just you and a text field.

Here's when to raise prices:

1. When you've added significant value. New features, better performance, more integrations. If the product is meaningfully better than it was six months ago, it should cost more.

2. When demand exceeds your capacity. If you're getting more customers than you can support, raising prices is the healthiest way to manage growth.

3. When you realize you're still undercharging. This will happen. You'll talk to a customer who says something like, "Honestly, I'd pay three times this much." When you hear that, listen.

4. Every 6-12 months, as a default. Even if nothing dramatic has changed, a small annual price increase (10-20%) is normal and expected. Your costs go up. Your product improves. Your price should reflect that.

Here's how to do it without upsetting existing customers:

Grandfather existing customers at their current rate (at least for 6-12 months). This builds loyalty.
Announce the increase in advance. "Starting March 1st, the price for new customers will increase to $X. All current customers keep their current rate."
Frame it as a positive. "We've added 12 new features this year, and the new pricing reflects the additional value."
Don't apologize. You're running a business. Prices go up. That's how the world works.

The biggest mistake I see makers make is never raising prices because they're scared of losing customers. You will lose some. But the ones who stay will be paying you what you're worth. And the new customers coming in at the higher price will set a healthier baseline for your business.

The Emotional Side of Pricing

I want to acknowledge something that most pricing guides skip over: this is emotional.

When you set a price on something you built, you're essentially putting a number on your own worth. It feels personal because it is personal. You poured your time, your ideas, and your energy into this thing. And now you're asking a stranger to tell you if it's worth $29.

That vulnerability is real. And it's the reason most indie makers default to low prices. It's easier to hear "no" on a $5 product than on a $49 product. The rejection stings less.

But here's the reframe that changed everything for me: when you undercharge, you're not protecting yourself from rejection. You're rejecting yourself before anyone else gets the chance to.

You're looking at the thing you built and saying, "This is only worth $5." You're telling yourself that before any customer ever has the chance to disagree.

What if, instead, you priced it at $39 and let the market decide? What if some people said no, and some people said yes, and the people who said yes became your best customers? What if the rejection you were so afraid of never actually came?

The only way to find out is to charge what you think it's worth (and then add 50%, because you're probably still too low).

Your Pricing Action Plan

Here's what you're going to do this week:

1. Write down your current price. If you haven't launched yet, write down the price you're planning to charge.

2. Write down the value your product creates. Be specific. How much time does it save? How much money does it save? How much frustration does it eliminate? Put a number on it.

3. Compare the two numbers. If your price is less than 10% of the value you create, you're undercharging. Period.

4. Pick a new price. Use the 3x rule. Multiply your current price by three and sit with that number for a minute. Does it feel uncomfortable? Good. That discomfort is the gap between your self-doubt and your product's actual value.

5. Talk to three existing customers. Ask them: "What would you expect to pay for a tool that does what ours does?" You'll be shocked at the answers. People almost always name a number higher than what you're currently charging.

6. Set the new price. Not next month. Not after the next feature release. This week. Grandfather your existing customers if you want, but all new customers pay the new price starting now.

7. Update your Makers Page profile. Show the world what you're building and what it's worth. Let your verified revenue tell the story as it grows.

Stop Apologizing for Your Price Tag

The indie maker community in 2026 is more vibrant, more talented, and more capable than it has ever been. Solo founders are building tools that compete with venture-backed startups. One-person teams are serving thousands of customers with products that are focused, reliable, and genuinely useful.

But too many of us are still pricing like we're doing this as a hobby. Too many of us are still whispering our prices like we're apologizing for having the audacity to charge money for something we built.

Enough.

You built something that solves a real problem for real people. You spent your nights, your weekends, and your mental energy creating something that makes someone's life a little bit easier. That has value. Real, measurable, charge-money-for-it value.

So charge for it. Charge fairly. Charge confidently. And don't look back.

List your product on Makers Page. Set a price that reflects what it's actually worth. Connect your Stripe. Let the revenue speak for itself.

Because the makers who win aren't the ones who charge the least. They're the ones who believe in what they built enough to put a real price tag on it.

Your product is worth more than you think. Now go prove it.