- Time is priced from your floor: what an hour must earn you after the platform's share.
- Content is priced from value: what the buyer saves, learns or gets done.
- A price ladder gives every visitor a next step, from a small purchase to regular one-to-one time.
- Change one price at a time, give it a few weeks and keep a log of what happened.
On this page
- Why do content and time need different pricing?
- How do you work out your hourly floor?
- How do you turn your floor into per-minute prices?
- How do you price digital products and other content?
- What is a price ladder, and how do you build one?
- How do you test and raise your prices?
- Which pricing mistakes should creators avoid?
- Frequently asked questions
Why do content and time need different pricing?
Your time and your content behave differently, so one pricing rule can't cover both. An hour of your time can be sold only once. A guide, template or course can be sold again and again without costing you more hours. That means time is best priced from the bottom up, starting with what an hour must earn you, while content is best priced from the top down, starting with what it's worth to the buyer.
Mixing the two causes the most common pricing mistakes. Creators price calls like a cheap download because “it's just a chat,” and then wonder why a full week leaves them tired and underpaid. Or they price a product by the hours it took to make, which says nothing about what it's worth to the person buying it.
How do you work out your hourly floor?
Your floor is the least an hour of live time must earn you for it to be worth doing. It's personal: it depends on what else you could do with that hour, how much energy calls take from you and what you need the income for. To find it:
- Name a take-home figure for an hour on calls. Compare it with other work you could do instead, such as freelancing or an extra shift.
- Allow for the time around calls. Replying to messages, preparing and short breaks between calls are all part of the job.
- Divide by your share. The buyer's price per hour is your take-home divided by the share you keep.
- Turn it into a per-minute price. Divide the hourly price by 60.
Example: you want to take home $30 for each hour on calls. At a 60% share, fans need to pay $50 an hour, which is about 83 credits a minute. At a 70% share, $30 needs about $42.86 an hour, roughly 71 credits a minute.
Remember that per-minute pricing pays for connected minutes, not hours online. A two-hour block with 70 minutes of calls earns 70 minutes, so your floor sets the price, not the income.
How do you turn your floor into per-minute prices?
We'll use hello.fan for the numbers here, partly because it's built for per-minute calls and partly because it's ours: the company behind this site also makes hello.fan and store.fan. The arithmetic works the same anywhere you sell time.
On hello.fan you set a separate per-minute price for video, voice and chat, from 50 to 5,000 credits a minute (100 credits = $1, so $0.50 to $50). Video is priced at or above voice, and voice at or above chat; chat can even be free. Fans pay per started 15 seconds, only while you're both connected, and you keep 60%, or 70% with a linked store.fan shop on a paid plan. You can change your prices any time.
- Video asks the most of you: camera, setting and full attention. Put it at or above your floor.
- Voice is lighter, so a lower price fits.
- Chat is the easiest way for someone to start. A low or free chat price lets new people say hello before they pay for time on camera.
Example: at 100 credits a minute ($1) for video, an hour of calls is $60 of fan spending. You keep $36 at 60%, or $42 at 70%.
The earnings calculator runs these numbers for any price, and how much to charge for video calls goes deeper on the per-minute side.
How do you price digital products and other content?
Price content from the value it delivers. Ask what the buyer gets: time saved, a mistake avoided, a skill learned, a task done. A checklist that saves someone an afternoon is worth more than its page count suggests.
- Anchor against your live time. If a guide covers what you'd otherwise explain on a 20-minute call, pricing it below that call makes the guide the easy choice and the call the premium one.
- Match the format to the price. A single download is a one-time price; a course that teaches a whole skill can sit higher; a membership is a monthly price for something ongoing.
- Include the platform's cut. On store.fan's Free Plus plan, store.fan keeps 30% of each sale; on Starter and Pro the platform fee is 0%.
Example: a 20-minute video call at 100 credits a minute costs a fan $20. A written guide covering the same ground could sit well below that, and a course covering much more could sit above it. Together they give people three prices to choose from.
Looking for formats? See digital product ideas and our guide to the best platforms to sell digital products.
What is a price ladder, and how do you build one?
A price ladder is a set of offers at rising prices, so everyone who finds you has a next step that fits their budget and commitment. It saves you from forcing every visitor into a single, all-or-nothing choice.
| Rung | What it is | Example offer | How it's priced |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | Shows what you know | Posts, short videos, free chat if you set it | $0 |
| Entry | A small, low-risk purchase | A checklist or template | Low, one-time |
| Core | Your main product | A guide, a course or a membership | Middle, one-time or monthly |
| Live | Your time, one to one | Video or voice calls, booked sessions | Per minute or per session |
| Ongoing | Regular, personal help | Weekly sessions at the same time every week | Highest, recurring |
You don't need every rung on day one. Two or three, with a clear jump in value between them, is enough to start. On hello.fan, booked sessions inside your working hours are paid up front, and weekly sessions repeat at the same time every week, which makes the top rung simple to run.
How do you test and raise your prices?
Treat your first price as a starting point. Pick a number you can say without apologizing, then let what happens tell you where to go next.
- Change one price at a time, and give it a few weeks before judging.
- Watch both demand and energy. A price that sells but leaves you resenting every call is too low.
- Look for signals to raise it: your hours fill up regularly, products keep selling, nobody hesitates at the price.
- Check the page before cutting a price. If people visit but don't buy, a vague description may be the problem rather than the number.
- Raise in small steps, and tell regular customers before it happens.
Tip: keep a short pricing log with the date, the change and what happened over the following month. After a few changes you'll have your own evidence instead of guesses.
Which pricing mistakes should creators avoid?
- Copying someone else's prices. You don't know their costs, audience or hours.
- Forgetting the platform's share. Always work from what you keep, not what the buyer pays.
- One price for every format. Video, voice and chat ask different things of you.
- Discounting by default. A permanent discount soon becomes the real price.
- Underpricing calls to get started. Early prices become the anchor people remember, so start where you can stay.
- Never revisiting. Your skills and demand change; review your prices every few months.
If you're deciding between live and recorded formats, our comparison of live calls vs recorded shoutouts shows how pricing differs between them. Ways to sell every rung from one page are on store.fan.
Frequently asked questions
How much should I charge per minute for video calls?
Work backward from what an hour must earn you. Divide your target take-home by your share, 60%, or 70% with a linked store.fan shop on a paid plan, then divide by 60. On hello.fan you can set anything from 50 to 5,000 credits a minute.
Should chat, voice and video cost the same?
Usually not. Video asks the most of you, so on hello.fan video is priced at or above voice, and voice at or above chat. Chat can even be free, which gives new people a low-risk way to start a conversation with you.
How do I price a digital product with no sales history?
Price it from the value: what the buyer saves, learns or gets done. Compare it with your live time, so a guide sits below a call that covers the same ground. Launch, watch what happens for a few weeks, then adjust one thing at a time.
When should I raise my prices?
Raise them when your hours fill up regularly, products sell steadily or nobody hesitates at the price. Move in small steps, tell regular customers first and check that demand holds before you make the next change.
Published by Premiums Only LLC, the company behind hello.fan and store.fan. We recommend our own platforms — and say when another kind of tool fits you better. How we write.
