What to Say When Asked Why It Costs That
Answer with one fact about the work, and then let the client speak.
Imagine an interior designer named Rosalind who meets Mr. Castellane about the ground floor of a house he bought in March. They walk the five rooms, and at the kitchen table he asks what the design would cost. “The fee is $24,000,” Rosalind says. “I could start the drawings in May.” Mr. Castellane looks at the number on her page and asks, “Why does it cost that?”
Rosalind has heard the question before, and she has an answer ready. “It’s about 160 hours of my time across the five rooms. I’ve been doing this for 14 years, and I have a studio and an assistant to pay for. Most designers at my level are at $25,000 and up. I know it’s a lot, but you’ll get a lot for it.” Mr. Castellane thanks her and says he will think it over. He hires a designer his sister used, whose fee was $26,000.
Everything Rosalind said was true, and Mr. Castellane could use none of it. The hours were hers to spend, the studio was hers to pay for, and the 14 years were about her. The other designers’ fees were a claim he could check, so he checked it, with his sister. “I know it’s a lot” told him that Rosalind expected him to say no.
Suppose instead she answers his question with one sentence. “It covers the drawings for all five rooms, the shopping, and my being here until the last piece is in.” Then she stops. Mr. Castellane looks at the page again and asks whether the shopping includes the rugs. Rosalind says yes, and they settle on the second week of May. A question about the rugs is a question about the work, and it comes from a man who is picturing it done.
A client who asks why it costs that has asked a question, and a question gets an answer. The answer is one sentence that states a fact about the work. Here is why the fact works when the reasons do not.
A reason is something to argue with, and a fact is something to use
Rosalind gave Mr. Castellane four reasons and an apology. A reason put after a price answers a doubt the client has not spoken. Each one tells the client that you expected the price to be challenged. The client asked one question. Whatever comes after the answer to it looks to them like something you added for a worry of your own.
A fact about the work is different, because the client can do something with it. “It covers the drawings, the shopping, and my being here until the last piece is in” tells Mr. Castellane what $24,000 buys. He can picture it, repeat it to his wife that evening, and ask his next question about it. A sentence about the work is one the client can use. A sentence about you is one they can only agree or disagree with. That is the line this lesson draws, and it decides what goes in the sentence.
Two facts about the work answer the question, and the course suggests one or the other. The first is what the fee covers, in the parts the client will see, such as the drawings and the shopping. The parts are not the hours, because a price given as hours is a sum the client adds up. The second is how you work, which is a fact about your arrangement that the client could not have guessed. “I take one wedding a weekend” and “I work with six families at a time” are facts of that kind.
One sentence is the course’s own limit, and here is the reason. The client asked one question, so one sentence answers it, and the quiet after it is theirs to use. A second sentence is usually a reason, and reasons are what lost Rosalind the job.
A designer in Atlanta says the price is the price
In 2023, Business of Home asked four designers how they react when a client challenges their price. Amber Guyton, a designer in Atlanta who designs rooms online, charges a flat rate for each room. Potential clients have compared her rates with full-service designers, with online design programs, and with other designers. Once a designer has “the experience and confidence to stand your ground,” she said, you can tell those clients no. You can ask them to do the design in phases to fit their budget, or you can wish them well. Her answer ends, “The price is the price. Period.”
Guyton is describing the client who is haggling, and her sentence is for the end of that conversation. What her answer gives you is the part after the fact. The price does not move. The client who cannot pay it is offered less work, in phases, and not the same work for less.
A Los Angeles photographer’s one answer is short, and it is about her
Paige Ray, a branding photographer in Los Angeles, writes that “Why are you so expensive?” is a question creatives get “ALL THE TIME,” and that “It’s not a question we love.” She gives one answer for every client, and she tells her readers to practice it “until it rolls off your tongue easily.” The answer is two short sentences. “Good work costs good money. And I’m very good at what I do.”
Measured against this lesson, half of her answer is right. It is short, it is the same for every client, and it stops. The other half is what the sentences are about. Both sentences are about her, and neither tells the client what the money buys. A client who hears “I’m very good at what I do” can agree, disagree, or ask what that means, which is the question they asked in the first place. So keep her length and put the work in it. For a photographer, “Good work costs good money” becomes “It covers the day, the editing, and 400 photos you can print or post.”
A designers’ trainer offers six answers, and every one is a paragraph
Clare Le Roy trains interior designers and architects in running a design business. In a post on what to write back when a client says your services are too expensive, she gives six responses. One offers to go through the proposal “line by line.” One says that past clients “more than make back the design fees” through trade discounts and a higher property value. One offers phases or a payment plan, and one asks for the client’s “must haves” so the design can be tailored to the budget.
Each of the six is a paragraph, and each is about the price rather than the work. The walk through the proposal hands the client a list to add up. The return on the fee is a promise the client will check. The payment plan and the tailoring move the price before the client has asked for that. A client may need one of the six later, after a second or third question. None of them is the answer to the first.
A travel company in Morocco answers price questions with what the trip costs
Karim Fehry Fassy co-founded Alizes Private, a company in Morocco that arranges the drivers, guides, and after-hours visits for travel advisers’ clients. In 2025, Forbes reported how he answers price questions. The best way to answer them, he says, is transparency. He happily tells the travel advisers how much the services he arranges cost his company.
Fassy is answering the trade. The advisers put their own fee on top of his, so the fact they can use is his cost. The client at your kitchen table is not reselling the work, so the fact for them is what the fee covers. What carries over is the way he answers. A price question at the top of the market gets a fact, said as a fact, and not a case.
The sentence for your profession
The table below gives the sentence for seven professions, with the question as a client asks it. Each sentence states what the fee covers or how the professional works, and each one is the course’s own example.
| The client asks | The one sentence |
|---|---|
| A coach’s client asks why three months is $6,000. | “I work with six people at a time, and it covers the 12 sessions and a call whenever you need one between them.” |
| A dog walker’s client asks why a month of walks is $900. | “It’s one walk a day for Pip and one other dog, and I’m the one walking him, every day.” |
| A home organizer’s client asks why the kitchen and the pantry are $2,800. | “It covers two days in the house, the shelving I bring, and a visit a month later to see what has crept back.” |
| A specialist realtor’s seller asks why her fee is what it is. | “I list four houses a year, so yours gets me at every showing and not an assistant.” |
| An event planner’s client asks why a birthday dinner is $12,000 to plan. | “It covers the planning from today to the night, every vendor, and me in the room until the last guest leaves.” |
| A florist’s bride asks why the wedding flowers are $9,000. | “I do one wedding a weekend, and your flowers are cut the morning before it.” |
| A travel adviser’s client asks why planning a trip is $5,000. | “I plan eight trips a year, and I’m on the phone for yours the whole time you’re away.” |
Change the facts and the numbers to yours. The shape is the part to keep: one fact, in the words you would use at the table.
Two clients are asking for something other than the sentence
A client who answers your price with the number they paid before has not asked why. They have named a concern, and that conversation starts with a question of yours. A client whose money is new often does not know what a service like yours costs. That client needs the price explained part by part. For every other client who asks why, the sentence is the answer.
Why a sentence the client can check goes wrong
Imagine a tutor named Henrik whose new client, Mrs. Adeyemi, asks why he is $180 an hour. Henrik has one sentence ready, and he says it and stops. “That’s what tutors for the schools your son is applying to charge.”
Mrs. Adeyemi asks two mothers at the school. One of them pays $120. She writes to Henrik that she has found someone closer to the going rate, and she books the $120 tutor.
Henrik said one sentence and stopped after it, and it still lost him the job. The going rate is a claim about other tutors. Mrs. Adeyemi could check it, so she did, and the tutor she found was cheaper. The fact that works is about Henrik’s work. “It covers the two sessions a week, the past papers I set between them, and a note to you every Friday.” No other tutor’s price comes into it.
One sentence is not refusing to answer
Giving a client one sentence for a real question can feel like holding something back. The client asked, and you have 20 minutes of reasons.
In the same Business of Home article, Katharine Rhudy, a designer in New Orleans, said she is “completely transparent concerning contracts, fees, up-charges, pricing and invoicing.” Nothing is ordered until the client knows the total cost. In the same answer, she said that she has never negotiated her prices. The two go together. Every fact about the fee is the client’s to have, as many as they ask for. What you leave out is the case for it. If Mr. Castellane asks what the drawings include, Rosalind tells him. He asked what the fee covers, and she told him that.
How to answer the question with one sentence
- Write down what you say now when a client asks why it costs that, from the price to the last word. Beside each sentence after the price, write what it is. It might be your costs, your years, other people’s prices, an apology, or a fact about the work.
- Keep the facts about the work and cross out the rest. If nothing is left, write one fact. It is what the fee covers, in the parts the client will see, or how you work. For example, a personal trainer writes, “It covers the three sessions a week and a plan I rewrite every four weeks.”
- Cut the sentence until a client could repeat it to their spouse that evening. Then say it with a colleague asking the question, until it comes out the same way every time.
- In the meeting, when the question comes, say the sentence and stop. The quiet after it is the client deciding, and the next sentence in your head is a reason.
- If the client asks a second question, answer that one in a sentence. If they ask why a second time, give the other fact. For example, a caterer who said what the fee covers can add, “I cook for one table a night, so yours is the only dinner I’m thinking about.”
- Leave the price where it is. Offer a client who cannot pay it less work, the way Guyton offers phases. Do not offer the same work for less.
- Afterward, write down the question the client asked after your sentence. Over a few meetings, those questions tell you which fact to lead with.
Next: You will see how what a client calls you, and how they write, tells you whether they want you formal or casual.