Every consulting proposal is a bet. You are estimating how much work a client will need, what rate the market will bear, and whether the engagement will be profitable once delivery begins. Most consultants make this bet using intuition and past experience. The Pricing Lab inside Studio:Blueprint Operate replaces intuition with arithmetic.
Enter the proposed fee, estimated hours, engagement type, and duration. The engine calculates your implied effective hourly rate, projected margin, and a Pricing Power Score that tells you whether the economics work. The output is a simple signal: proceed, renegotiate, or decline.
Retainers and projects have fundamentally different economic profiles. A £5,000 monthly retainer for 30 hours of work gives you a predictable £167 EHR. But retainers tend to expand in scope without expanding in fee. After six months, that 30 hours has become 42 hours, and your real EHR has dropped to £119. The Pricing Lab models this creep risk based on engagement type and duration.
Project-based pricing carries a different risk. The total fee is fixed, so scope expansion directly erodes margin. A £15,000 project scoped at 100 hours that takes 130 hours to deliver has a 23% margin erosion. The Pricing Lab calculates break-even hours for every project engagement, so you know exactly when a project crosses from profitable to loss-making.
The Pricing Power Score is not just a per-proposal metric. It feeds into the Risk module as a measure of pricing sustainability across your firm. If your average Pricing Power Score is declining across proposals, it signals that the market is pushing back on your rates, or that you are consistently underscoping engagements.
This is a leading indicator of margin erosion. By the time it shows up in your effective hourly rate, the damage is done. The Pricing Lab catches it at the proposal stage, before you commit to work that will not be economically viable.
The hardest pricing decision in consulting is declining work. Revenue pressure, especially for smaller firms, makes every opportunity feel essential. The Pricing Lab gives you a framework for saying no to economically unsound work. If a proposal scores below the decline threshold, taking it will lower your blended EHR, consume capacity that could serve better-priced work, and weaken your overall firm economics.
This is not about maximising rates. It is about protecting the structural economics of your firm. A consultant who declines a £80/hour engagement to preserve capacity for £140/hour work is not being greedy. They are making a structural decision about firm sustainability.
See the implied economics before you commit. Proceed, renegotiate, or decline with confidence.
Start your free trialMost founders who read this page can now define retainer pricing. Very few know what their own pricing power score actually is. The difference between knowing the concept and holding the number is the gap where margin erodes, pipeline stalls, or risk accumulates undetected. A structured diagnostic gives you the number, calculated from your firm’s actual inputs, not industry benchmarks or estimates.