When a client tells you “it's too expensive”, she is rarely talking about the number. She is telling you she can't yet see what she is buying, that she is comparing your programme to a single session, or that she hasn't given herself permission to spend on herself. A women's wellness coach answers that, not the figure.
What does “it's too expensive” actually mean?
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“It's too expensive” is an exit line: the politest way to say “I'm not ready” without having to explain why. Your client isn't lying. She is compressing into three words something she hasn't untangled herself. Behind the line, you will find one of three situations.
- She can't see the path. You have described a three-month programme and a price. What is missing in between is the picture of herself at the end: sleeping through the night, walking into a meeting without the knot in her stomach, having energy left on a Sunday evening. A price set in front of nothing always looks too high.
- She is comparing it to what she knows. Her reference point is a single session: a massage, an hour of breathwork, one energy treatment. Measured against that unit, a full programme looks out of proportion, because she divides the total by the number of appointments and forgets everything that happens between them.
- She hasn't given herself permission. She pays for the children's orthodontist, the football camp and the car repair without blinking. Spending that amount on herself, on her sleep or her tension, feels like taking something from someone else. A client doesn't find your programme too expensive; she finds she hasn't yet allowed herself to put that money into her own wellbeing.
Why does lowering your price not get her to sign?
The reflex, when you have just started your practice, is to offer a discount the moment the line lands. It feels better for a minute. It solves nothing.
First, you confirm that the price really was the problem, and that it was negotiable. She now wonders what it was truly worth, and whether she could have pushed further. Second, you leave the real cost of the programme untouched: the time she has to carve out, the appointments she has to keep, the fact of looking at herself honestly for three months. A discount does nothing to that cost. Third, someone who signs because it got cheaper arrives with the same doubt she had before. At the first hard week, she drops out.
Lowering your price answers an objection she never raised and leaves the one she did raise intact.
How do you respond without justifying or discounting?
You don't have to defend your fee. You have to understand what she has just told you. Here is the order that works on a discovery call.
- Receive it without arguing. “Okay. Too expensive compared with what?” Then stay quiet. Her answer tells you which of the three situations you are facing.
- Go back to her own words. At the start of the call she described how she feels: the exhaustion that returns every month-end, the broken nights, the tension in her shoulders. Use her exact words, not yours. She named the problem, not you.
- Put the programme next to the right comparison. Not a single session, but the months, sometimes years, she has already spent trying on her own: the apps, the books, the January resolutions. Ask her what that has cost her in time and discouragement.
- Name the permission question. “Is it the amount, or the fact of spending it on yourself?” She has probably never been asked that. It opens a conversation a discount would have closed.
- Leave the decision whole. If cash flow is the real obstacle, offer a payment plan. Spreading payments is not discounting: the price stays the same, only the way it is paid changes. And if she isn't ready, say so plainly: “You don't have to decide tonight.” A client who comes back on her own a week later commits better than one who was pushed.
How do you stop hearing “too expensive” on every call?
If the line comes up at every appointment, the problem isn't your answer. It sits upstream. A price feels expensive when it arrives before the reason to pay.
On your website and in your posts, describe the destination in your clients' words, not the techniques you use. Say clearly that you offer a programme over several months, and who it is for: people looking for a one-off relaxation session won't book, and that is exactly right.
On the call, state your price only after she has described where she wants to be in three months. Before that, it has nothing to attach to. After, it is measured against something she genuinely wants.
And remember that some people will never say yes, whatever you answer. It isn't the price. It isn't you. It isn't their moment, and your job is not to force that moment.
You don't have to convince anyone. You have to ask two questions: compared with what, and for whom. The rest is hers to decide, with a clear picture of what she is buying. If you want to rework how you bring your price and your offer into your calls, you can book a call.
