Skip to content

RateRight: Creative Pricing Intelligence Platform

Most creatives drastically underprice their work due to imposter syndrome and lack of market data. They quote $500 for projects worth $5,000, losing $150K+ annually while agonizing over every proposal.

App Concept

  • AI assistant that analyzes your experience, portfolio quality, client industry, and project scope
  • Real-time pricing recommendations: "Based on 10K similar projects, quote $3,200-$4,500"
  • Confidence builder: "Your work quality is top 20% - you're undercharging by 40%"
  • Negotiation scripts: AI-generated responses to "That's too expensive"
  • Rate tracking over time: visualize earning growth and pricing evolution
  • Client size detector: automatically adjusts rates for startups vs. Fortune 500
  • Project scope creep alerts: "Client added 3 revision rounds - increase by $800"
  • Anonymous market data sharing: opt-in community pricing database

Core Mechanism

  • Onboarding: skill level, location, niche, years experience, portfolio upload
  • Project brief input: deliverables, timeline, client size, usage rights
  • AI analysis: compares against 100K+ anonymized creative invoices and contracts
  • Dynamic range: minimum (maintain standards), optimal (fair value), premium (stretch goal)
  • Justification generator: bullet points explaining your rate for client proposals
  • Win rate tracker: which quotes converted, learning from your pricing experiments
  • Seasonal adjustments: "Q4 budgets are 25% higher - raise rates"
  • Gamification: "Pricing confidence score" increases as you charge appropriately

Monetization Strategy

  • Freemium: 3 pricing analyses/month, basic recommendations
  • Professional ($24/month): unlimited analyses, negotiation scripts, contract templates
  • Agency ($79/month): team pricing strategies, client database, revenue forecasting
  • Enterprise ($199/month): custom industry data, contract review, pricing workshops
  • Success-based tier: 2% of rate increases for first 12 months (opt-in)

Viral Growth Angle

  • "I was undercharging by $X" confession stories on social media
  • Rate increase celebration posts: "Finally charging what I'm worth"
  • Anonymous pricing transparency: "What designers really charge" viral content
  • Client education mode: shareable "Why good design costs this much" explainers
  • Challenge: "30-day confidence building - increase rates by 20%"
  • Testimonials: "Tripled income same workload" emotional success stories

Existing projects

  • Bonsai - Contract/invoice platform with basic rate suggestions
  • AND CO - Freelance management, limited pricing intelligence
  • FreshBooks - Accounting software with estimate tools
  • The Freelance Rate Database - Manual survey data, no AI
  • Millo - Freelance resources with static pricing guides

Evaluation Criteria

  • Emotional Trigger: Limit risk (avoid underpricing disasters), be original (data-backed confidence)
  • Idea Quality: Rank: 9/10 - Directly addresses income pain point with immediate financial impact
  • Need Category: Stability & Opportunity Needs (fair compensation) + Recognition & Respect Needs (value your worth)
  • Market Size: 60M+ freelance creatives globally, expanding gig economy
  • Build Complexity: Medium - requires pricing model training, large anonymized dataset, secure data handling
  • Time to MVP: 3-4 months with AI coding agents (2 months for pricing model, 1 month for UI/UX, 1 month for data aggregation)
  • Key Differentiator: Only platform combining AI pricing intelligence with negotiation coaching and psychological confidence building for creatives