How to Price Your Services in Egypt Without Guessing
If you are a freelancer, consultant, or small service business owner in Egypt, pricing can feel like a choice between charging too little to win clients and charging too much to lose them. A better starting point is to build a price from your real costs, the value of the outcome, and evidence from customer conversations.
1. Know the minimum price your business can survive
Start with the cost of delivering the work, not just the hours you spend doing it. Include tools, subscriptions, transport, materials, payment fees, subcontractors, revisions, admin time, and the time spent finding and onboarding clients. Then add the share of your monthly overhead that each project needs to carry. The result is a cost floor: a warning line below which every sale may make the business busier without making it healthier.
2. Calculate your real capacity
Do not divide your monthly income target by every working hour in the month. Not all hours are billable. You also need time for sales, proposals, follow-ups, learning, operations, and unexpected changes. Estimate the number of realistic delivery hours or projects you can complete at a good standard. This helps you avoid a price that only works if you work continuously.
3. Separate the deliverable from the outcome
Clients do not always value the number of hours behind a service. They care about the problem being solved: clearer positioning, a functioning website, qualified leads, a reliable bookkeeping process, or a faster workflow. Describe the outcome in plain language, then make the scope visible. A proposal should state what is included, what is not included, the timeline, the client's responsibilities, and how extra work is priced.
4. Research alternatives and customer willingness to pay
Review how customers currently solve the problem: competitors, in-house work, freelancers, agencies, or doing nothing. Public prices can provide context, but they rarely reveal the full scope or quality. Talk to people in your target segment. Ask what they have tried, what made the decision difficult, and what a successful result would be worth to them. Treat answers as clues, then test a real offer rather than relying on compliments.
5. Offer clear packages without confusing people
A simple structure can help buyers choose: a focused starter option, a recommended core option, and a more involved option where the work genuinely differs. Make the differences concrete—scope, turnaround, support, or level of involvement. Avoid inventing package tiers that are only cosmetic. If every customer needs a custom solution, explain the starting point and how the final quote is built.
6. Review prices using evidence
Track the number of qualified enquiries, proposals sent, wins, average project value, delivery time, revision load, and gross margin. If many suitable prospects accept immediately and delivery is consistently over capacity, your price or scope may need review. If prospects decline, investigate whether the issue is price, trust, timing, clarity, or fit before cutting your rate. Change one variable at a time so you can learn what actually helped.
Frequently asked questions
Should I charge in Egyptian pounds or another currency?
Choose a clear currency and payment schedule that your target customer can understand and reliably use. For cross-border work, state the currency, payment method, due dates, and how exchange-rate changes are handled. Check the rules and requirements that apply to your own business before setting contractual terms.
What if a client says my price is too high?
Ask which part feels difficult: the total budget, the timing, the scope, or confidence in the result. You can reduce scope or phase the work; avoid silently delivering the same work for less.
How often should I review my prices?
Review them when costs, demand, delivery capacity, scope, or customer expectations materially change. A regular quarterly review is a useful habit, but the right cadence depends on your business.