Pricing

The ₹5 question

It's a Wednesday afternoon in Rishikesh. Pushpa didi is standing behind her chai stall near Triveni Ghat, wiping down the counter. Business is good — the tourist season is picking up, and she's been selling 90-100 cups a day. But she has a problem.

Her cup of chai costs ₹15. It has been ₹15 for two years. In that time, milk has gone from ₹52 to ₹62 per litre. Sugar is up. Gas cylinder prices have climbed. The paper cups she buys now cost ₹1.20 each instead of ₹0.80.

She wants to raise her price to ₹20.

But here's the thing. When she mentioned it to Kamla didi, a regular who comes every morning, Kamla didi said: "Pushpa, ₹20? Saamne wali dukaan pe toh ₹12 mein milti hai."

When she mentioned it to a tourist from Mumbai who was sipping chai and taking a photo for Instagram, he laughed: "₹20? That's nothing. I pay ₹60 for worse chai in Bandra."

Two customers. Same chai. Completely different reactions.

What should Pushpa didi charge?

This is the central question of pricing: How much should I charge?

Get it right, and you earn a fair living while your customers feel they're getting value. Get it wrong — too low, and you slowly go broke; too high, and customers disappear.

Pricing isn't just math. It's math + psychology + market awareness + strategy. In this chapter, we'll break it down piece by piece, using real examples from businesses you already know.

1. Cost-plus pricing — the foundation

The simplest pricing method: figure out what it costs to make or deliver your product, then add a margin on top. That margin is your profit.

Price = Cost + Margin

This is where every business should start. Before you think about branding, positioning, or psychology, you need to know one thing: what does it actually cost you?

Pushpa didi's per-cup breakdown

Let's do the math together. Pushpa didi makes about 90 cups of chai a day. Here's what goes into one cup:

But that's only the variable cost — the cost that changes with every cup she makes. She also has fixed costs that she pays regardless of how many cups she sells:

At 90 cups/day for 30 days, she sells about 2,700 cups/month.

Fixed cost per cup = ₹13,000 ÷ 2,700 = ₹4.81

Total cost per cup = ₹9.37 + ₹4.81 = ₹14.18

Now you see the problem. At ₹15 per cup, her profit is only ₹0.82 per cup. That's ₹2,214 per month in profit. For a full month's work. That's not sustainable.

At ₹20 per cup, her profit becomes ₹5.82 per cup, or about ₹15,714 per month. That's a real income.

Key lesson: If you don't know your true cost — including fixed costs allocated per unit — you can't price properly. Most small businesses undercount their costs. They forget about rent, their own labor, depreciation of equipment, and wastage. Then they wonder why they're working hard but not making money.

Why cost-plus is a safe starting point

Cost-plus pricing is the most common method for small businesses, and for good reason:

• It guarantees you don't sell at a loss (as long as you've counted all costs)
• It's simple to calculate and explain
• It works for most routine products and services

The typical margins:

• Grocery/staples: 5-15%
• Retail goods: 20-40%
• Food/restaurant: 50-70% (on food cost, because overheads are high)
• Services: 40-100%+ (because the main "cost" is your time)

But cost-plus has a limitation. It tells you the minimum you should charge. It doesn't tell you the maximum you can charge. For that, you need to look at the market — and at value.

2. Market-based pricing — what others charge

You don't operate in a vacuum. Customers compare. If five hardware shops in Haldwani sell Birla cement at ₹380 per bag, Bhandari uncle can't suddenly charge ₹450 without a very good reason.

Bhandari uncle has been tracking competitor prices for 22 years — not in a spreadsheet, but in his head. He knows that Gupta Hardware two shops down sells at ₹2-3 less on some items to attract foot traffic. He knows that the big hardware store on the main road has lower prices on cement but charges more for plumbing fittings. He knows that during construction season (March-June), everyone raises prices slightly because demand is high.

"Market ka rate pata hona chahiye," he says. "Agar main zyada lagaunga, customer chala jayega. Agar kam lagaunga, mera nuksaan."

How market-based pricing works

1. Find out what competitors charge for the same or similar product
2. Decide where you want to position yourself — same price, slightly lower, slightly higher
3. Make sure the market price still covers your costs — if it doesn't, you have a problem

The price war trap

Sometimes a competitor drops prices aggressively to steal customers. This is tempting to match, but dangerous.

A new hardware shop opened near Bhandari uncle's area three years ago. The owner started selling popular items — cement, TMT bars — at almost zero margin to pull in customers. Bhandari uncle's regulars started going there.

Bhandari uncle didn't panic. He knew something: the new guy was burning cash. You can't sell cement at no margin and pay rent, salary, and transport costs for long. Within 14 months, the new shop closed.

"Maine apne rates thoda adjust kiye, but I didn't race to the bottom," says Bhandari uncle. "Apne purane customers ko service acchi di — credit diya, delivery kiya, advice diya. Price se zyada, trust matter karta hai."

Rules for handling a price war:

1. Don't match every price cut — you'll bleed out too
2. Focus on service, relationships, and reliability — things that competitors can't easily copy
3. If your costs are genuinely higher, find out why and fix the cost structure instead of just lowering prices
4. Sometimes it's okay to lose price-sensitive customers if keeping them means losing money

3. Value-based pricing — what the customer thinks it's worth

This is where pricing gets interesting. Value-based pricing means you charge not based on what it costs you, but based on what the customer perceives the product to be worth.

Ankita's ₹350 jar of achar

Ankita makes pahadi mixed pickle — haldi ka achar, bhatt ki chutney, pahadi nimbu ka achar. The raw ingredients come from women self-help groups in Almora and Bageshwar. She processes, packages, and sells through Instagram and her own website.

Her cost per jar:

Item	Cost
Raw ingredients	₹30
Processing & labor	₹15
Glass jar + label + packaging	₹20
Shipping (average per jar)	₹15
Total cost per jar	₹80

She sells each jar for ₹350.

That's a 337% markup. Is she cheating her customers?

Not at all. Here's what the customer is actually buying:

• Authentic pahadi recipe, not factory-made
• Story — "sourced from women in the mountains of Uttarakhand"
• Beautiful packaging with Kumaoni design elements
• Premium glass jar (not a plastic pouch)
• Trust — FSSAI certified, clean kitchen, visible process on Instagram
• Status — this is a "conscious consumer" product, the kind you gift someone

Her customers in Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore are not comparing her achar to the ₹60 National or Mother's Recipe jar at the local kirana. They're comparing it to a ₹400-600 artisan product at Foodhall or a farmer's market.

Value-based pricing works when:

• Your product has a unique story, quality, or experience
• You're selling to customers who value that uniqueness
• There are few direct comparisons available
• You've built a brand that justifies the premium

Neema and Jyoti's experience premium

Neema and Jyoti run a homestay in the Munsiyari-Binsar belt. A standard hotel room in the area goes for ₹800-1,200 per night. Their homestay charges ₹2,500-4,000 per night.

Why do guests pay 3x more?

Because it's not just a room. It's home-cooked pahadi food — mandua roti, bhatt dal, kaapa. It's waking up to a Himalayan view with a cup of chai made on a wood stove. It's Neema taking guests on a forest walk to identify local herbs. It's Jyoti explaining the history of the Van Panchayat system. It's a clean room with local textiles, not plastic bedsheets.

Their guests are paying for an experience, not just accommodation. And they're happy to pay for it — their reviews on Google and Airbnb are consistently 4.8+.

Key insight: Value-based pricing isn't about tricking customers. It's about genuinely creating more value — through quality, story, service, experience, or convenience — and then pricing in a way that reflects that value.

4. The psychology of pricing

Pricing isn't purely rational. People don't always choose the cheapest option. Their brains play tricks on them — and smart businesses work with those patterns (not against them).

₹99 vs ₹100 — does it work in India?

In the US and Europe, prices ending in .99 are everywhere. But does it work here?

Yes, partially. ₹99 feels cheaper than ₹100 to the brain. That's why you see ₹499, ₹999, ₹1,999 everywhere on Amazon, Flipkart, and retail stores. The left digit changes (4 vs 5, 9 vs 10), and that feels like a bigger difference than one rupee.

But for very small purchases — a cup of chai, a samosa — it doesn't matter. Nobody is going to feel a psychological difference between ₹15 and ₹14.99. For those, round numbers work fine. Pushpa didi should charge ₹20, not ₹19.99.

Rule of thumb: Charm pricing (₹X99) works for purchases above ₹200-300. Below that, round numbers are simpler and more practical.

Anchoring — the power of the first number

Vikram's franchise outlet in Dehradun has a menu board. The top item is the "Royal Thali" at ₹449. Most customers don't order it. But after seeing ₹449, the "Regular Thali" at ₹199 feels like a reasonable deal.

If the Regular Thali was listed alone, ₹199 might feel expensive. But next to ₹449, it feels like value.

This is anchoring. The first price a customer sees becomes the reference point for everything else.

How businesses use anchoring:

• Show the MRP first, then the discounted price: ₹800 ₹499
• Put the most expensive option at the top of the menu
• Display premium products next to standard ones
• Show "starting from ₹X" (the highest reasonable number that's still accurate)

Bundle pricing — the combo deal

Bundling means combining multiple products or services at a package price that feels like a deal.

Pushpa didi could sell:

• Chai: ₹20
• Biscuit (parle-G type, bought for ₹5): ₹10
• Separately: ₹30 total
• "Chai + biscuit combo": ₹25

The customer feels they're saving ₹5. Pushpa didi is actually making more money than if they only bought chai — she's adding ₹5 profit from the biscuit sale that might not have happened otherwise.

Bundling works because:

• It increases the total amount each customer spends
• It simplifies the decision ("I'll just take the combo")
• It moves inventory that might not sell on its own

Tiered pricing — good, better, best

Give customers choices at different price points, and most will choose the middle one.

Neema and Jyoti restructured their homestay pricing into three tiers:

Tier	What you get	Price per night
Basic Room	Clean room, shared bathroom, bed tea	₹1,500
Comfort Room	Private room, attached bathroom, breakfast + dinner	₹2,500
Full Experience	Best room, all meals, guided nature walk, bonfire, local cooking class	₹4,000

What happened? Most guests pick the Comfort Room. A few pick Full Experience. Almost nobody picks Basic — but its existence makes Comfort Room feel like the "smart" choice.

Before tiering, when they only offered one rate (₹2,000), some guests thought it was too much and some thought it was too little. Now everyone finds something that fits.

The three-tier principle:

• The cheap option exists to make the middle one look good
• The expensive option exists for people who want the best (and it's very profitable)
• The middle option is where most of your business happens — price it carefully

5. When and how to raise prices

Prices can't stay the same forever. Costs go up. Inflation happens. Your skills improve, your quality improves, your brand grows. At some point, you need to raise prices.

But it's scary. What if customers leave?

Resolving Pushpa didi's dilemma

Pushpa didi thought about it for weeks. She considered three options:

Option A: Raise to ₹20 for everyone. Simple and fair. No confusion. But she'll lose some price-sensitive local regulars.

Option B: Keep ₹15 for locals, charge ₹20 for tourists. Tempting. Tourists can pay. But — this feels dishonest, and word gets around. What if a tourist sees a local paying less? It creates a bad impression. And how do you even decide who's a "tourist" and who's a "local"?

Option C: Raise to ₹20 for everyone, but offer a "regular customer" deal — ₹15 for anyone who buys a monthly pass of 30 cups. Smart. Rewards loyalty. Locks in regular income. Tourists pay full price. Regulars get a discount, but they're committing to buying from her every day.

Pushpa didi chose Option C. She raised the price to ₹20, introduced a monthly pass for ₹450 (₹15/cup for 30 cups, paid upfront), and she told her regulars personally — one by one — before putting up the new price board.

What happened? A few people grumbled. Nobody stopped coming. The tourists didn't even notice. And Kamla didi bought the monthly pass on day one.

Communication matters

How you announce a price increase matters as much as the increase itself.

• Tell your regulars in person, before you change the board
• Explain why — "Doodh ka rate badh gaya hai, gas badh gaya, do saal se price nahi badhaya tha"
• Don't apologize for it — you're not doing anything wrong
• If possible, add something small — a slightly bigger cup, a better cup, a biscuit on the side
• Give a few days' notice: "Next Monday se"

Seasonal pricing — Rawat ji's approach

Rawat ji has learned to think about prices across the year, not just at one point:

Period	Apple price (per kg, direct to consumer)	Why
September (peak harvest)	₹80-100	Everyone is selling, supply floods the market
November-December	₹120-150	Supply dropping, stored apples are premium
January-March	₹180-220	Cold-stored apples, very few sellers, high demand

By investing in basic cold storage (a modified room with insulation and cooling — ₹2.5 lakh setup), Rawat ji nearly doubled his per-kg revenue on the apples he stored instead of selling at harvest.

The lesson: the same product can be worth very different amounts at different times. Price accordingly.

6. Discounting — when it helps, when it destroys your business

Discounts are the most overused, most dangerous tool in business. Used well, they drive traffic and clear inventory. Used badly, they train your customers to never pay full price.

The Swiggy/Zomato trap

Vikram runs a franchise food outlet in Dehradun. When he listed on Swiggy and Zomato, the sales team pitched him hard on running discounts: "Run a 'Buy 1 Get 1' for the first month. You'll get visibility. Orders will flood in."

He ran it. Orders did flood in — 80-100 orders a day, up from 20-25 dine-in. But here's what the numbers looked like:

	Dine-in (full price)	Swiggy/Zomato (with discount)
Average order value	₹250	₹220 (with BOGO)
Platform commission	None	25% = ₹55
Discount cost	None	₹110 (BOGO subsidy from Vikram's side)
Packaging	None	₹15
Effective revenue to Vikram	₹250	₹40
Food cost	₹85	₹170 (double, because BOGO)
Profit/loss per order	+₹165	-₹130

He was losing ₹130 on every online order. The more orders he got, the more money he lost.

After one month and a ₹2.6 lakh loss, he stopped the discount. Orders dropped from 80 to 12 overnight. The customers who came for free food were gone. They were never his customers — they were the discount's customers.

When discounts make sense

Discounting is not always bad. It works in specific situations:

1. Clearing perishable or seasonal inventory — Rawat ji selling remaining harvest apples at ₹60/kg before they spoil, rather than letting them rot
2. First-time customer acquisition — "Try our homestay for ₹1,800 instead of ₹2,500" for a first-time guest, when you're confident they'll come back at full price
3. Bulk/wholesale orders — "Buy 10 jars of achar and get 1 free" for a corporate order
4. Off-season demand generation — Neema's homestay offering 30% off in monsoon season when occupancy drops to 10%

When discounts are dangerous

1. When the discount is so deep that you lose money on each sale
2. When you run discounts so often that full price becomes "overpriced" in the customer's mind
3. When you're discounting to compete with someone who has a structurally lower cost base
4. When the discount attracts customers who will never pay full price

The golden rule of discounting: A discount should have a clear purpose, a time limit, and you should be able to absorb the cost. If it doesn't meet all three, don't do it.

7. Wholesale vs retail pricing

If you make a product, you'll eventually face this question: should you sell directly to the end customer (retail) or sell in bulk to a distributor/retailer (wholesale)?

Rawat ji's two channels

Rawat ji sells his apples through two routes:

Route 1: Mandi (wholesale) He loads 20 crates of apples on a truck, sends them to the Haldwani mandi, where a commission agent (aadatiya) sells them. The chain:

Rawat ji → Truck → Mandi agent (8% commission) → Wholesaler → Retailer → Customer

Customer pays: ₹160/kg Rawat ji gets: ₹60-70/kg

Route 2: Direct to consumer (retail) He posts on WhatsApp groups and a local Instagram page. Customers order, he ships 5-10 kg boxes by courier.

Rawat ji → Courier → Customer

Customer pays: ₹180/kg (including shipping) Rawat ji gets: ₹140-150/kg (after packaging and courier costs)

The direct route pays 2x more per kg. But it's also more work — he has to handle marketing, packaging, orders, courier coordination, and customer complaints individually. Through the mandi, he loads a truck and he's done.

Understanding margin stacking

Every hand that touches a product adds a margin:

Manufacturer cost:    ₹50
+ Manufacturer margin: ₹15  →  Sells to distributor at ₹65
+ Distributor margin:  ₹10  →  Sells to retailer at ₹75
+ Retailer margin:     ₹25  →  Sells to customer at ₹100

The customer pays ₹100. The manufacturer gets ₹65. That's ₹35 of margin shared between the distributor and retailer.

If you can eliminate layers — by selling direct — you capture that margin. But you also take on the work those layers were doing: storage, transport, marketing, customer handling.

Ankita's D2C model cuts out all middlemen. She makes the product and sells it directly to the customer via Instagram and her website. No distributor, no retailer, no marketplace. She keeps the entire margin — but she also does all the work of marketing, packaging, shipping, and customer service herself.

Recently, she got approached by a gourmet store chain in Delhi wanting to stock her products. They want a wholesale rate of ₹200 per jar (her retail is ₹350). Should she do it?

At ₹200, she still makes ₹120 per jar after her ₹80 cost. It's less than ₹270 profit per jar at retail. But the store will order 200 jars at a time, with no marketing cost, no packing individual orders, no dealing with courier companies.

The answer isn't automatic. She needs to calculate: is ₹120 profit on 200 jars with zero effort better than ₹270 profit on 50 jars with a full week's work?

200 × ₹120 = ₹24,000 (wholesale batch) 50 × ₹270 = ₹13,500 (retail, same time period)

In this case, wholesale wins — even at a lower per-jar margin.

8. Pricing for services vs products

Products have a clear material cost. Services don't. When you're selling your time, skill, or expertise, pricing becomes trickier.

The phone repair problem

There's a phone repair guy near Pushpa didi's stall in Rishikesh. A tourist comes in with a phone that won't charge. He opens the back, cleans the port, replaces a tiny ₹30 connector, and the phone works. Time taken: 20 minutes.

He charges ₹500.

The tourist says: "₹500 for 20 minutes? The part only costs ₹30!"

The repair guy smiles: "₹30 for the part. ₹470 for knowing which part to replace."

This is the fundamental challenge of service pricing: you're not pricing the time, you're pricing the expertise.

A lawyer who writes a contract in 2 hours and charges ₹15,000 isn't charging ₹7,500/hour. She's charging for 10 years of law school, practice, and knowing exactly which clause will protect you.

How to price services

1. Calculate your time cost: What is the minimum you need to earn per hour/day to cover your expenses and make a living?
   • If you need ₹40,000/month and work 25 days/month, 8 hours/day: ₹40,000 ÷ 200 hours = ₹200/hour minimum
2. Add your skill premium: Are you faster, more reliable, more experienced than alternatives? That's worth more.
3. Factor in non-billable time: Not every hour is paid work. You spend time traveling, getting supplies, marketing, doing admin. If only 60% of your time is billable, your billable rate needs to be higher: ₹200 ÷ 0.60 = ₹333/hour
4. Check the market: What do others with similar skills charge in your area?
5. Consider the value to the customer: A phone repair that saves someone from buying a ₹15,000 new phone — that's worth more than ₹500.

Priya's freemium model

Priya's agri-tech app takes a different approach entirely. The app connects farmers to direct buyers, cutting out middlemen. But how do you get farmers — who are cautious about new technology — to use it?

She uses a freemium model:

• Free tier: List your produce, see market prices, get weather updates
• Premium tier (₹99/month): Priority listing, direct buyer contact, logistics support, price negotiation assistance

The free tier gets farmers on the platform. Once they see the value — maybe they sold one batch of vegetables at 15% more than the mandi rate — some of them upgrade to premium.

Currently, 8,000 farmers use the free version. 600 pay for premium. That's ₹59,400/month in revenue from premium subscriptions alone, plus she takes a 2% commission on transactions facilitated through the app.

Freemium works when:

• The free version is genuinely useful (not crippled)
• The premium version offers clear, measurable additional value
• Your cost of serving a free user is very low (digital products have near-zero marginal cost)
• A small percentage of users converting to paid can sustain the business

9. Common pricing mistakes

After talking to dozens of small business owners across Uttarakhand, here are the mistakes that come up again and again:

Mistake 1: Pricing too low

"Mera kaam itna bhi nahi hai ki main itna charge karun."

This is the most common mistake, especially among women entrepreneurs and first-generation business owners. You undervalue your work because you compare yourself to someone else, or because you're afraid of rejection.

Ankita sold her first batch of achar at ₹150 per jar. Her friend in Delhi — a marketing consultant — tasted it and said, "This is better than the ₹500 artisan stuff at farmer's markets. Why are you giving it away?"

If your customers never complain about the price, you're probably too cheap.

A small percentage of pushback is healthy. It means you're capturing a fair amount of value.

Mistake 2: Not accounting for all costs

Pushpa didi initially thought her cost per cup was ₹8. She was counting tea, milk, sugar, and gas. She forgot about cups, water, rent (allocated per cup), helper's salary, and her own labor.

True cost includes:

• Raw materials / ingredients
• Packaging
• Rent (proportional)
• Utilities (gas, electricity, water)
• Employee/helper wages
• Your own labor (yes, your time has a cost!)
• Transport and delivery
• Wastage and spoilage
• Taxes/GST if applicable
• Equipment depreciation (that stove, that mixer, that phone — they wear out)

Mistake 3: Copying a competitor's price without knowing their costs

A new chai stall opened near Pushpa didi's spot, selling chai at ₹10. Pushpa didi was worried. But she noticed: the new stall uses powdered milk, not fresh milk. Uses fewer tea leaves. Uses smaller cups. Has no helper (the owner does everything alone). Doesn't pay the same rent (different spot).

Their cost structure is completely different. Matching their ₹10 price would mean selling at a loss.

Before you match a competitor's price, ask: Can I afford to? And do I want to? Sometimes the answer is: let them have the cheapest-price customers. You keep the ones who want quality.

Mistake 4: Ignoring seasonal demand

Neema and Jyoti used to charge the same rate for their homestay year-round. Then they realized they were turning away guests in October-November (peak season, post-monsoon, clear mountain views) while sitting empty in July-August (heavy rain, few tourists).

Now they charge ₹4,000/night in peak season, ₹2,500 in regular season, and ₹1,500 in monsoon (with free cancellation). Result: higher revenue in peak months, and some guests in monsoon who would have gone to zero-revenue otherwise.

If your demand fluctuates with the season, your prices should too.

Mistake 5: Being afraid to charge differently in different channels

It's perfectly normal for the same product to have different prices in different places:

• Rawat ji's apples: ₹70/kg at mandi, ₹180/kg direct to consumer
• Ankita's achar: ₹350/jar on Instagram, ₹200/jar wholesale to a store
• Neema's homestay: ₹2,500/night on direct booking, ₹3,200/night on Airbnb (to cover commission)

This isn't dishonest. Each channel has different costs, different customer types, and different value delivery.

10. A simple pricing worksheet

Here's a framework you can use right now, for any product or service:

Step 1: Calculate your true cost

Variable cost per unit:     ₹_______
Monthly fixed costs:        ₹_______
Expected units per month:   _______
Fixed cost per unit:        ₹_______ (monthly fixed ÷ expected units)

TRUE COST PER UNIT:         ₹_______ (variable + fixed per unit)

Step 2: Set your floor price (cost-plus)

True cost per unit:         ₹_______
Minimum margin you need:    _____%
FLOOR PRICE:                ₹_______ (cost × (1 + margin%))

This is the absolute minimum. Don't go below this.

Step 3: Check the market

Competitor 1 price:         ₹_______
Competitor 2 price:         ₹_______
Competitor 3 price:         ₹_______
Market average:             ₹_______

Step 4: Assess your value premium

Ask yourself:

• Is my quality better than competitors?
• Do I have a brand/story that customers value?
• Do I offer better service/experience?
• Is my product more convenient to buy?
• Is there something unique about what I offer?

If you checked 2 or more, you can price above the market average.

Step 5: Set your price

Floor price (from Step 2):       ₹_______
Market average (from Step 3):    ₹_______
Your value assessment (Step 4):  Low / Medium / High

YOUR PRICE:                      ₹_______

General guideline:

• No unique value → Price at or near market average (above your floor)
• Some unique value → Price 10-30% above market average
• Strong unique value (brand, quality, experience) → Price 30-100%+ above market average

Step 6: Test and adjust

• Launch at your chosen price
• Track sales volume, customer reactions, and profit
• If demand is very high and no one complains about price → you might be too cheap
• If demand drops significantly → you might have overshot, or you need to communicate value better
• Revisit every 6 months or when costs change

Putting it all together

Let's come back to where we started.

Pushpa didi raised her chai price to ₹20 six months ago. Here's what happened:

• She lost about 5 customers who went to the cheaper stall. She gained about 8 new customers — tourists and locals who actually preferred her chai and didn't mind paying more.
• Her daily sales went from 90 cups to 85 cups. Revenue per day went from ₹1,350 (90 × ₹15) to ₹1,700 (85 × ₹20). That's a 26% revenue increase while selling fewer cups.
• Her monthly pass created 12 loyal regulars who prepay ₹450/month. That's ₹5,400 of guaranteed monthly revenue.
• Her monthly profit went from about ₹2,200 to about ₹14,000.

She also introduced a "special chai" with elaichi and kesar for ₹30. About 10-15 tourists a day order it. Cost per cup: ₹14. Profit per cup: ₹16.

"Pehle darr lagta tha price badhane se," she says, pouring a cup of her special chai. "Ab samajh aata hai — sahi price lena apni mehnat ki izzat karna hai."

Pricing is not a one-time decision. It's an ongoing practice. Your costs will change. The market will change. Your value will grow. Keep recalculating, keep testing, and most importantly — don't be afraid to charge what you're worth.

In the next chapter, we turn that price into actual money in your hand. Pricing is setting the number — selling is getting someone to pay it. How do you convince a customer to buy? What makes someone choose your product over someone else's? That's Sales.