The stock is your calendar
You cannot make more Tuesdays. Every unsold hour is gone permanently, which is why an offer people can buy without a call is worth more than a lower rate.
Advisory work
Publish the price, and the hour stops being a negotiation.
Most consulting is sold badly for one reason: the price is discovered at the end of a conversation rather than stated at the beginning of one. Publishing it changes who books you and what they expect.
14-day free trial. No card required.
90 minute session
Booked in
Booked in
Payment received$420
How do I sell consulting online?
Turn what you do into a small number of named offers with prices on them: a paid first session, a fixed-scope piece of work, a monthly retainer. Publish each as a product in Crate, take payment or a deposit at the point of booking, and let the calendar offer only the hours you actually work. Say what happens in the session and what the client leaves with, because that is what makes a rate look like a price rather than a number. Everything you sell lands as an order with a customer record behind it, so a client who books again arrives with their history attached instead of a memory of what you agreed.
How to start selling consulting.
Getting started
Four steps, in order. Each one is a screen you can open on the first day, not a project.
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Name three offers, not one service
A paid first session, a fixed-scope engagement, a monthly retainer. Three prices give a client something to choose between rather than something to negotiate.
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Put a number on each
A published price filters the enquiries that were never going to buy, before either of you spends an hour finding that out.
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Take the money when the slot is taken
Payment or a deposit at the point of booking. It is what makes a booked hour actually yours, and a no-show cost the client something rather than costing you the slot.
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Publish the hours you really work
Set your availability and block the days you do not. The calendar stops offering anything you cannot honour.
What is different about selling consulting.
What is different here
Every kind of product has a detail that decides whether the software fits. These are the ones that decide it here.
The price does the qualifying
An unpublished rate means every enquiry becomes a discovery conversation. A number on the page ends most of them before they start and improves the ones that survive.
Deposits change who turns up
A free slot is easy to abandon on the morning. A paid one is kept, and the difference shows up in your week rather than in your opinion of your clients.
A retainer is a subscription with a scope
Recurring advisory work bills on a schedule and states what is included. That is a product with terms, not an invoice you write from scratch every month.
Your buyers are already in a thread.
Where you sell
Advisory work is bought from people whose thinking somebody has already seen. Put a bookable, priced offer behind the post so a reader who is convinced can book instead of opening a conversation you then have to price.
In your market that usually means Your store, Instagram and In person.
Every channel above runs off the one catalog you set up once.
Card, Apple Pay, Google Pay and bank transfer.
Getting paid
Take card, Apple Pay, Google Pay and bank transfer at the point of booking, in full or as a deposit, in US dollars. Automatic payouts to your bank.
Money from card sales lands in your bank account on a rolling two-day schedule. Nothing to claim, nothing to withdraw.
- Card
- Apple Pay
- Google Pay
- Bank transfer
How the appointment is kept.
Delivery
The slot is the delivery. Confirmation and reminder reach the client without you sending either, and a reschedule or a cancellation leaves a record, so a disputed appointment is something you look up rather than something you remember.
- Publish the hours you actually work, and blackout the days you do not. The calendar stops offering what you cannot honour.
- Take payment or a deposit at the point of booking, so a no-show costs the buyer something rather than costing you the slot.
- The buyer gets the confirmation and the reminder without you sending either.
- Reschedules and cancellations leave a record, so a disputed appointment is a lookup rather than a memory.
What it costs.
One subscription covers the store, the catalog, the order queue, the customer records and the counter. There is no separate charge for selling in chat, and no charge per kind of product.
Priced and paid in US dollars. Every plan opens with a free trial and no card.
You have the price and the plan now. Standing the shop up is about fifteen minutes of work.
What you would actually use.
The product
Named plainly, and each one has a page of its own if you want the detail.
Selling consulting, answered.
Do I have to publish my rate?
No, but it is the single change that most improves the enquiries you get. A published price ends the conversations that were never going to convert and starts the ones that are.
Can I take a deposit instead of the full fee?
Yes. Take a deposit at booking and the balance on completion. The booking is committed either way.
How do I sell a retainer?
As a recurring product with its scope written on the listing. It bills on a schedule and the client can see exactly what the month includes.
Can I sell a package of sessions?
Yes. Sell the block as one product at its own price, and draw the sessions down against it as they are booked.
What about no-shows?
Payment at booking is the answer. Your cancellation terms sit on the listing so they are agreed before the slot is held rather than argued about after it is missed.
Can I sell a document or a template alongside the hour?
Yes. A file and a session can sit in the same catalogue and the same order. The file delivers itself and the session is booked in.
Still have a question?
Every answer above was written by the people who build crate. If yours is not among them, the Help Center goes deeper, and a person reads what you send.
Selling something else?
Nearby
The same platform underneath, told in the language of the thing you make.