Talk it through with Zera
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Zera · Money & Finance
Knowledge + Guidance

We've never checked what others charge for our work — where do we start?

You and your pod have been pricing in the dark. Not because you lack skill, but because no one showed you the room where the numbers are kept. Reason asks a simple question here: why should the people doing the work be the last to know its value? This is not only your problem. It is a shared one, and that is useful — because a group can find rates that one person alone cannot. Someone in your pod may have seen a contract. Someone may know a number from a friend, a forum, a former job. Alone, each of you has a fragment. Together, you have a fuller picture. The honest starting point is this: you do not need a perfect number. You need a real range, built from real evidence, checked against each other. That is available to you now, together, in less time than you think.

◆ How this problem reads on the two dials
GuidanceKnowledge
More coaching
Some to learn
1:1 with ZeraWith others (a Pod)
Some one-to-one
Practise with peers
The group needs some teaching on where rate data actually lives, but the harder work is coaching them to share numbers openly and act on a range without waiting for certainty.
How the two dials adapt to you →
What’s really going on

Start together, not alone: each person writes their own number in private, then you compare as a group. The gap between what you guessed and what others charge is not a flaw in you — it is the natural result of a market that hides its own rates from the people who do the work.

🔒 What you’ll build togetherUnlock by starting
A moveEach person writes down, privately, the lowest and highest they've ever charged or accepted — then share and compare as a group before anyone edits their answer.
A moveAssign each pod member one source to check this week: a rate survey, a public job board, a trade association, one direct conversation with someone outside the pod doing similar work.
A moveBuild a shared range together — low, typical, high — using only real numbers you found, not guesses or hopes.
A moveAgree as a pod on a floor number none of you will go below, and say it out loud to each other before the next offer comes in.
A moveSet a date, thirty days out, to update the range together as new information comes in.
PractiseThe Rate Reveal · a Pod of 4 · 30 min

What changes unlock by starting

  • A shared, evidence-based rate range the whole pod can reference, instead of guessing alone
  • At least one real number gathered from outside the pod that none of you had before
  • An agreed floor price the group will hold each other to
  • Less silence around money inside the pod — rates become something you discuss, not hide

Related problems

The same struggle, seen by other coaches
One object, two jobs: a public answer to a real problem, and — the moment you start the chat — Zera’s live plan for your version of it.