Five pricing questions every consulting leader should ask in 2026

I’ve been there. As a consulting CEO, I doubled our billable rate, but it took me seven years. In hindsight, we could have moved much faster if we had asked these five questions every quarter. Watch me unpack them in full with Armanino Partner Ryan Prindiville below, or keep scrolling for the five questions.

1. Why Do Customers Really Buy From Us?

It’s such an uncomfortable question. When I asked it, our clients’ answers were brutal. But there’s no way we would have doubled our prices without it. Because whether we like it or not, we don’t decide our value - our clients do.

Do it now:

• Book a 15-minute call with your top 5 clients.
• Ask three questions:
  1. “Why did you choose us originally?”
  2. “Why do you keep working with us?”
  3. “Who else do you use for similar work, and what do you value about them?”
• If you can, have a neutral third party run these conversations so clients feel safe being brutally honest.

Capture their exact wording. Those phrases are your pricing power.

2. How Much Value Could We Create For Our Clients?

Even in a downturn, clients will spend on things that deliver a value - especially if there's a tangible cost, time or risk savings. Let the competition price from the inside out: “What will it cost us to deliver?” Win higher-value work by pricing from the outside in: “What is this worth to the client?”

Do it now:

• Ask your best consultants:
  • “What are the biggest, most valuable problems we could credibly solve for our clients in 2026?”
  • “If we solved them, how much would that save the client in cost, time, or risk?”
• For each idea, do a back-of-the-envelope calculation of the value or savings.
• Design offers that are priced at 10–30% of those savings, rather than a multiple of hours.

You will not move every client to value-based pricing overnight. But even one or two value-priced projects can reset your confidence in what your work is really worth.

3. How Are We Reinventing Our Services?

Your core services are the easiest thing to sell - but they’re also the hardest thing to raise prices on.

At Nexient, the 3 Arcs model was fundamental to getting out of that trap. We looked at our pipeline across three types of work:

• Core services – standard, well-known offerings your competitors also sell.
• Differentiated services – offers that use your unique IP, frameworks, or combination of skills.
• Category-creating bets – new ways of working with clients that change how they think about the problem.

We realized our pipeline was over-weighted in core work. So we set a simple rule: each quarter we would do more differentiated work, and we would experiment with at least one category-creating offer.

For us, that meant bottling how a startup worked and selling that operating model to Fortune 500 companies. We started by convincing one long-standing client to take a risk on a new way of working, so we had a success story to sell to others.

Do it now:

• Map your current pipeline using the 3 Arcs model: core, differentiated, and category-creating.
• If everything is sitting in “core,” you have a pricing ceiling.
• Identify:
  • One differentiated pitch you could make to an existing client this quarter.
  • One category-creating experiment you are willing to run.

If you want a deeper dive into the model and how I used it, here is a breakdown: The Three Arc Model.

4. How Are We Reinventing Our Pricing Model?

Time and materials is not going away tomorrow, but client expectations are changing. SaaS, subscriptions, and outcome-based fees are teaching your clients that value can be priced differently.

One thing has not changed: clients do not want to pay for input. They want to pay for outcomes.

That does not mean you scrap your current model. It means you selectively introduce new models where the value and measurement are clear:

• Performance-based or success fees.
• Fixed fees tied to clear milestones.
• Retainers for ongoing advisory access.
• Productized services with transparent scope and price.

The key is to be crystal clear on your value and how you will measure success before you change the model.

Do it now:

• Scan your current pipeline and find the one project where success can be most cleanly measured.
• Design a version of that proposal that includes a performance-based or outcome-tied element instead of pure time and materials.
• Offer it as an option alongside your standard model and see how the client responds.

Even if they say no, you will learn where your clients are (and are not) willing to take pricing risk with you.

5. What Could We Automate With A PSA Software Tool?

Most firms still price work on gut feel, a spreadsheet of old projects, and whoever happens to be scoping the job. At Nexient we had Colin, our Chief Delivery Officer who would disappear into the spreadsheets every time we needed to price a new project. I wish we'd had a professional services automation (PSA) tool like Projectworks so were were pricing off live delivery data instead of vibes - it would have turned our pricing from a debate into a decision.

Make sure you pick a PSA that offers real-time reporting on:

• Burn rate: where actual hours are blowing past scoped hours?
• Utilization rate: what capacity do you have for new work?
• Margin: what's your firm's most valuable work right now?

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Make pricing intentional, not accidental

Most consulting firms’ pricing is the result of history, not design. A number that made sense years ago accidentally becomes the default. Meanwhile, your clients’ world is changing fast. The problems they are solving are bigger. The value your firm can bring to the table is growing. Your pricing needs to keep up.

Run these five questions every quarter through 2026:

1. Why do customers really buy from us?
2. How much value could we create for our clients?
3. How are we reinventing our services?
4. How are we reinventing our pricing model?
5. What could we automate with a PSA software tool?

Then update your rate card, your offers, and your pricing models accordingly - your 2026 margins will thank you.