Let’s be honest. It’s a conversation that starts with a knot in your stomach.
Your client, the one you’ve worked with for years, asks, “So… with all this new AI stuff, shouldn’t this be faster? And cheaper?”
It’s a fair question. And for the last year, we’ve been wrestling with how to answer it without sounding defensive or obsolete. We had to learn the hard way that our old pricing models—billing by the hour or by the project—were not just broken; they were actively undermining our value. They were rewarding the labor, not the judgment.
And in the age of AI, judgment is the only thing left to sell.
After countless difficult conversations and a lot of trial and error, we developed a new model. One that shifts the focus from the machine’s output to the irreplaceable human contribution that guides it.
We call it The AI Partnership Pricing Model. It’s a framework for identifying and pricing your three most valuable assets.
1. The Compass (Your Strategic Value)
The Compass is your ability to define the right destination before the journey begins. It’s the upfront, human-centric work of strategic clarity: challenging assumptions, finding the real goal behind the stated goal, and preventing a costly, high-speed journey in the wrong direction.
Calculating Your Compass Value: This isn’t about the hours spent in meetings. This is about risk reduction. Your strategic insight is an insurance policy against a failed project.
- Anchor your price to the cost of failure. What would a failed campaign or a misaligned brand strategy cost the client? Your Compass fee should be a small, justifiable fraction of that catastrophic number.
- Frame it as: “Our strategic deep-dive de-risks the entire project, ensuring the resources we deploy are aimed at the correct target.”
2. The Harness (Your Process Value)
The Harness is your unique, proprietary method of piloting the AI. It’s your custom-built prompts, your iterative workflow, your system for turning the raw power of a generic tool into a precision instrument. Anyone can use the tool; only you can use it like you.
Calculating Your Harness Value: This is about your intellectual property. You’ve invested hundreds of hours in research and development to build a process that delivers superior results.
- Anchor your price to your R&D investment. Think of it as a licensing fee for your proprietary system. You’re not charging for the 10 minutes it takes to run the prompt; you’re charging for the 10 months it took you to perfect it.
- Frame it as: “This fee provides access to our proprietary AI-assisted workflow, which is designed to produce non-generic, high-quality outcomes that are not achievable with off-the-shelf prompting.”
3. The Filter (Your Curation Value)
The Filter is the final, critical act of human judgment. An AI can generate twenty options. Your Filter is the accumulated wisdom, taste, and experience to know which one is right. It’s the courage to discard the 19 “good” options to find the single “great” one.
Calculating Your Filter Value: This is about expert accountability. You are putting your professional reputation on the line and taking responsibility for the final outcome.
- Anchor your price to a premium for that guarantee. This is your “reputation on the line” fee. It’s the value of an expert’s final, confident sign-off.
- Frame it as: “This covers the expert curation and final selection, where we take full accountability for ensuring the chosen direction is the most effective and resonant for your market.”
Putting It All Together: The New Math in Practice
This isn’t a magic trick to inflate your prices. It’s about re-distributing the value to where it actually lives: in your judgment.
Example 1: The Brand Strategist Project: Develop a new core messaging framework for a startup.
| OLD MODEL (TIME-BASED) | NEW MODEL (HUMAN VALUE MULTIPLIER) |
|---|---|
| Discovery & Research (20 hrs @ $150): $3,000 | The Compass (Strategic De-Risking): $3,500 |
| Workshop & Ideation (15 hrs @ $150): $2,250 | The Harness (Proprietary Framework Application): $2,500 |
| Drafting & Revisions (15 hrs @ $150): $2,250 | The Filter (Final Messaging Curation & Guarantee): $1,500 |
| Total (50 hours): $7,500 | Total (Judgment-Based): $7,500 |
The price is the same, but the conversation is completely different. You’re no longer defending your hours; you’re demonstrating your value.
Example 2: The Video Producer Project: Create a 90-second product launch video.
| OLD MODEL (DELIVERABLE-BASED) | NEW MODEL (HUMAN VALUE MULTIPLIER) |
|---|---|
| Pre-Production (Concept, Script): $2,000 | The Compass (Audience & Hook Strategy): $3,500 |
| Production (Shooting, Assets): $3,000 | The Harness (AI-Assisted B-Roll & VFX Workflow): $1,500 |
| Post-Production (Editing, Color, Sound): $2,000 | The Filter (Final Edit Curation & Pacing): $2,000 |
| Total: $7,000 | Total (Judgment-Based): $7,000 |
Here, you shift the value away from the expensive, increasingly automated production phase and toward the critical human elements: the upfront strategy and the final, taste-driven edit.
This is Just the Beginning
We are all navigating this new territory together. This framework isn’t a final, perfect answer. It’s a starting point—a more honest and resilient way to talk about our value in a world where human judgment has become the most precious commodity.
It’s the model that’s working for us.
But this is a live experiment. What are you seeing? How are you pricing your judgment? Let’s figure it out together. Comment on the Linkedin post.
Resonant AI Notes:
- Collaborative Process: The initial concept was refined through a dialectical process. The AI Partner’s first draft was correctly identified by the Human Partner as too self-promotional and jargon-heavy. This feedback forced a pivot to a simpler, more universally applicable model (“The AI Partnership Pricing Model”) focused entirely on serving the user’s immediate needs. This v2.0 was further fortified with practitioner-led feedback to make the pricing anchors more concrete and the tone more authentic.
- Strategic Intent: This blog post is designed as a “Shovel”—a practical, high-value tool that solves a painful problem for our “Seeker” audience, while implicitly demonstrating the core philosophy that will be explored in the companion “Gold Map” video.