September 16, 2025 • 11 mins
Ever quote $2,000 then somehow send $800? Your ADHD brain has specific quirks that sabotage pricing success.
Discover the neurological reasons we undercharge and the surprisingly simple fixes that actually work.
What You'll Learn:
- The real reason ADHD brains struggle with pricing (hint: it's neurological)
- How rejection sensitive dysphoria sabotages your bank account
- Why "nice people don't charge a lot" is toxic programming
- The "Best Friend Test" for confident pricing
- How to separate pricing from emotions using the 24-hour rule
- The Value Anchor Method that changes everything
Key Takeaways:
Value-Based Thinking: Price the transformation, not just your time
ADHD-Specific Insights:
- How our "built-in critic" affects pricing decisions
- Why comparison spirals are especially dangerous for ADHD brains
- The connection between people-pleasing and undercharging
- Practical coping strategies for pricing anxiety
Action Items:
- Complete the Reality Check Exercise this week
- Apply the "Best Friend Test" to your current pricing
- Practice saying your ideal rates out loud 3 times
- Implement the 24-hour rule on your next quote
Here’s what’s helped me and my clients, and could help you too:
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
All right, picture this. So you're about to quote a
client for a $2000 project and you know you're worth it.
OK, your work is incredible, butsomehow by the time you hit
send, it says $800 and you throwin a few revisions, right?
Here's what nobody tells you. It's not about the money, it's
(00:20):
about your brain. And see, there's this thing that
happens in ADHD brains where we try to price ourselves, and once
you understand it, you'll never under charge again.
So I'm talking about specific neurological quirks that make us
sabotage our own success and thesurprisingly simple way to hack
them. So I'm Elise Smith, welcome to
(00:43):
the ADHD CEO. In the next 12 minutes, I'm
going to show you exactly why your ADHD brain betrays you at
invoicing time and how to finally fix it for good.
I want you to think about yourself right now.
Maybe you're a talented freelancer, business owner,
(01:04):
creative influencer of some sort, and you know you're good
at what you do. OK, your clients love you, your
work speaks for itself. But when it comes time to quote
a price, your brain basically just short circuits.
I know, I know how it is. But here's what happens in that
beautiful, chaotic ADHD brain ofyours.
You start calculating what you think you're worth and then
(01:26):
you're brain goes, but wait, what if they think I'm too
expensive? What if I lose the sale because
I'm pricing too high? What if they laugh at me?
What if I'm not actually good atthis?
What if I'm not ready? What if I'm being greedy?
And before you know it, you've talked yourself down from 2000
bucks to $500. You've convinced yourself that
you're doing them a favor, and you agreed to throw in a bunch
(01:47):
of extra revisions just to be nice.
But then and there, yeah, me too.
The kicker here is that it isn'tjust about money.
This is about how our ADHD brains are wired to think about
ourselves, our value, and our place in the world.
And so let's talk about what's actually happening, OK?
In that beautiful, scattered, sometimes brain of yours.
(02:09):
Because, spoiler alert, it's really not about the money.
The I'm not actually that good. Belief.
First, we've got good old imposter syndrome.
Like on steroids. OK, An imposter syndrome has
gotten 10 times worse now with all the online stuff, right?
But we think to ourselves, like,sure, that last client said our
(02:29):
work was amazing, but they're probably just being nice.
And so we minimize our success. We discount every compliment.
Raise your hand virtually. I can't see you if you struggle
to take a compliment and we somehow convince ourselves that
we just happen to get lucky. The thing here I need you to
realize, because I need you to hear this, your ADHD brain is
(02:50):
literally designed to notice what is wrong, what is missing.
And it's like having this built in critic that never takes a day
off. So when you're trying to price
yourself, that critic is really,really loud.
And so that I shouldn't be greedy, I should be grateful
trap that that's this weird gratitude guilt we carry.
(03:13):
Like I should be grateful someone wants to work with me.
Excuse me? You're not a charity case, OK?
Unless you're running a nonprofit of it, which I do, by
the way, all volunteer LED, no paychecks coming from it.
You're a professional, you're providing value.
So this one just hits different for us ADHD years because we've
spent our whole lives being toldwe're too much or we're not
(03:35):
enough. So when someone actually wants
to pay us, our brain goes quick,don't mess this up.
Take whatever they offer. And so it is a total rejection
sensitivity nightmare. And when we talk about rejection
sensitivity and rejection sensitive dysphoria for a hot
second here. OK, for those who don't know,
RSD is basically when rejection feels like getting hit by an
(03:56):
emotional freight train. And it is very, very common with
ADHD. And so the thought of someone
saying no to our prices, chef's kiss, Pure freaking torture.
OK so our brain would rather accept $300 then risk that
emotional devastation of someonesaying our $1500 quote is too
(04:16):
high. It's not logical but it's real.
That external belief that we have all the garbage that the
world has taught us about money and worth.
The starving artist mythology, right?
Society has this weird romanticism of struggle,
especially for creative people. Like you're not a real artist
unless you're broke and suffering.
Like newsflash, being broke doesn't make you or your work
(04:39):
more authentic, it just makes you broke.
And this whole trend now with usall working on social media and
people thinking that it's not a real job.
I don't know about you, but I'veseen people make way more money
on social media than you'd ever make where I live.
And so for those of us with ADHDwho maybe took this like non
traditional path, maybe didn't have the fancy degree of the
(05:02):
corporate background, maybe you do and you dropped it all like I
did and started working for yourself.
We internalized this even more. We think that we have to pay our
dues by working for peanuts. And then we have like this nice
person trap. So another fun one here, but
nice people don't charge a lot. Oh really?
Because like being nice means being broke.
(05:23):
I mean, make it make sense. This one especially gets us
because many ADHD are people pleasers and so we'd rather eat
Raymond for a month then have someone think we're greedy or
money hungry. But reality check here, charging
appropriately for your work isn't greedy.
It's called running a business. And then we have like this
comparison spiral, right? And don't even get me started on
(05:44):
comparing ourselves to others because again, that imposter
syndrome is real, especially online.
But well, so and so only chargesX so I should charge less.
But you don't know their situation.
Maybe they're just starting out.Maybe they're under charging
too, maybe they have a trust fund from their uncle in a
different country, who knows? I get emails all the time about
my uncle leaving me millions of dollars.
(06:05):
All they need is my Social Security number to get it right.
But your ADHD brain loves a goodcomparison spiral, but it's
rarely comparing apples to apples.
And so you have to stop it. All right?
And I want to talk a little bit to you about when everything
changed for me because I think understanding just where others
(06:27):
are in the same situation as youand how they overcame it could
help. But I was having coffee with a
friend, OK? I was complaining about this
client who wanted me to basically redesign their entire
social media stride, everything that I had ever done for like
200 bucks. OK, this was back when I was
doing management, social media management, and I still do have
(06:48):
some social media management clients, but I don't really
advertise it. But I had created all of their
content for the whole month and they pretty much wanted me to
like redo all of it. And I told them I was like,
look, I have, I gave all of my clients at that time a deadline
of when they could get revisionsfor the month.
And they decided, OK, it was nothing that I did wrong.
They actually, it wasn't even that they didn't like what I
(07:09):
did, but they decided they were going to run this super massive
sale. And they decided on it last
minute. And basically they made that
sound like my problem, like, hey, we're now doing this sale
and none of this content reflects this sale.
Well, OK, you didn't tell me that until three days before we
started, right? So anyway, having coffee with a
friend and I'm just, I'm ventingat this point to her because I'm
(07:30):
like, I worked hours on that. I don't want to scrap it.
I had two VA's that helped me atthe time.
So I paid them already for work that this person's wanting me to
scrap. And she looked at me and she
said, would you pay someone to redesign everything?
And I was like, hell no. That would be like seriously
insulting. And so that was a light bulb
moment for me. If I wouldn't pay someone that
little for the same work, why was I willing to accept that?
(07:53):
And that's kind of when I realized I wasn't pricing my
work, I was pricing my fear. OK, so how do we fix this?
How do we retrain our beautifully chaotic brains to
price like professionals so thatwe actually can call ourselves
professionals? One the reality check exercise.
OK, first you need to get reallyreal about what you actually
(08:14):
provide. Grab a notebook.
OK, write this down. It hits different and list
everything you do for a client. Not just the obvious stuff, but
everything. You're not just redesigning a
logo, OK you're doing research, you're brainstorming, you're
creating multiple concepts, you're refining based on
feedback. You're preparing files in
different formats. You're bringing your of
experience, creative problem solving, all of that, all of
(08:35):
that professional expertise. When you see it all written out,
it's pretty impressive, right? It's pretty impressive.
Step 2 of this, the best friend test.
Okay, so here's my favorite pricing hack.
What would you tell your breast friend to charge for something?
What would you tell them, right?If it was someone else pricing,
what would you tell them to charge?
Because our ADHD brains are terrible at advocating for
(08:58):
ourselves but amazing at hyping up your friend.
Use that superpower. If your bestie came to you with
the exact skills and experience,what would you tell them to
charge? Start there.
OK, step three, that emotional regulation strategy.
So this is crucial for us ADHD years.
We need to separate pricing fromour emotions.
And when that rejection sensitivity kicks in, when that
(09:18):
imposter syndrome starts whispering, we need coping
strategies. So I like the 24 hour rule.
It's my go to. I draft up my quote, I sleep on
it the next day. My brain is usually less chaotic
and I can review it more objectively.
And sometimes I realize I under quoted myself.
Rarely do I think I over quoted.So practice that.
Let me get back to you with a quote.
(09:39):
You don't have to price on the spot.
Give yourself time to think about it and let them know like,
hey, I want to make sure that I'm giving you the best value.
Let me give me 24 hours. Let me and get you a quote by
end of day tomorrow. Step 4 is the value add method.
OK, so instead of thinking aboutwhat you want to charge, think
about the value you're providing.
So what problems are you solving?
What results are you creating? What is it worth to your client?
(10:03):
How much time is it going to save them?
How much money is it going to save them?
If a website redesign helps thembook 50% more clients?
Your fee isn't an expense, it's an investment with massive ROI.
Think of it like that. So practical tips, write down
your prices and stick them somewhere visible.
OK, Our brains forget what we'reworth when we're under pressure.
(10:25):
Practice saying your price out loud in a mirror.
Seriously, if you can't say it without cringing, you need to
work on your money mindset. Create pricing packages instead
of custom quotes so it is easierfor our ADHD brains and it
prevents under quoting in the moment.
So have some standard prices. Every no is just redirecting you
to your ideal client who is going to happily pay your rates.
(10:47):
OK, so another reason I really recommend that you join
communities of other business owners in your field like Focus
and Free My Membership normalizetalking about money and pricing.
So look, you didn't start your business to be broke.
You didn't develop your skills to give them away for free.
You deserve to be paid properly for the incredible value you
(11:07):
are, the incredible business owner that you are.
And your ADHD brain might alwayswhisper doubts, but you don't
have to listen to it. You're not too much.
You're not not enough. You're exactly what your ideal
client needs, and they are willing to pay for it.
So before you go, do me a favor right now, I want you to think
of one thing. You've been under charging for
just one. Multiply that price by 1.5
(11:30):
today. That's your new starting point.
So I know I went a little over 12 minutes, but if this episode
helped you share it with anotherADHD entrepreneur, make sure
you're subscribed to the podcast.
Download it, leave us a review. It is the absolute best
compliment you can give and I amrooting for you.
Make sure you check the show notes for all the resources.
(11:51):
And until next time, make it simple.
Make a social, make it awesome.
All right, picture this. So you're about to quote a
client for a $2000 project and you know you're worth it.
OK, your work is incredible, butsomehow by the time you hit
send, it says $800 and you throwin a few revisions, right?
Here's what nobody tells you. It's not about the money, it's
(00:20):
about your brain. And see, there's this thing that
happens in ADHD brains where we try to price ourselves, and once
you understand it, you'll never under charge again.
So I'm talking about specific neurological quirks that make us
sabotage our own success and thesurprisingly simple way to hack
them. So I'm Elise Smith, welcome to
(00:43):
the ADHD CEO. In the next 12 minutes, I'm
going to show you exactly why your ADHD brain betrays you at
invoicing time and how to finally fix it for good.
I want you to think about yourself right now.
Maybe you're a talented freelancer, business owner,
(01:04):
creative influencer of some sort, and you know you're good
at what you do. OK, your clients love you, your
work speaks for itself. But when it comes time to quote
a price, your brain basically just short circuits.
I know, I know how it is. But here's what happens in that
beautiful, chaotic ADHD brain ofyours.
You start calculating what you think you're worth and then
(01:26):
you're brain goes, but wait, what if they think I'm too
expensive? What if I lose the sale because
I'm pricing too high? What if they laugh at me?
What if I'm not actually good atthis?
What if I'm not ready? What if I'm being greedy?
And before you know it, you've talked yourself down from 2000
bucks to $500. You've convinced yourself that
you're doing them a favor, and you agreed to throw in a bunch
(01:47):
of extra revisions just to be nice.
But then and there, yeah, me too.
The kicker here is that it isn'tjust about money.
This is about how our ADHD brains are wired to think about
ourselves, our value, and our place in the world.
And so let's talk about what's actually happening, OK?
In that beautiful, scattered, sometimes brain of yours.
(02:09):
Because, spoiler alert, it's really not about the money.
The I'm not actually that good. Belief.
First, we've got good old imposter syndrome.
Like on steroids. OK, An imposter syndrome has
gotten 10 times worse now with all the online stuff, right?
But we think to ourselves, like,sure, that last client said our
(02:29):
work was amazing, but they're probably just being nice.
And so we minimize our success. We discount every compliment.
Raise your hand virtually. I can't see you if you struggle
to take a compliment and we somehow convince ourselves that
we just happen to get lucky. The thing here I need you to
realize, because I need you to hear this, your ADHD brain is
(02:50):
literally designed to notice what is wrong, what is missing.
And it's like having this built in critic that never takes a day
off. So when you're trying to price
yourself, that critic is really,really loud.
And so that I shouldn't be greedy, I should be grateful
trap that that's this weird gratitude guilt we carry.
(03:13):
Like I should be grateful someone wants to work with me.
Excuse me? You're not a charity case, OK?
Unless you're running a nonprofit of it, which I do, by
the way, all volunteer LED, no paychecks coming from it.
You're a professional, you're providing value.
So this one just hits different for us ADHD years because we've
spent our whole lives being toldwe're too much or we're not
(03:35):
enough. So when someone actually wants
to pay us, our brain goes quick,don't mess this up.
Take whatever they offer. And so it is a total rejection
sensitivity nightmare. And when we talk about rejection
sensitivity and rejection sensitive dysphoria for a hot
second here. OK, for those who don't know,
RSD is basically when rejection feels like getting hit by an
(03:56):
emotional freight train. And it is very, very common with
ADHD. And so the thought of someone
saying no to our prices, chef's kiss, Pure freaking torture.
OK so our brain would rather accept $300 then risk that
emotional devastation of someonesaying our $1500 quote is too
(04:16):
high. It's not logical but it's real.
That external belief that we have all the garbage that the
world has taught us about money and worth.
The starving artist mythology, right?
Society has this weird romanticism of struggle,
especially for creative people. Like you're not a real artist
unless you're broke and suffering.
Like newsflash, being broke doesn't make you or your work
(04:39):
more authentic, it just makes you broke.
And this whole trend now with usall working on social media and
people thinking that it's not a real job.
I don't know about you, but I'veseen people make way more money
on social media than you'd ever make where I live.
And so for those of us with ADHDwho maybe took this like non
traditional path, maybe didn't have the fancy degree of the
(05:02):
corporate background, maybe you do and you dropped it all like I
did and started working for yourself.
We internalized this even more. We think that we have to pay our
dues by working for peanuts. And then we have like this nice
person trap. So another fun one here, but
nice people don't charge a lot. Oh really?
Because like being nice means being broke.
(05:23):
I mean, make it make sense. This one especially gets us
because many ADHD are people pleasers and so we'd rather eat
Raymond for a month then have someone think we're greedy or
money hungry. But reality check here, charging
appropriately for your work isn't greedy.
It's called running a business. And then we have like this
comparison spiral, right? And don't even get me started on
(05:44):
comparing ourselves to others because again, that imposter
syndrome is real, especially online.
But well, so and so only chargesX so I should charge less.
But you don't know their situation.
Maybe they're just starting out.Maybe they're under charging
too, maybe they have a trust fund from their uncle in a
different country, who knows? I get emails all the time about
my uncle leaving me millions of dollars.
(06:05):
All they need is my Social Security number to get it right.
But your ADHD brain loves a goodcomparison spiral, but it's
rarely comparing apples to apples.
And so you have to stop it. All right?
And I want to talk a little bit to you about when everything
changed for me because I think understanding just where others
(06:27):
are in the same situation as youand how they overcame it could
help. But I was having coffee with a
friend, OK? I was complaining about this
client who wanted me to basically redesign their entire
social media stride, everything that I had ever done for like
200 bucks. OK, this was back when I was
doing management, social media management, and I still do have
(06:48):
some social media management clients, but I don't really
advertise it. But I had created all of their
content for the whole month and they pretty much wanted me to
like redo all of it. And I told them I was like,
look, I have, I gave all of my clients at that time a deadline
of when they could get revisionsfor the month.
And they decided, OK, it was nothing that I did wrong.
They actually, it wasn't even that they didn't like what I
(07:09):
did, but they decided they were going to run this super massive
sale. And they decided on it last
minute. And basically they made that
sound like my problem, like, hey, we're now doing this sale
and none of this content reflects this sale.
Well, OK, you didn't tell me that until three days before we
started, right? So anyway, having coffee with a
friend and I'm just, I'm ventingat this point to her because I'm
(07:30):
like, I worked hours on that. I don't want to scrap it.
I had two VA's that helped me atthe time.
So I paid them already for work that this person's wanting me to
scrap. And she looked at me and she
said, would you pay someone to redesign everything?
And I was like, hell no. That would be like seriously
insulting. And so that was a light bulb
moment for me. If I wouldn't pay someone that
little for the same work, why was I willing to accept that?
(07:53):
And that's kind of when I realized I wasn't pricing my
work, I was pricing my fear. OK, so how do we fix this?
How do we retrain our beautifully chaotic brains to
price like professionals so thatwe actually can call ourselves
professionals? One the reality check exercise.
OK, first you need to get reallyreal about what you actually
(08:14):
provide. Grab a notebook.
OK, write this down. It hits different and list
everything you do for a client. Not just the obvious stuff, but
everything. You're not just redesigning a
logo, OK you're doing research, you're brainstorming, you're
creating multiple concepts, you're refining based on
feedback. You're preparing files in
different formats. You're bringing your of
experience, creative problem solving, all of that, all of
(08:35):
that professional expertise. When you see it all written out,
it's pretty impressive, right? It's pretty impressive.
Step 2 of this, the best friend test.
Okay, so here's my favorite pricing hack.
What would you tell your breast friend to charge for something?
What would you tell them, right?If it was someone else pricing,
what would you tell them to charge?
Because our ADHD brains are terrible at advocating for
(08:58):
ourselves but amazing at hyping up your friend.
Use that superpower. If your bestie came to you with
the exact skills and experience,what would you tell them to
charge? Start there.
OK, step three, that emotional regulation strategy.
So this is crucial for us ADHD years.
We need to separate pricing fromour emotions.
And when that rejection sensitivity kicks in, when that
(09:18):
imposter syndrome starts whispering, we need coping
strategies. So I like the 24 hour rule.
It's my go to. I draft up my quote, I sleep on
it the next day. My brain is usually less chaotic
and I can review it more objectively.
And sometimes I realize I under quoted myself.
Rarely do I think I over quoted.So practice that.
Let me get back to you with a quote.
(09:39):
You don't have to price on the spot.
Give yourself time to think about it and let them know like,
hey, I want to make sure that I'm giving you the best value.
Let me give me 24 hours. Let me and get you a quote by
end of day tomorrow. Step 4 is the value add method.
OK, so instead of thinking aboutwhat you want to charge, think
about the value you're providing.
So what problems are you solving?
What results are you creating? What is it worth to your client?
(10:03):
How much time is it going to save them?
How much money is it going to save them?
If a website redesign helps thembook 50% more clients?
Your fee isn't an expense, it's an investment with massive ROI.
Think of it like that. So practical tips, write down
your prices and stick them somewhere visible.
OK, Our brains forget what we'reworth when we're under pressure.
(10:25):
Practice saying your price out loud in a mirror.
Seriously, if you can't say it without cringing, you need to
work on your money mindset. Create pricing packages instead
of custom quotes so it is easierfor our ADHD brains and it
prevents under quoting in the moment.
So have some standard prices. Every no is just redirecting you
to your ideal client who is going to happily pay your rates.
(10:47):
OK, so another reason I really recommend that you join
communities of other business owners in your field like Focus
and Free My Membership normalizetalking about money and pricing.
So look, you didn't start your business to be broke.
You didn't develop your skills to give them away for free.
You deserve to be paid properly for the incredible value you
(11:07):
are, the incredible business owner that you are.
And your ADHD brain might alwayswhisper doubts, but you don't
have to listen to it. You're not too much.
You're not not enough. You're exactly what your ideal
client needs, and they are willing to pay for it.
So before you go, do me a favor right now, I want you to think
of one thing. You've been under charging for
just one. Multiply that price by 1.5
(11:30):
today. That's your new starting point.
So I know I went a little over 12 minutes, but if this episode
helped you share it with anotherADHD entrepreneur, make sure
you're subscribed to the podcast.
Download it, leave us a review. It is the absolute best
compliment you can give and I amrooting for you.
Make sure you check the show notes for all the resources.
(11:51):
And until next time, make it simple.
Make a social, make it awesome.
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