Prompt details

Tested on

Claude Opus 5.5

Length

631 words · 5 fill-ins

Example input

[What you sell, to whom and where]: Home cleaning in Columbus, Ohio and its suburbs. I'm the owner, with 6 part-time cleaners who are W-2 employees. Customers are mostly homeowners in 3-bedroom houses. A standard clean covers kitchen, bathrooms, dusting and floors. About 70% of visits are biweekly regulars, 20% monthly regulars and 10% one-time or move-out cleans. Many biweekly regulars have been with us 3 years or more, and some are retirees.

[Your costs]: Cleaner pay $19 an hour; payroll taxes and workers' comp add about 12% on top. A standard clean takes about 3 cleaner-hours plus about 25 minutes of paid drive time. Supplies about $6 a visit. Mileage reimbursement averages $7 a visit. Card processing 2.9% plus 30 cents. Monthly overhead: liability insurance and bonding $240, scheduling software $79, phone $60, marketing $450, accounting $150. I pay myself nothing fixed; I do sales, scheduling and quality checks about 30 hours a week. We do about 150 visits a month.

[Current prices and sales]: Biweekly standard clean: $120 a visit. Monthly standard: $135. One-time standard: $160. Deep clean or move-out: $240 (about 6 cleaner-hours). We last raised prices 3 years ago. We lose about 2 regular customers a month and gain about 4. About 45% of new quote requests become customers.

[Competitor prices you found]: I got 3 quotes for a 3-bedroom, 2-bath house: a national franchise quoted $165 biweekly and $260 for the first clean; an independent local company quoted $135 biweekly; an app-based marketplace showed $105 to $125 biweekly, but the cleaner changes visit to visit and supplies cost extra.

[Your pricing goal and worries]: I want to raise prices about 15% so I can pay my cleaners $21 an hour (to keep good people) and start paying myself. I'm worried about losing long-time retired clients, and about the app-based option undercutting us.

Example output

1. Cost floor

Unit: one biweekly standard clean at today's $120 price and today's $19/hr pay.

These assumptions affect every number below:

Assumption: The 25 minutes of drive time is paid once per visit, not once per cleaner. Basis: your note says "about 25 minutes of paid drive time" per clean. If two cleaners each drive 25 minutes, add $8.87 per visit.
Assumption: Every customer pays by card. Basis: you listed card fees and no other payment method.
Assumption: Your own time is valued at $25/hr. Basis: a supervisory rate above the $21 you plan to pay cleaners. This is not a market survey. [add: the hourly rate you want for yourself]
Assumption: The 10% of one-time and move-out visits splits evenly, 7.5 one-time standard cleans and 7.5 deep cleans a month. [add: actual split]
Assumption: Deep cleans use the same $6 of supplies. [add: deep-clean supply cost]

Cost item	Per unit	Basis
Cleaner labor	$72.71	3.417 hrs (3 hrs cleaning + 25 min drive) × $21.28 ($19 × 1.12 for payroll taxes and workers' comp)
Supplies	$6.00	Your figure
Mileage reimbursement	$7.00	Your figure
Card processing	$3.78	2.9% × $120 + $0.30
Overhead share	$6.53	$979/month ($240 + $79 + $60 + $450 + $150) ÷ 150 visits
Owner wage share	$21.67	30 hrs/wk × 52 ÷ 12 = 130 hrs/month × $25 = $3,250 ÷ 150 visits
Full cost per visit	$117.69

Current margin on a biweekly visit: $120 − $117.69 = $2.31 per visit. That is a margin of 1.9% (profit ÷ price). As markup (profit ÷ cost) it is 2.0%. Every other percentage below is margin.

Your other services at today's prices:

Service	Price	Full cost	Margin per unit	Margin %
Monthly standard	$135	$118.13	$16.87	12.5%
One-time standard	$160	$118.85	$41.15	25.7%
Deep / move-out (6.417 labor hrs)	$240	$185.01	$54.99	22.9%

Claude Opus 5.5

Set Your Prices – Pricing strategy prompt for ChatGPT and Claude

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Claude Opus 5.5

This prompt sets or raises your prices from your own numbers. Paste your costs, prices, sales and competitor quotes; you get your true cost per sale, three priced options, a recommendation and the customer email.

What you get

Your full cost per sale, including overhead and your own time, and the margin you really make
Three priced options, each with how many sales you could lose before you earn less
A recommendation with a rollout plan and a price-increase email ready to send
Replies for customers who push back, and the numbers to watch after the change

How to use it

1
Gather your real costs
List what each sale costs in labor, materials, fees and travel, plus monthly overhead and the hours you put in yourself. A missing cost makes every margin look better than it is.
2
Check the cost floor first
Compare the cost table with your books before you look at the options. If the profit it finds does not match your bank account, a cost is missing.
3
Confirm notice, then announce
Check the notice your agreements or local rules require, fill in the dates in the email, and track the measures it lists for the first 60 to 90 days.

Better results

Give your real mix of customers by service. Every option is built on that mix, and a guessed split moves the break-even figures.
Put a fair hourly wage for your own time in your costs. Without it the cost floor is too low and every price looks profitable.
Ask a follow-up: "Show the lost-sales limit at 10, 15 and 20 percent increases." You see where your safety margin runs out.

Questions

Can ChatGPT help with a pricing strategy?

Yes, ChatGPT or Claude can build a pricing strategy when you give them your real costs, prices, sales and competitor quotes. They handle the margin arithmetic and the customer email well. They cannot know how your customers will react, so treat the figures as limits to test, not forecasts.

How do I raise prices without losing customers?

Raise prices by first knowing how many customers you can afford to lose, then giving existing customers notice, a true reason and often a smaller step than new customers pay. This prompt works out that break-even loss for each option and writes the email and the pushback replies.

What is the difference between margin and markup?

Margin is profit divided by the price; markup is profit divided by the cost. A $100 price on an $80 cost is a 20 percent margin but a 25 percent markup. Mixing them up is a common way to underprice, so this prompt labels every figure.

How much notice should I give before a price increase?

It depends on your agreements and where you operate. Written contracts, auto-renewing subscriptions and some consumer rules set notice periods. This prompt flags them as things to confirm rather than stating a rule, so check your agreements and local rules, or ask a lawyer if unsure.

Updated 8 Nov 2026