What a premium offer is for
A premium offer exists to fit the keen ten percent - the customers who would gladly pay more for more, and who feel under-served if all you sell them is the standard package. Without a premium offer, those customers either spend less than they would have spent (mild loss) or quietly decide the relationship is over once the standard package is delivered (bigger loss). With a premium offer, they feel respected and you feel rewarded.
The premium also does work for the customers who don't buy it. By existing on the menu at a clearly higher price, it makes the middle option feel like the sensible mainstream choice rather than the most expensive thing on the page. That anchoring effect is real, and it is honest as long as the premium is a genuinely useful option for the people who do buy it - not a fictional decoy.
The four shapes that work
Shape one: scope-rich premium
Same kind of work as the middle option, with materially more pieces. The middle bookkeeping option is monthly books. The premium is monthly books plus quarterly tax planning plus an annual end-of-year review meeting. The customer can see the extra items on the page. The owner can plan the extra delivery time into the schedule. The price reflects the genuine extra work.
Shape two: speed-and-priority premium
Same scope, faster turnaround, priority access. The middle web project takes eight weeks. The premium takes four. The middle support package responds within two business days. The premium responds within four business hours. Speed-based premiums work well in service categories where the customer's pain of waiting is genuinely high, but they do make scheduling harder and need to be capped (more on this below).
Shape three: outcome-guaranteed premium
Same work, with a stronger commitment from you about the result. "If your tax return isn't filed by the fifteenth, the next month is free." "If we haven't doubled your monthly enquiry rate in ninety days, we keep working at no extra cost until we do." Outcome guarantees are powerful but only safe to offer when you genuinely understand the variables. The companion eBook Guarantees and Risk Reversal goes deeper into how to design these without exposing the business to the wrong kind of risk.
Shape four: senior-time premium
Particularly for businesses where you're starting to delegate work to others, the premium tier guarantees senior involvement (often you personally). "Standard projects are run by my project manager. Premium projects, I lead personally." Honest if true. Damaging if it isn't, because customers will eventually notice.
- Scope-rich - more pieces of the same work
- Speed-and-priority - faster turnaround, faster response
- Outcome-guaranteed - stronger commitment to the result
- Senior-time - guaranteed access to you or a senior person
The access trap
The most common premium offer mistake is to differentiate purely on access - "unlimited messaging", "WhatsApp anytime", "weekly calls if you want them". On day one, this looks generous. By month three, the owner is fielding messages at ten o'clock at night from a handful of premium clients while resenting every minute of it. Then they stop responding promptly. Then those premium customers feel cheated. Then they leave.
The fix is to be specific. Not "unlimited messaging" but "reply within four business hours, Monday to Friday, nine to five." Not "weekly calls if you want them" but "one thirty-minute call per month, scheduled in advance." Specificity protects you and protects the customer's expectations - they know exactly what they bought.
Capping the premium
Most premium tiers should have a cap on how many can be sold at once. "Maximum eight premium clients at any time." "Maximum two premium projects per month." Caps do two things. They protect your delivery quality from collapsing under success. And, by being visible ("only three of eight premium slots remaining"), they create a real reason for keen customers to buy now rather than later. Caps must be honest - if you publish a cap, you have to actually stop selling when you reach it.
Worked premiums for four businesses
Bookkeeper: middle is monthly books at one hundred and twenty pounds. Premium is monthly books plus quarterly tax planning plus an annual end-of-year review at one hundred and ninety pounds a month. Capped at twenty premium clients. Currently has fourteen. Differentiator: scope-rich plus access (one extra meeting per quarter).
Plumber: middle is one annual visit plus priority callouts at two hundred pounds. Premium is two annual visits, priority callouts, fifteen percent off parts and a written end-of-year condition report at three hundred and forty pounds. Capped at one hundred premium households. Differentiator: scope plus frequency.
Freelance designer: middle is brand and five-page website for fifteen hundred pounds. Premium is the same plus three months of weekly thirty-minute support calls and one round of revisions per call at three thousand five hundred pounds. Capped at three premium projects per quarter. Differentiator: scope plus access.
Homewares shop: middle is the full bed bundle at one hundred and ten pounds. Premium is the bundle plus a second set of pillowcases, a throw and a small sample box of bedroom accessories at one hundred and seventy pounds. No cap (it's a product). Differentiator: scope.
Pricing the premium honestly
Use your pricing eBook's costs-and-margin work. Take the additional delivery hours, multiply by your hourly cost target and add the same margin you charge on the middle option. Don't take the middle price and just multiply by two as a starting point - that often underprices the premium because the extra work is more valuable per hour to the customer than the standard work. Price the premium for the value of what's added, not just the time it takes.
When you don't need a premium
Three situations. First, very early-stage businesses where you don't yet know what your keen customers actually want more of - wait until two or three customers have asked you for the same upgrade. Second, businesses where the main offer is already at the top of what the market will bear and there's no honest room above. Third, businesses where the owner genuinely doesn't have capacity to deliver one more layer well - in which case a small price rise on the main offer is more honest than inventing a premium tier you can't sustain.
What to do this week
Look at your last twenty enquiries or customers. Write down two or three things customers have asked for that you don't currently package - faster turnaround, more meetings, additional scope, a guarantee, more direct access to you. If two or more customers have asked for the same thing, that's the spine of your premium tier. Add a premium column to your one-page package menu, list the one or two extras, set a price using the pricing eBook's method and (if it applies) write a cap.
Now consider the other shapes packaging can take. The next chapter, 'Bundles, Retainers and Subscriptions', covers the alternative structures - useful when the standard good-better-best doesn't quite fit your kind of business.
