What is Ethical Pricing? A Values-Based Guide for Small Businesses and Creatives

Have you ever sat down to price your work and felt stuck between charging what it’s worth while also making it accessible?

Welcome to the pricing paradox that so many of us small business owners, creatives, and freelancers wrestle with every day.

In an online world that rewards rapid scaling and high-ticket everything, ethical pricing often gets lost in the noise. But at DoGoodBiz Studio, we believe that pricing isn’t just a number, it’s a statement of values. And it has the power to either reinforce systems of exclusion or help dismantle them.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through:

• What ethical pricing really means

• Why it matters now more than ever

• Common unethical pricing practices to avoid

• How to build a pricing model that aligns with your integrity

• Reflection questions to help you price with purpose

Let’s dig in.

What is Ethical Pricing?

Ethical pricing is a values-based approach to setting prices that ensures fairness, sustainability, and transparency. It creates a financial exchange where both the business owner and the client benefit, without exploitation, manipulation, or inequity.

At its core, ethical pricing is about asking:
“Is this price fair for me and the people I serve?”

That might look like:

✔️ Transparent pricing rooted in actual costs and fair labor
✔️ Accessibility across different income levels
✔️ Sustainable profit margins that support long-term business health
✔️ Flexibility in how people pay and engage with your work

When pricing is done ethically, it honors the worth of your work while reducing harm to those you’re here to serve.

Why Ethical Pricing Matters in Today’s Economy

We live in a system that pushes us to scale fast, charge high, and "raise your prices because you can." It’s a world where premium often means inaccessible, and high-ticket offers are glorified regardless of who gets excluded.

But more and more conscious entrepreneurs are asking:

• Who can afford this?

• Who’s left out?

• Who benefits- and who’s harmed- by the way I price?

Ethical pricing matters because pricing impacts access.
It determines who gets to learn, grow, heal, or access tools that could change their life. It also affects the longevity and sustainability of your business. When we price with care, we create a ripple effect that fosters community, trust, and a regenerative economy.

5 Unethical Pricing Practices to Avoid

Let’s name some of the common (and harmful) pricing strategies we see in the online business world:

1. Inflated Pricing Without Transparency

Raising prices “just because you feel like it” or because a coach said so—without cost data or improved value to support it.

Why it’s harmful: It creates artificial scarcity, inflates industry norms, and excludes people who need your work the most.

2. Gatekeeping Knowledge to Secure Repeat Sales

Making clients dependent on you instead of empowering them to understand or manage what they paid for.

Why it’s harmful: It creates financial dependency and fosters an extractive dynamic rather than a collaborative one.

3. Manipulative High-Ticket Sales Tactics

Overpricing to manufacture “luxury” or premium value—without delivering meaningful transformation or support.

Why it’s harmful: It exploits desire, sells illusion, and leaves people overpromised and under-supported.

4. Copycat Pricing

Basing your prices on what others charge—without considering your own cost of living, values, or business goals.

Why it’s harmful: It disconnects you from your own sustainability and devalues the uniqueness of your offer.

5. Unjustified Price Discrimination

Charging different clients wildly different rates for the same service, with no clear or fair rationale.

Why it’s harmful: It creates inequality and erodes trust.

Ethical Pricing Strategies That Work

Here are five grounded, values-aligned ways to set prices fairly and sustainably:

1. Cost-Based Pricing

Start with your actual expenses—time, materials, labor, taxes—and build a reasonable margin into that.

Great for service providers and product-based businesses alike.

2. Accessible Tiered Pricing

Offer several pricing levels or sliding scales to accommodate different needs and incomes.

This could include freemium options, digital resources, or low-cost group programs.

3. Value-Based Pricing (With Real Feedback)

Instead of pulling numbers from thin air, talk to your clients. Ask: “What was this worth to you? What would make this more accessible?”

Use that insight to adjust pricing in a way that still honors your sustainability.

4. Transparent Payment Plans

Offer interest-free or low-barrier payment plans with clear terms and no manipulative urgency.

This builds trust, not debt.

5. Justified, Gradual Price Increases

If you need to raise prices due to inflation or expanded services, explain why. Be transparent, gradual, and rooted in integrity.

Example: “Due to increased platform costs and added support, we’re increasing our prices by 10% starting next quarter.”

A Note on Raising Prices Ethically

We see it all the time:
“Raise your prices. Charge what you’re worth. You don’t have to justify your rates!”

But we need to pause and ask: Are we creating a pricing culture based on empowerment… or entitlement?

There’s a big difference between needing to raise prices to stay afloat and wanting to raise them to hit a revenue milestone.

Ethical price increases are:

• Thoughtful

• Calculated

• Transparent

• Rooted in real shifts in cost, time, or service quality

Pulling numbers out of thin air because they “sound good” is not a strategy; it’s wishful thinking. And it’s often exclusionary.

Questions to Ask Yourself Before Setting or Raising Prices

These reflection questions can help you assess your current model:

• Is my pricing accessible to the people I want to serve?

• Have I factored in actual costs (not just desired profits)?

• Would I feel confident explaining how I arrived at this price?

• Am I unintentionally gatekeeping my work or creating unnecessary dependency?

• Have I explored more equitable options (like sliding scale, scholarships, freemium offers, etc.)?

• Who benefits from my pricing, and who might be left out?

Pricing as a Form of Integrity

Ethical pricing doesn’t mean you undercharge.
It doesn’t mean you don’t value yourself.
It means you center equity, transparency, and sustainability—because those things matter more than arbitrary revenue goals.

By adopting fair pricing strategies, we move closer to a business culture that’s about people over profit and connection over conversion.

You deserve to thrive. Your clients deserve to be seen.
Let your pricing reflect that.

Need help reworking your pricing model?
We support purpose-driven brands in developing ethical pricing and values-aligned business ecosystems. Reach out to work with us!

Until next time…

Natalie Brite, DoGoodBiz Studio