Nearly every new coach or consultant prices their first offer on what feels comfortable to charge, not on what actually covers Income Tax, National Insurance, and a pension contribution.

I spent four years underpricing as a sole trader, telling myself the market wouldn't pay more and that experience would eventually justify a higher rate on its own. It doesn't work like that. What actually forced the change was a client's IR35 assessment landing me inside status on a contract I'd priced as if I were outside it, take-home dropped by nearly a third overnight once employer's National Insurance and a chunk of my invoice got treated as employment income for tax purposes, and I had to rebuild my entire offer from scratch within a quarter. That rebuild is where I learned what I now teach: pricing isn't a feeling, it's a calculation that starts with what you need to take home and works backwards through Income Tax bands, National Insurance, or corporation tax and dividend tax if you're operating through a limited company, plus a pension contribution most self-employed people quietly skip because nobody's auto-enrolling them into one. Since then I've gone chartered, built a practice that prices IR35-compliant contracts for FTSE 250 clients, and watched the same underpricing mistake play out in almost every new member who joins this group. It's rarely a confidence problem. It's a maths problem dressed up as a confidence problem.

The structural decisions matter as much as the number on the invoice, and almost nobody explains them properly before someone's already invoiced under the wrong one. Sole trader is the simplest way to start, you register for Self Assessment, pay Income Tax and National Insurance on profit, and that's largely it, but every pound of profit is taxed at your marginal rate with no separation between you and the business. A limited company changes that: the company pays corporation tax on profit, currently 19% up to £50,000 and tapering to 25% above £250,000 with marginal relief in between, and you extract income as a mix of salary and dividends, usually more tax-efficient once profit crosses a threshold that's different for every member. If you're consulting for medium or large UK clients, IR35, the off-payroll working rules extended to the private sector in April 2021, determines whether the client or you assess your own employment status for tax purposes, and getting that assessment wrong has real financial consequences in either direction. And if turnover looks likely to cross £90,000 in any rolling twelve-month period, that's the VAT registration threshold, not the tax year, so it can sneak up mid-year if a big contract lands.

What we cover inside:

Pricing from the bottom up. Every member builds their number starting from take-home target, not market rate first. We work through tax, National Insurance or corporation tax, business costs, and a pension contribution before landing on a day rate or package price.

Structure fit, not structure hype. Sole trader versus limited company gets decided on your actual numbers and plans, not on what a YouTube video said sounds more "professional," including when VAT registration actually makes sense ahead of the threshold rather than as a scramble after crossing it.

IR35-aware contracting. For anyone consulting into medium or large UK businesses, we cover how status is assessed, what a Statement of Work needs to look like to support outside-IR35 working, and how to price for inside-IR35 engagements when that's the honest assessment.

Client acquisition that isn't generic. Outreach and proposals get reviewed line by line in the fortnightly clinic, not rewritten from a template that sounds like everyone else's LinkedIn message, alongside an anonymised rate-benchmark survey so members know exactly where they sit against peers in their industry.

Weekly office hours cover pricing and structure questions as they come up, and every fortnight there's a client acquisition clinic where members bring actual outreach messages and live proposals for review rather than hypothetical scenarios. Inside the group there's a pricing calculator that factors tax, National Insurance, and business costs into a day rate, and a directory of accountants and IR35 specialists other members have actually used and would use again. Members are also paired for monthly accountability calls outside the main sessions, which tends to matter more than any single clinic once the initial pricing fix is done and the harder work of actually sending the outreach begins. New members usually bring their current rate card to the first pricing clinic and leave with a revised one, plus a clear view of whether their VAT and structure position still fits their income.

This group is for coaches and consultants who are done guessing, whether that's someone about to send their first invoice or someone with an established practice who's never actually checked whether sole trader or limited company is still the right structure for their current income. It isn't for anyone who wants a script to copy word for word or a promise of a specific income within a specific number of weeks. The clinics work off real numbers and real messages, which means the advice is specific to you, not generic.

✅ Pricing templates that account for tax, National Insurance, and business costs
✅ IR35 and limited company guidance for consultants working with UK clients
✅ Fortnightly review of real outreach and proposals, not hypotheticals
✅ VAT registration planning before you hit the £90,000 threshold by accident

Members typically leave their first month with a day rate they can actually defend, a clear answer on whether their business structure still makes sense, and an outreach message that's already had the cringe edited out of it by people who aren't afraid to say so. Your expertise deserves a proper price tag. Join the group.