What You “Shouldn’t” Do With Your Brand Pricing

Champagne Taste, Beer Budget: When 'Should' Statements Start Setting Your Prices

There’s a particular kind of distortion messing with your money and it always shows up dressed like “support.”

It sounds like:

• “I should be where you are by now.”

• “You shouldn’t charge that much.”

• “We’ve been following you since the beginning. We should get a discount.”

• “She didn’t work as hard as I did, but she has more.”

That’s not business. That’s a behavioral distortion. Specifically: “should” statements. Those rigid little lies folx tell themselves when envy and entitlement start to bubble up in a comparison situation.

This distortion convinces folx that what you have should’ve been theirs or should’ve cost you more to earn. And it shows up in brand behavior as resentment, comparison, and undercutting, from your audience and from you.

Where The “Should” Started

“Should” is one of the first words that teaches us to suppress identity and shape-shift for survival. It starts early:

• You should let your sister go first.

• You should be more like your brother.

• You should be grateful you even got invited.

Then it evolves:

• You should take the job with benefits.

• You should wait until you have more experience.

• You should keep it professional for appearance sake.

And before you know it, those little “shoulds” become full-blown shackles in your business:

• You shouldn’t talk about money.

• You shouldn’t raise your prices.

• You shouldn’t act like you're better than anybody.

• You shouldn’t make it look easy, they'll give you more work

Brandbaby, ease doesn’t mean you cheated. And confidence doesn’t mean you’re arrogant.

In a world trained to respect the grind more than the growth, Founders who flow - operate with clarity, boundaries, and bold brand behavior - get hit with a lot of “shouldn’t you…” energy. And in many cases, it’s because they’ve been trained to expect less from you. Not because of your work, but because of who you are.

And it's not just your clients and your audience. Sometimes that distorted voice lives inside your head rent-free, repeating a script you didn’t write but still obey.

They Want The Champagne, But Not The Cost

There are folx who want your brand, your presence, your peace, your clarity, but on a beer budget and a bootstrap timeline. They want what you built but not at the cost of becoming who you had to be to build it.

In their minds, it “should’ve” been cheaper for them. And if it wasn’t, then maybe you got lucky… or soft… or privileged… or didn’t deserve it. That’s not an insight. That’s hater projection.

And that projection leads to all kinds of behaviors that devalue your brand:

• Folx inboxing you for favors they wouldn’t dare ask a stranger with a blue check.

• Family saying, “You changed” because you stopped doing work for free.

• Clients trying to negotiate legacy pricing like your brand didn’t evolve. They stay stuck in your past pricing, expecting champagne service from a version of you that no longer exists.

“Should” statements turn your growth into a grievance for folx who feel left behind.

The Brand Behavior Fallout

Here’s where it gets dangerous: As a Founder, you start absorbing that energy. Instead of raising prices to match the value, you start softening the brand to make it palatable. You over-explain, over-apologize, and over-deliver to close a sale that shouldn’t need convincing. This kind of emotional overcorrection is one of the biggest brand behavior traps you can fall into.

You start thinking:

• “Maybe I shouldn’t charge that much until I have more testimonials.”

• “I should lower the price so they can afford it.”

• “I should just be grateful someone wants to pay me at all.”

That’s your own should statements kicking in. And Brandbaby, they’re just as toxic. If you have the receipts to back up your pricing, own it.

Price Isn't About Pain - It’s About Posture

Let’s kill this narrative: You don’t have to suffer to deserve your success. You don’t have to hustle harder to justify your rates. You don’t have to break yourself down to build a brand folx respect.

Stop thinking you have to “earn” your price through exhaustion. You earned it by doing the work they don’t see, facing the fears they still avoid, and showing up when no one clapped. You don’t owe a fucking explanation to anyone still stuck in “should.”

Brandma's Advice: Let ‘Should’ Starve

Folx with champagne taste and beer budgets will always try to shame you into making your brilliance more affordable; more accessible, more convenient, more reasonable. They'll label you a "gatekeeper" while trying to make money off your free content.

But you know what’s unreasonable? Asking someone to shrink what they’ve built just so you can afford to feel better about where you’re at.

Here’s what to remember when “should” statements come knocking:

• You are not a villain for pricing what your value demands.

• You are not selfish for putting boundaries on your brilliance.

• You are not obligated to explain how long it took you to get here.

The only thing you should do? Keep showing up like the Founder you’ve become, not the one they still expect.

Brandma’s Final Pour

“Should” statements are stale leftovers from someone else’s emotional fridge. They don’t belong on your plate, your pricing page, or your posture.

Your brand behavior should reflect your truth, not their timeline. Your rates should honor your capacity, not their wallet. And your brand? It should never be a refund for someone else’s regrets.

Now go pour that champagne and send that invoice because you earned it, even if they don’t think you should have.