A while ago, I was talking to a woman about a service she offered. She was one of those people who could walk into a messy situation and quietly make everything better. Organized. Thoughtful. Extremely competent.
Her price?
Honestly… shockingly low.
So I asked her how she landed on that number.
She shrugged and said something that made my HR brain twitch.
“I just don’t want people to think I’m charging too much.”
And there it was.
Not a market strategy.
Not a pricing model.
Just fear.
The funny thing is, most women know when they’re underpricing themselves. They’re not clueless. They’re usually quite aware of it.
So the real question isn’t whether women recognize their value.
The real question is: why do we still discount it anyway?
After years working in HR, building programs, launching initiatives, and watching incredibly capable women around me do the same thing, I’ve noticed a few patterns.
Let’s talk about them.
The Likability Tax
One thing I learned very early in my HR career is that workplaces run on two currencies.
Money… and likability.
Men are often rewarded for being assertive.
Women?
We’re often rewarded for being agreeable.
It’s subtle, but powerful.
Women who negotiate firmly can sometimes be labeled “difficult.”
Women who push their value can sometimes be described as “a bit much.”
So many women develop a quiet internal pricing strategy that sounds something like this:
If my price is reasonable enough, no one will question it.
We shave a little off the number. Just to be safe.
Then a little more.
And before we know it, we’re charging far less than the value we actually create.
Because the goal wasn’t maximizing value.
The goal was avoiding discomfort.
But when pricing is built around likability instead of value, you’re essentially charging for being pleasant, not for being skilled.
And being pleasant is a terrible business model.
When Expertise Starts to Feel Ordinary
Another reason women underprice themselves is something I see constantly in high-achieving women.
Competence starts to feel ordinary.
When you’ve been solving problems for years, your brain quietly tells you:
“Well… anyone could have done that.”
But that’s rarely true.
I had a moment like this when I was working with the alumni office at the University of Toronto.
I helped launch a program called Lectures on Demand. At the time, it simply felt like a logical idea. Alumni loved attending lectures, but scheduling and accessibility were barriers. So we created a model where they could access talks on demand.
Nothing about it felt revolutionary to me.
It just felt like… a good solution.
When we launched it, about 5,800 alumni and community members signed up.
That alone was surprising.
But what really stood out was that over 1,000 of those people were previously unengaged alumni — people who hadn’t interacted with the university in years.
Suddenly they were back.
The program ended up becoming a really effective way to reconnect people to the institution. Other alumni departments actually started using it as a roadmap for their own versions of Lectures on Demand, adapting the idea to engage their own communities.
Looking back now, it was genuinely innovative.
At the time?
I barely paused to acknowledge it.
My brain immediately moved to the next problem to solve.
And that right there is the high-achiever trap.
When you’re used to producing results, you stop seeing those results as extraordinary.
You see them as the baseline.
But the marketplace doesn’t see it that way.
The marketplace sees impact.
And impact has value.
The problem is that women often price themselves based on how difficult something felt… instead of how valuable the outcome was.
If something feels easy to you, you assume it must not be worth that much.
Meanwhile, someone else is charging premium rates for something you can do before your morning coffee.
Expertise has a funny way of disguising itself like that.
The Guilt Economy
There’s another layer to this conversation that doesn’t get talked about enough.
Guilt.
Women are deeply socialized to think about everyone else’s comfort first.
So when it comes time to charge for something — whether it’s consulting, creative work, coaching, or a service — a quiet voice shows up.
What if people think I’m overcharging?
What if someone can’t afford it?
What if they stop supporting me?
We start negotiating against ourselves.
Before the other person even says a word.
It’s fascinating when you step back and look at the difference in mindset.
Men tend to ask:
“What is the market willing to pay?”
Women often ask:
“What will people feel comfortable paying?”
Those are two very different pricing strategies.
One is economic.
The other is emotional.
And emotional labor rarely pays well.
The High-Achiever Habit of Downplaying Wins
Another pattern I see — both in myself and in other ambitious women — is how quickly we move past our own accomplishments.
High achievers are wired to solve problems.
Once the problem is solved, we move on.
We don’t sit around admiring the solution.
For example, when I helped streamline a system for data collection and data entry in my department, it ended up saving a significant amount of time and administrative effort.
From a leadership perspective, that’s a meaningful operational improvement.
From my perspective at the time?
It just felt like fixing something that was inefficient.
And that’s exactly the thinking that leads women to underprice themselves.
We focus on the task we completed, not the value it created.
But organizations, businesses, and clients don’t pay for tasks.
They pay for outcomes.
They pay for the person who can walk into a messy system and quietly make it work better.
Sound familiar?
A Lesson I’m Still Learning
One thing motherhood has taught me recently is that growth often looks small while it’s happening.
Sometimes I watch my daughter and celebrate what might look like tiny wins to someone else.
Drinking from a sippy cup.
Not throwing food on the floor.
Learning a new skill.
These things might look small from the outside, but they’re actually big developmental leaps.
Progress often happens quietly.
The same thing happens in careers.
Skills accumulate.
Experience compounds.
You solve hundreds of small problems over time, and suddenly you’ve built expertise that other people genuinely need.
The problem is that we often forget to price that expertise accordingly.
Pricing Is Clarity, Not Confidence
Most career advice aimed at women says something like:
“Just be confident!”
Which sounds nice… but isn’t very practical.
Confidence doesn’t magically appear because someone posted an inspirational quote on LinkedIn.
A much more useful strategy is clarity.
Clarity about the value your work creates.
Ask questions like:
• What problem does this solve?
• How much time or stress does this save someone?
• What would it cost them to figure this out alone?
• What are others charging for similar expertise?
When you start answering those questions honestly, pricing becomes less emotional.
And more strategic.
The Truth About Pricing
Here’s something most experienced professionals eventually realize.
Someone will always think your price is too high.
Someone will always think your price is a bargain.
And someone will think it’s exactly right.
Pricing isn’t about pleasing everyone.
It’s about aligning your work with the value it creates.
The women who eventually stop underpricing themselves don’t suddenly become arrogant.
They simply become clearer.
Clear about their skills.
Clear about their time.
Clear about the problems they solve.
And once you see your value clearly…
It becomes much harder to discount it.
Because the truth is, you were never charging too much.
You were just charging too little.
Modern Boss Lady 