Pricing Under AI Pressure: 29 Claude Skills

What these skills are

A pricing decision, from your own numbers to the letter, as installable Claude skills.

This is Claude for the part of selling your expertise that happens before the invoice: working out what a job actually costs you, deciding what AI changes about your price, naming an offer, and being ready for the conversation where someone asks you to come down because they have AI too.

The skills follow the work in order, in seven steps, your own numbers first, and each step hands a named artifact to the next. Knowing your numbers hands over your floor rate, your margin per client, the activity map of where AI really saves time, and what your AI tools cost. Deciding what AI changes hands over the savings decision, the list of what still earns full price, your positioning in plain words and the fee model per service. Productising hands over one named offer, the blueprint that shows where a person decides, its unit economics and an answer for the client who wants to buy your workflow. Pricing on value hands over the discovery questions, a value range against your floor, an outcome metric with a baseline, and a proposal with real options. The conversation hands over your walk-away floor, your first two sentences and the replies to the AI objection, the AI discount request, the AI-written brief and the chatbot review. Writing it down hands over your disclosure policy, the statement of work and the questions for your adviser. Then the standing work: the retainer, "one small change", the price increase plan and letter, and a quarterly look at the whole thing.

The red line: Claude works from your own numbers and helps you prepare an honest conversation. It never sets your price, never invents a benchmark or a competitor's rate, and never hides your use of AI.

Every cost, rate, saving and price comes from what you give it. Nothing is benchmarked against a market rate it does not have, no competitor's price is guessed at, and anything missing stays a bracketed placeholder until you fill it in. There are no manipulative moves either: no decoy options, no false scarcity, no deadline pressure, and three options only when each one is a real offer you would happily deliver.

Contracts, IP, tax, data protection and disclosure law come back as grouped questions for a qualified adviser, with your own facts attached, never as advice. And every output ends with the decision that is yours to make: you say the number, send the proposal and write the letter yourself.

Each skill is one method or one artifact: the inputs it needs, where it breaks, a fixed output template, a finish line and the next skill to run. Where a skill fits a Claude surface — a Project to keep your floor rate and client figures together, a spreadsheet for the profitability map and the cost ledger — it says so.

Mechanically, each skill is one folder with a SKILL.md file. The 29 are grouped into the seven steps, and each one gives full value on its own: run one, run a step, or work the whole thing through in the order it arrives.

Download all 29 skills. One zip: ready-to-install skill zips, readable SKILL.md files, and the sources behind every method. Free, no signup. Download the zip · Browse on GitHub

The 29 skills you get

The set follows a pricing decision, in seven steps: knowing your own numbers, deciding what AI changes, productising an offer, pricing on value and outcomes, having the price conversation, disclosing AI and agreeing the terms — then retainers, scope and raising prices.

1 · Know your numbers

1. Floor Rate Calculator

Use when: You are about to quote and do not know the number below which you lose money

Output: Fully loaded cost, real non-billable time, floor per day and per hour, kept internal

2. Client Profitability Map

Use when: Margins look fine overall and you suspect one or two clients eat them

Output: Margin per client, the whale curve, realisation by client, two clients to look at first

3. AI Activity Map

Use when: A client asks for an AI discount and you cannot say where AI saves time

Output: Activities per service, time before and after AI measured on real jobs, what stays human, net saving

4. AI Cost Ledger

Use when: The AI bills grow and you do not know whether to bill or absorb them

Output: AI tool and API costs per client or offer, review time AI adds, absorb, bill or price in

2 · Decide what AI changes

5. AI Savings Decision

Use when: You ask whether to pass AI savings on or keep them as margin

Output: Pass on, keep as margin or reinvest, per service, with the line you will say to clients

6. Full-Price Work List

Use when: You ask what still earns full price when AI did most of the work

Output: What clients pay for beyond the output, your evidence, what no longer earns full price

7. AI Positioning Statement

Use when: Clients think AI is good enough and you do not know how to position

Output: How you use AI in plain words, what clients get that their own AI does not give them, short versions

8. Pricing Models Comparison

Use when: You ask how to bill when AI does the work

Output: Hourly to outcome models side by side on five considerations, who carries the risk, your pick

3 · Productise an offer

9. Productized Service Sheet

Use when: Every project is custom-quoted and the price follows the hours

Output: One named offer with outcome, fixed scope, timeline, fixed price from your numbers

10. Service Blueprint

Use when: You need to show a client honestly what AI does and what you do

Output: The offer from the client's side, where AI works and where a named person checks and decides

11. Offer Unit Economics

Use when: You have an offer and do not know how many you must sell

Output: Price, delivery and AI cost per sale, contribution margin, sales needed to break even

12. AI Workflow Handover Offer

Use when: Clients ask to buy your AI workflow instead of hiring you

Output: The options when a client wants to buy your AI workflow, IP and licensing questions to check with a qualified adviser

4 · Price on value and outcomes

13. Value Discovery Questions

Use when: You want to price on value and do not know what the work is worth to this client

Output: Questions on the outcome, its worth in the client's numbers, the cost of doing nothing, the alternative

14. Value-Based Pricing Worksheet

Use when: You are moving from hours to value and need a number you can explain

Output: Value drivers in the client's numbers, value range, your floor, the price you set and why

15. Outcome-Based Pricing Plan

Use when: A client wants to pay for results and you must check the outcome is fair to measure

Output: Outcome metric, baseline, attribution rule, base fee plus outcome part, cap, floor, window

16. Three-Option Proposal

Use when: You send one take-it-or-leave-it number and the client can only say cheaper

Output: One to three real options by scope and outcome, fee by phase, assumptions, plain terms, dated next steps

5 · Have the price conversation

17. Price Conversation Prep Sheet

Use when: The price call is tomorrow and you tend to discount before anyone asks

Output: Your number, your walk-away floor, your alternative, their interests, first two sentences, trades

18. AI Objection Answer

Use when: A client says “AI could do this in 10 seconds”

Output: What is true in the objection, what clients get from you, an offer to show your workflow, your reply

19. AI Discount Response

Use when: A client asks for a discount because you use AI now

Output: What the request asks, what changed in the work, four honest options, the trades, a reply draft

20. AI-Written Brief Review

Use when: The client's long AI-written brief says everything and nothing

Output: The brief reduced to one objective and audience, gaps and invented facts, questions back, scope impact

21. Client AI Feedback Triage

Use when: The client ran your work through a chatbot and says you are doing a bad job

Output: A chatbot review sorted against the agreed brief, change requests, a calm reply, the cost of a new round

6 · Disclose AI and agree the terms

22. AI Disclosure Policy

Use when: You wonder whether to tell clients you use AI

Output: What AI does and what a person always does, client data rules, how clients are told, opt-out

23. Statement of Work

Use when: The price is agreed and the scope must stop moving

Output: Outcome, deliverables, acceptance criteria, assumptions, revision rounds, change triggers, AI use line

24. AI Contract Questions

Use when: A client sends an agreement with new AI clauses

Output: Grouped questions for your adviser on AI clauses, with your facts attached

7 · Retainers, scope and raising prices

25. Retainer Redesign

Use when: Your retainer is sold as hours and AI has made the hours shrink

Output: What the retainer buys in hours and in value, the options, the move per client, the conversation outline

26. Scope Change Request

Use when: “It's just one small change”, again

Output: The ask, impact against the signed scope, accept, defer, swap or decline, the change log entry

27. Price Increase Plan

Use when: You want to raise prices and keep putting it off

Output: Which clients and offers, the new price from your numbers, timing, notice, order, your decision per client

28. Price Increase Letter

Use when: The increase is decided and you need the words

Output: A short plain letter per client with the new price, date, notice, an honest line on how you work now

29. Quarterly Pricing Review

Use when: Pricing only gets looked at when a client complains

Output: Floor re-run, margins, AI savings and costs, fee leakage, wins and losses on price, three decisions

Where to start, and how the skills chain

Start with the floor rate. Everything downstream reads it: the value worksheet checks its range against it, the productised offer prices from it, and the conversation prep sheet turns it into the number you will not go under. After that there is no compulsory sequence — bring the thing that is in front of you. A client asked for an AI discount? Start at the AI Discount Response, which will send you back for the activity map if you do not have one. Proposal due? Start at the Three-Option Proposal. Retainer stopped paying? Start at Retainer Redesign. Every skill lists the inputs it needs, so it tells you when the step before it is the one that is actually missing.

They chain. price-floor-rate gives you the number below which a job loses you money, and price-client-profitability shows which clients carry your margin. price-ai-activity-map measures where AI actually saves time and price-ai-cost-ledger says what the tools cost, which is what price-ai-savings-decision needs to decide whether you pass the saving on; price-full-price-list, price-ai-positioning-statement and price-pricing-models-comparison turn that into what you charge for and how. price-productized-service names one offer, price-service-blueprint shows the client where a person decides, price-offer-unit-economics checks it pays and price-ai-workflow-offer answers the client who wants to buy your workflow instead. price-value-discovery-questions and price-value-based-pricing find a price you can explain, price-outcome-based-pricing handles paying for results, and price-three-option-proposal puts real options in front of the client. Then price-conversation-prep sets your walk-away floor, price-ai-objection-answer, price-ai-discount-response, price-ai-brief-review and price-client-ai-feedback cover the four conversations AI has added, and price-ai-disclosure-policy, price-statement-of-work and price-ai-contract-questions put it in writing. price-retainer-redesign and price-change-request hold the standing work, price-increase-plan and price-increase-letter raise the price, and price-pricing-review brings you back round each quarter.

The sources behind each method are in resources/evidence-and-sources.md, inside the pack.

Setup guide

1. Download the pack. One zip: an install folder with 29 ready-to-upload skill zips, a skills folder with the same 29 skills as readable SKILL.md files, and resources/evidence-and-sources.md, which names the source behind each method.
2. Install your skills. In Claude Code, add the marketplace and install ai-pricing-pack, and all 29 load at once. In Claude, turn on code execution in Settings, then Capabilities, then go to Customize, then Skills and upload one zip per skill from the install folder. Prefer working from files? Add the SKILL.md files to your Project knowledge instead; it works, just less cleanly. Keep client names and figures you would not want stored out of Claude memory.
3. Start with your floor, then the job in front of you. Run the Floor Rate Calculator with last quarter's costs and the days you actually billed, so every later skill has the number below which a job loses you money. Then bring what is actually happening: a discount request, a proposal to send, a retainer that has stopped paying. Each skill lists the inputs it needs and names the next skill to run, so one answer turns into the chain on its own.

Where to start

The quality bar

Every skill in the pack holds the same standard:

• Your numbers only: every cost, rate, saving and price comes from what you give. Anything missing stays a bracketed placeholder rather than a guess
• No invented benchmarks: no market rates, no competitor prices, no invented client quotes or results
• No manipulative pricing: no decoy options, false scarcity, deadline pressure or anchoring tricks. Three options only when each one is a real offer
• Honest about AI: what AI does and what a person decides is said plainly, and nothing sells against AI
• Every output ends with the decision you make, and you send or say everything yourself
• Contracts, IP, tax, data protection and disclosure law are written as questions with “check with a qualified adviser”, never as advice
• The red line: Claude works from your own numbers and helps you prepare an honest conversation; it never sets your price, never invents a benchmark or a competitor's rate, never hides your use of AI, and you have the conversation yourself

Who made this

Polar Bear is a people ops consultancy for human-size teams (20 to 200 people). Built by ex-McKinsey founders with a dream to make AI work for People, not instead of them. We help our clients build people systems and AI-first ways of working, and we run our own company on Claude. This pack is the free, self-serve version of how we work.

This pack is for the person who sets the price. If you run a consultancy, a boutique or an agency and want your team working this way — AI carrying the overhead so people do the part only people can do — that's what we build with clients.

Meet Pauline. Want your team pricing this way? Bring the step you are stuck on and we will pick the skills for it. Book a 30-minute call · Pauline on LinkedIn

Install in Claude Code

Two lines, and every skill in the pack loads at once.

/plugin marketplace add polar-bear-org/claude-skills
/plugin install ai-pricing-pack@polar-bear-skills

Using Claude on the web instead? Download the zip and upload each skill from its install folder under Customize → Skills.