Do you know how to justify your rates?

Unless you're the <1% of companies who competes based purely on price, you will need to be able to explain why your services are more expensive than 1 or more of your competitors.

In the bespoke software space, this is easy, as your clients are not buying something generic, and quality matters. Here's how we do it:

Figure: High price should be balanced out by higher value

From our research, our rates are in the top 1/3^rd of our Australian competitors, and I understand that this can seem high, so let's try to highlight a few reasons why we more than justify these high rates:

Statistically, more than half of all IT projects fail...

• SSW has been around for over 30 years and has only ever had 2 failed projects!

We ensure this through the following:

• Our Lean Startup methodologies mean we focus clearly on the Minimum Viable Product
• A strong and strict Scrum process gives visibility into priorities, progress, and problems to the whole team and the Product Owner
• Our arduous hiring process ensures we only have the most technically proficient consultants with the best communication skills
• A strong focus on rules and best practices ensure that we are consistently delivering high-quality solutions
• Our community involvement (User groups, Hack Days, MS Events, etc.)  helps us to rub shoulders with the other thought leaders in our industry  and stay ahead of the game
• Our strong partnership with Microsoft (our owner is 1 of only a few Microsoft Regional Directors in Australia) makes sure we have support when we need it