Charging even a small fee for services signals value better than offering them free. Customers pay more attention and feel they got a deal, while you build confidence to raise prices later to market rate.
When you're not charging at all, try undercharging. There's this phenomenon where like people are afraid of charging for their services, for their time, for product, whatever, because they don't want someone else to get a piece of it if they're going through a marketplace. They don't want to get less than what they deserve for it or have the thing be undervalued or what have you. But what I find is that if you just start by undercharging as opposed to charging nothing at all, you can get an economic— and people pay more attention to it and take more value out of the services that you're providing. Charging creates a relationship that increases the value the customer gets from it. And I think this can feel counterintuitive, so I'll say it again. Charging creates value for the customer or for the receiving party. When you do this, that means you can start by charging too little and they can feel like they got a great deal and you can feel like you've got a great deal. You have lots of confidence in it, and then you can raise your price to something that's more fair.
