Stop Working for Free: The End-of-Year Profit Reset Every Designer Needs

Many established designers don’t realize how much unpaid work slips into their year, free consultations, scope creep, unbilled time, trade discounts…the list is longer than we want to admit. And those hidden habits quietly erode profit, confidence, and clarity.

This episode is your end-of-year profitability reset. If you’re heading into 2026 wanting more stability, stronger boundaries, and pricing that finally reflects your expertise, this conversation will get you there.

If you want 2026 to be the year you stop giving away your genius, this episode is your wake-up call.

episode highlights

How established designers unknowingly give away time, expertise, and profit
Why confidence—not math—is at the center of pricing
The four most common ways designers work for free
A simple reflection exercise to reveal your hidden unpaid labor
The one boundary that instantly increases your perceived value
How to simplify your offering so pricing feels clear and repeatable
Why practicing your numbers out loud changes everything
A year-end audit to see where you made (or lost) money
Why the new year is the best time to adjust your rates or pricing structure
How clarity, not experience, builds true pricing confidence

Episode Resources

Pricing with Confidence course

Read the Full Transcript ⬇️

00;00;00;02 – 00;00;29;13
Rebecca Hay
This isn’t necessarily about spreadsheets or judgment. It is about awareness. Because the first step to changing how you price and building confidence in your numbers is understanding how much value maybe that you’re already giving away. All right. I’m Rebecca Haigh, and I’ve built a successful interior design business by trial and error, podcasts, online courses, and so many freaking books.

00;00;29;15 – 00;00;59;27
Rebecca Hay
Over the last decade, I’ve grown from an insecure student to having false starts to careers. And now I’m finally in the place where I want to be. Throughout my journey, it’s been pretty obvious that I’m passionate about business and helping other entrepreneurs do the same. Each week, I’ll share tangible takeaways from my own experience and the experiences of other badass women to help you build your confidence and change your business.

00;01;00;02 – 00;01;24;19
Rebecca Hay
Hey hey hey, it’s Rebecca, and you’re listening to Resilient by Design. Welcome back. Today I’m talking about something that every single designer no matter how long you’ve been in business, struggles with at some point. And heck, you might struggle with it over multiple points in your business journey. It’s that uncomfortable tension between wanting to be valued for what you do and quietly giving away your time for free.

00;01;24;20 – 00;02;01;21
Rebecca Hay
And honestly, the tension is what keeps so many designers from feeling truly confident when they talk about money. So today’s episode is your gentle but firm a deep love, Rebecca. End of year Wake-Up call. If you’ve been second guessing your fees, maybe working extra hours without really getting paid for them, or billing for them, or just feeling uneasy in client money conversations, we are going to unpack why that happens, where it showing up in your business, and how you can start closing that confidence gap before the new year.

00;02;01;24 – 00;02;05;01
Rebecca Hay
Let’s go.

00;02;05;04 – 00;02;27;10
Rebecca Hay
All right. Let’s start here. Pricing and numbers. And money isn’t just about the numbers. It’s about confidence. It’s about boundaries and clarity. And when you don’t feel clear and confident about what you charge, that hesitation is going to show up everywhere. It’s going to be in your proposals, your emails, even your tone of voice on the phone. And it’s okay.

00;02;27;11 – 00;02;44;25
Rebecca Hay
I totally get it, because I have been there more times than I’d like to admit. Early in my business, I was doing all the things I was hustling to land clients. I was saying yes to every opportunity. And yet I was in the red. I did not make a profit. I didn’t even have enough money to pay my taxes.

00;02;44;29 – 00;03;18;10
Rebecca Hay
Those first two years, I thought being nice and flexible was going to help me build trust with clients. But what it really did was it eroded my confidence. And here’s the truth you can’t feel confident about your pricing if you’re constantly bending your own rules or discounting your time. Confidence doesn’t come from saying your number louder. It comes from knowing that your process, your experience, and your creative brain, that innate ability that you have, are worth every penny.

00;03;18;12 – 00;03;40;23
Rebecca Hay
Okay, so now I want you to get really honest. Let’s talk about why we are quietly doing this, because this is the part that most designers don’t even realize they’re doing. So here are a few places where you might still be working for free, even if you think you’re not. Yeah, I see you. Okay. First one free consultations.

00;03;40;23 – 00;04;05;04
Rebecca Hay
Guys, I’m a broken record. I’ve talked about this a lot. You hop on a 90 minute call, offer creative ideas, go to their house, you walk around, and then you walk away with no commitment. You tell yourself it’s marketing, it’s experience. But actually it’s unpaid labor. Number two is scope creep. Maybe you just tweak the floor plan or you source another option because the client isn’t quite sure you want them to be happy.

00;04;05;04 – 00;04;26;05
Rebecca Hay
Maybe you weren’t really sure yourself, but you never add that time to your invoice. Number three discounting your rates, maybe you knock a little off because a client says they have a smaller budget, or they dangle the carrot. The next project we’ll do together too. I’ve been there. Maybe you don’t Bill, because you’re like oh it took a lot longer than expected or than I think it should.

00;04;26;07 – 00;04;55;03
Rebecca Hay
And then number four is sharing your trade discounts. You pass along 100% of your designer discount your markup. Just to make the price feel easier to justify. But what you’re really doing is giving away your profit margin. You need that in every one of those decisions. Chips away at your confidence, because every time that you give something away, you teach your client how to value you, and you’re teaching yourself how to undervalue your own work.

00;04;55;04 – 00;05;19;13
Rebecca Hay
So here’s a quick reflection exercise. You can actually do that this week. Or pause this and do it right now if you’re not driving. So open up your calendar and look back through your projects this year. We’re almost at the end of the year. Highlight any time that you worked without being paid. Like look at your calendar, even a quick site visit, a phone call or follow up email, or maybe a day of sourcing.

00;05;19;16 – 00;05;45;20
Rebecca Hay
Then ask yourself, what would that time have been worse if I had charged my full hourly rate? That number might surprise you. You can also do this by just looking back. Where have you discounted your client invoices? Okay, now that you can see a pattern, how do you change it? So here are a few steps to start rebuilding your pricing confidently right now.

00;05;45;23 – 00;06;09;07
Rebecca Hay
First of all, step one is start with one boundary. Just one. You’re still offering free consultations. Stop. Your time is your most valuable asset. You can’t get more of it back. So paid consultations not only establish your credibility, they attract serious clients who respect your expertise from day one, and you’re making more money. Step two is to simplify your offer.

00;06;09;10 – 00;06;35;05
Rebecca Hay
You can’t confidently be reinventing the wheel and think the client is going to be on board, right? Get really clear. Your one thing that you do and price it clearly. Step two simplify your offer. You can’t confidently price something you keep reinventing. What is it that you’re known for? Pick one core service or one signature package and get really good at pricing it.

00;06;35;07 – 00;06;52;18
Rebecca Hay
This is something I teach in my programs all the time. Consistently do this with every client. Step three is follow a system when your pricing is clear and repeatable. You remove emotion and guesswork. You know you’re doing it this way. You’ve got it on paper and you know exactly what to say. When a client asks, what do you charge?

00;06;52;21 – 00;07;02;19
Rebecca Hay
Because your process leads the conversation. You have a system. You have a way of doing things. It doesn’t rely on your nerves and confidence.

00;07;02;21 – 00;07;28;29
Rebecca Hay
And then step four is practice saying your numbers out loud. Seriously, in your car, in front of a mirror, in the shower, wherever. If you want to charge $20,000 for a design fee, then practice saying it over and over and over again so that when you say it, it feels natural and organic. There’s nothing worse than the first time that you present a big design fee number to a client, and you’ve never said it out loud.

00;07;29;01 – 00;07;53;20
Rebecca Hay
Your nerves are going to show up, and you’re not going to appear confident. The more you say it, the less scary it becomes, I promise. You could even do this in front of the mirror. Because the reality is confidence isn’t a personal trait. That’s good news, guys. Trust me. That is good freaking news. It is a byproduct of clarity and preparation.

00;07;53;22 – 00;08;19;03
Rebecca Hay
Yes, experience gives you confidence, but you can also get confidence just by being super clear in how you work and being prepared so that when you do meet the client and when do you do get ready to talk numbers, you practice and you know what you’re saying. Okay. I want to talk about your end of year profit reset, because we are getting towards the end of 2025 at the time of this recording, and I want you to be set up for success for 2026.

00;08;19;03 – 00;08;42;23
Rebecca Hay
So let’s tie this in to where you are right now. The end of the year. Before you shift into holiday mode, I want you to take an honest look at your business. Did you make a profit this year? Do you know? Have you looked? Now is the time. Or were you just so busy? I want you to pull up your last few projects.

00;08;42;23 – 00;09;08;14
Rebecca Hay
Maybe the best projects that you’ve had this year. How many hours did you work versus what you collected in money? How many hours were built? Are you tracking your hours? If not, why not? Now is the time to consider what can I put into place to track my time next year? So for the next few projects, I can really see where I am making money and where I’m losing money.

00;09;08;14 – 00;09;33;10
Rebecca Hay
And I can tell you, even with a fixed fee, you need to track your time. Because once you have completed a project, you can look back and say, okay, we collected $10,000, we’ve put in 400 hours. If we were to bill at our hourly rate, how much is it? Did we make money? Did we lose money? You can even look at it from the standpoint of, okay, we collected $10,000.

00;09;33;17 – 00;10;01;22
Rebecca Hay
I paid all of these people and contractors and freelancers this much money, plus my time at my hourly. Did we break even? And then I want you to consider, did those fees reflect your time and your expertise? Because as you gain more expertise, it is completely understandable for you to raise your rates. And I want you to ask yourself if you’re being honest, where did you give away too much of your time?

00;10;01;24 – 00;10;26;22
Rebecca Hay
Where maybe it was with your team. Maybe it was. It has nothing to do with work. Maybe it was on a particular project because that client was really difficult. Don’t ever think it. This isn’t necessarily about spreadsheets or judgment. It is about awareness. Because the first step to changing how you price and building confidence in your numbers is understanding how much value maybe that you’re already giving away.

00;10;26;24 – 00;10;46;27
Rebecca Hay
And once you see that clearly, you’ll never want to work for free again. Let me quickly tell you a story of one of our students. One of our power of process students took my course and all I talked about was do not share your discounts. And so what happened was she said, okay, I’ve been sharing my discounts. I’ve been passing everything on full pop.

00;10;46;29 – 00;11;12;21
Rebecca Hay
This is going to stop. And she looked at how much money she gave back to her clients in discounts to see what she was leaving on the table, to see what money she had missed out on, and guess how much she calculated $30,000. How sobering is it to look back and say, Holy heck, if I had only not shared my discounts, I would have $30,000 more.

00;11;12;24 – 00;11;40;04
Rebecca Hay
Think about the profit. Think about it. You are never going to want to work for free again once you see it clearly. And so, before you dive into the holidays, I know that already starting. We’re already at that time. But take a moment now to look ahead. Imagine starting 2026 with total clarity around your pricing, knowing exactly what to charge or how to talk about it, and feeling calm when clients ask about your design fees.

00;11;40;06 – 00;12;02;23
Rebecca Hay
If you are dreaming about that kind of confidence and control, now is your time. Start laying the groundwork. A new year is the perfect time to announce that you are raising your rates, or to restructure how you price your projects. It is such a natural time for any service provider to say our 2026 rates are this or in 2026.

00;12;02;27 – 00;12;29;25
Rebecca Hay
We have changed the way we do things. And so if you want to get a system that has worked for hundreds of designers, you can explore my pricing with confidence system. Just go to rebecca.com/pricing. It is a short course that you can take any time. It takes about three hours probably to watch everything. It’s really bite sized and you can immediately start to make changes and build confidence.

00;12;29;25 – 00;12;56;04
Rebecca Hay
And how you price your services. So I hope you take this message to heart. Whether you take my pricing with confidence system or you just reevaluate how you’re doing pricing in your own business and look at what’s ahead. I do hope that what’s ahead is going to be more prosperous, more profit and more confident. We’re going to have an amazing 2026.

00;12;56;05 – 00;13;13;29
Rebecca Hay
So that’s it for today’s episode. Thank you for spending this time with me. I hope this one got you thinking. And if it did, I would love for you to take a screenshot. Share it to your stories. Tag me. Share this with someone else who needs this message. I also just love seeing which episodes hit home for you.

00;13;14;01 – 00;13;33;23
Rebecca Hay
And remember, you don’t need to charge more or razor rates to feel more confident. You just need to stop working for free. All right. Hahaha. I will see you next week.

November 27, 2025

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