Case Study
How a mid-size firm redesigned pricing and doubled margin
A strategic pricing redesign case showing how tiered proposals, scope boundaries, and renewal discipline restored profitability without adding clients.
Mid-size accounting and advisory firm, 25+ staff
Revenue growing but margins shrinking due to scope creep and single-price proposals
Tiered pricing architecture, scope boundary enforcement, and systematic renewal process
Measurable Outcomes
Margin improvement
Lowest-margin clients exited
Proposal architecture adopted
What was actually going wrong
The firm was winning new clients but losing margin on each one. Single-price proposals meant clients received unlimited scope. Over-delivery had become the default, and 70% of clients generated less than 10% of revenue.
Why common fixes would have failed
Raising rates across the board would have triggered client churn without addressing the structural cause. The issue was not price level but price architecture — how work was scoped, packaged, and renewed.
Redesign logic
- Move from single-price to three-tier proposals
- Define explicit scope boundaries per tier
- Implement systematic annual renewal with price adjustment
- Audit the client list and exit lowest-margin engagements
- Train the team on pricing conversations, not just delivery
Strategic lessons
- Margin erosion is almost always a pricing design problem, not a volume problem
- A 10% price increase on a 30% margin firm creates a 33% profit increase
- Most firms under-earn from their best clients and over-serve their worst