I hear what you say, but my gut reaction is that there are clients who will pay a higher, more appropriate rate for certain work, but only if it's not demanded of them. My personal forays into the world of pricing, with informal A/B testing, is that customers will pay a higher rate if they suggest it, and not if I do.
YMMV, but your insistance on pricing "correctly" and not putting your livlihood at risk suggests to me that you are not getting the money you might, becuase you're not accepting the risks that make it possible.
As I say, I don't know your context, and your opinion adds a respectable cynicism to an otherwise exuberantly optimistic discussion, but my (limited) experience suggests it works.
I can respect your point of view entirely. And you may very well be right: I could be leaving money on the table by establishing a baseline risk above which I won't go.
That said, my cynicism is hard learned. I generally think the best of my fellow man, but I've been burned enough since striking out on my own to tend towards cynicism when it comes to client work.
For me, things have worked out best when I've set a fair price on my work, eschewed flat rates for time-based rates, and set hard boundaries on the client-contractor relationship.
YMMV, but your insistance on pricing "correctly" and not putting your livlihood at risk suggests to me that you are not getting the money you might, becuase you're not accepting the risks that make it possible.
As I say, I don't know your context, and your opinion adds a respectable cynicism to an otherwise exuberantly optimistic discussion, but my (limited) experience suggests it works.
I don't blame you if you decline to run the risk.