Charging a Small Upfront Fee Filtered Out Bad-Fit Discovery Calls

A tiny paid intake replaced free calls with written briefs and filtered out low-intent leads fast. If you sell high-ticket custom work, a refundable paid discovery step looks immediately usable.

[ KEY POINTS ]

The old flow was free 30-min calls with roughly 20% close rate, which meant most calendar time went to unqualified leads.
A $50 upfront payment plus a structured intake form turned vague conversations into usable written briefs before any meeting happened.
The fee was credited toward the project, so it worked more like a seriousness filter than a new revenue line.
The strongest signal: people unwilling to pay $50 upfront were also unlikely to commit to an $8k build later.

Originalwww.reddit.com/r/smallbusiness/comments/1ta5kzs/charging_50_before_a_discovery_call_eliminated_80/Read original →

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#0002
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Source: news.hada.io/topic?id=29623Read original →
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Charging a Small Upfront Fee Filtered Out Bad-Fit Discovery Calls

// related

`Blip AI` Crosses $200K Revenue, Mostly From Lifetime Deals

A zero-coding founder reached 71 users without marketing

Do Not Answer the First Question