[bmaeser]

i think we need to define what a "productized service" is.

they are not: apps, saas, products (books, courses,..), fixed bids on custom projekts or anything you bill by the hour.

a productized service is:

something you do very well, has a very narrow and fixed scope, you normally would bill this by the hour. think of it like writing a custom proposal but sell it to anyone at the same price.

some examples:

- i change the car oil for x usd.

- checking a website for responsiveness and show you the biggest mistakes and how to fix them for x usd. (website teardown)

- a/b testing an online shop to increase conversion by 5%

i myself am in the middle of turning my freelance sysadmin/devops business into a productized service, so i am eager to hear what ppl on hn had success with - and what did not work out for them.

a great ressource on this topic is pretty much anything Jonathan Stark is publishing: https://expensiveproblem.com/ and http://www.ditchinghourly.com/

[atsaloli]

Thanks for defining "productized service", @bmaeser.

My training service qualifies. It's private on-site training; with a small but growing course catalog. After a couple of false starts, I've priced it to guarantee profitability: I take into account my time off regular work (initially salaried, and now hourly-billed consulting), travel expenses and student materials.

List price is 3K per day plus 2K admin fee. My last sale was 5K for a day of training on GitLab CI. My biggest sale was 25K for two one-week classes on configuration management.

Productizing my service allowed me to streamline sales -- I don't have to think about how much to charge -- and it guarantees profitability.

I need to learn/do more marketing and sales to get to 6 figures. This is still "hobby" grade, income wise. (Can't support a family on it!)