How to package AI services into three tiers

Offer three tiers, show the top one first, and price each step so the dollars you keep go up as the client moves up. On Lumina Sales that means Tier One, Tier Two and Top Tier. At the high end of our published wholesale guides, retail prices of $700, $1,100 and $1,700 a month leave you about $485, $685 and $1,135 a month per client. Those figures are examples, not a price list. The rest of this post shows the math behind them and the clients who should never see three options.

How many tiers should an AI agency offer?

Three. One price gives the prospect a yes or no question, and "no" is easy. Two prices turn the conversation into "what's the cheaper one." Three prices give them something to compare, and most of the comparing happens in your favor if the top option is real and priced with a straight face.

The research behind this is thin for our exact case, so I will be careful. A 2018 experiment in the Journal of Travel Research found that a high price anchor raised willingness to pay compared with a low one, though the effect weakened when the buyer's budget didn't fit the high number. That was a vacation, not an AI receptionist. Read it as a reason to test a top tier on your next ten calls, not as a law.

My read, and it is only a read. When the first number a prospect hears is $1,700, the $700 option stops sounding like a splurge. When the first number is $700, it sounds like the most you could ask for.

What does each tier cost you?

Wholesale pricing on Lumina Sales is agreed on a 30-minute pricing call for each build. The published guides are ranges, and I am using the top of each range because planning against the best case is how agencies get squeezed.

The platform itself is $49 a month and does not change with the number of clients, so I leave it out of per-client margin. Check the services page for exactly what each tier includes before you write your own one-pager. The ranges move. If this post and the live site disagree, trust the site.

What should you charge for each tier?

Here is one set of retail prices, run at the high end of each range. The Top Tier row assumes 300 voice minutes a month, which is $105.

Your actual cost lands anywhere inside the range, so your margin will usually be better than this. If you want the full treatment, we covered what you keep per client and how to set the retail number in earlier posts.

Notice the middle row. Tier Two has the lowest margin percentage of the three at the top of the range, because its wholesale monthly climbs faster than a reasonable retail price does. It still pays $685 a month. But if you let clients drift to it by default, you are choosing the worst percentage and a middling dollar figure. It earns its place by making the Top Tier look like the sensible step, not by being what you want to sell.

If you pass voice usage through, price the minutes as their own line so a busy month doesn't eat the margin. How to charge clients for AI voice minutes walks through three ways to do it.

Which tier should you lead with?

The top one. Two reasons.

First, it earns the most dollars per client. $1,135 a month beats $485 by more than double, and the work you do to close the deal is nearly the same.

Second, it matches what the prospect just experienced. If they opened your live demo and talked to the receptionist, voice is the thing they remember. A pitch that starts with the version without voice asks them to forget the best part of your demo.

Then step down in order. Top Tier, then Tier Two, then Tier One, with one sentence on what each loses. Don't hide the cheapest one. A prospect who can't find the cheap option will invent it, usually as "can you do it for half."

What are buyers comparing you to?

Not each other. They are comparing you to the answering tools they have already seen advertised.

Goodcall lists plans at $79, $129 and $299 a month, priced by unique customers per month. Smith.ai's AI receptionist starts at $150 a month on its Pro plan and $500 on Enterprise, priced by included calls. Those are the numbers a prospect finds in ten minutes of searching, and your $1,700 sits above all of them.

That gap is only defensible if you are selling something different, and you have to say so out loud. Those prices are for a phone product. You are selling a built system for their business: the site, the chatbot, booking, follow-up, the voice line, and someone who stays accountable when it misfires. If your pitch is only "an AI answers your phone," the $79 plan wins and it should.

Who should not get three tiers?

Three groups. I would rather you skip the tiers than force them on these.

The prospect who only wants calls answered. If that is the whole need, a $79 to $150 tool is the fair comparison and you will probably lose on price. Either sell a single service on its own, which our guide lists from $100 setup and $15 a month, or let them go to the tool. Don't stretch Top Tier over a need that small.

The agency with no demo. Tiers are a closing tool. If you can't show anything, you are describing three invisible products. Build the demo first.

The client in a thin-margin trade with no clear missed-revenue number. A tier you can't connect to a recovered job or booking is just a bigger invoice. In that case, pick the one tier that fits their numbers and quote it.

How do you present the tiers on the call?

Keep it to a short sequence.

1. Run their numbers first: average ticket, calls missed, close rate. The demo's ROI slider exists for this.
2. Say the Top Tier price, then what it does that the others don't.
3. Step down once, to Tier Two, and say what drops out.
4. Mention Tier One last and plainly.
5. Stop talking. The first person to speak after the price usually loses the point.

Before the call, write all three retail prices on one line of paper. Walking into a pricing conversation unsure of your own number is how a $1,700 pitch slides toward a discount.

FAQ

Should I charge a setup fee on each tier? That depends on your cash position. Wholesale setup is a real cost to you, and the guides above run up to $1,400. Charging nothing upfront shortens the sale but stretches your payback to the second or third invoice. We cover the tradeoff in should you charge a build fee.

Should I show prices on my website? You can, but prices that differ by trade and by call volume are better quoted live. A public price list hands your competitor a number and removes the demo's role in the sale.

What if the client picks Tier One every time? Check whether you are describing Top Tier as an add-on instead of the default. If you are, change the order. If you aren't, the market may be telling you your Top Tier price is too high for that trade. Test one trade at a time.

Can I change tiers later? Yes in principle, and you should plan for upgrades. A client who starts at Tier One and gets results is your easiest sale. Confirm the process for ordering changes with your onboarding contact before you promise a date.

What to do next

Pick one trade you plan to sell into this week and write three retail prices for it, using the high end of the wholesale ranges. Then open the pricing section, check the current guides against your numbers, and start your account so the 30-minute pricing call has a real client attached to it.