> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.kordless.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Design your pricing with guidance

> Start a Book when no price book exists yet — answer questions about your work and review a proposed first model.

Start a Book when you have no price book yet. Kordless guides you through a consequence-driven interview about what you sell and how the work behaves, then composes your answers into a structured draft you can review, calibrate, verify, and publish.

## Before you start

* A workspace with an active Test environment (your first Book always starts in Test)
* No existing price book is required — this method exists for businesses that are pricing for the first time

## Steps

<Steps>
  <Step title="Open the Book start screen">
    From the Book overview, select **Start your Book** (or **Add pricing** if a draft already exists). The start screen asks: **How would you like to start your pricing?**
  </Step>

  <Step title="Choose Help me design my pricing">
    Selecting this method navigates to a dedicated guided-setup page — it is not a chatbot and not an empty catalog editor.

    The guided interview asks the smallest set of consequential questions in ordered sections.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Answer: What do you sell?">
    List the services you offer, one per line. This becomes the shape of your Book. This section is required.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Answer: How do you set the price?">
    For each service, describe how you decide the price and state a typical amount. Include any minimum charge.

    Within this section, an optional **Work out a price from your costs** helper lets you enter materials, labor time, labor rate, other costs, minimum charge, target margin, or a price you have in mind. It calculates a break-even floor and a target with visible derivation. You can insert the calculation into your answer or save the numbers as economic assumptions for the Book.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Answer: What changes the price?">
    Describe the details that move the price up or down — vehicle size, condition, add-ons, or any factor that changes what you charge. Kordless turns these into the questions a quote asks.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Answer: What won't you quote automatically?">
    List work you would rather price in person — full repaints, commercial fleets, accident damage. Kordless routes these to you instead of guessing.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Submit">
    Submit your answers. Kordless composes them into one structured explanation, provisions your first Book workspace, ingests the explanation as an interview source, and schedules extraction.

    You land on the Book overview, which shows "Extracting" while Kordless drafts the Book.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## The economics helper

Within the pricing section, the economics helper lets you work out a price from your costs. It accepts:

* **Materials** — what the job costs you in materials
* **Labor time** — minutes of labor
* **Labor rate** — your hourly rate
* **Other costs** — any additional cost
* **Minimum charge** — the lowest price you will accept
* **Target margin** — the percentage above your costs you want to earn
* **A price you have in mind** — an owner-stated target that overrides the margin

The helper calculates and shows:

* A **break-even floor** from your costs
* A **target** from your margin or your stated price
* **Assumptions** that went into each number
* **Sensitivity** — how the target changes when a key assumption moves

<Note>
  The economics helper distinguishes four value types. They are structurally distinct, and none of them is an authorized price:

  * **Calculated floor** — from your cost and capacity inputs
  * **Owner target** — the price you stated you want to charge
  * **Evidence-derived proposal** — from your stated assumptions
  * **Kordless suggestion** — clearly labeled, not authorized
</Note>

Each calculation carries a provenance chip — **From your numbers** for calculated values, **You told us** for an owner-stated target, or **Suggested** for a Kordless proposal — so an unverified suggestion is never styled like an authorized price.

### Drafting a pricing rule

After saving your economic numbers, you can draft a pricing rule. Choose from five structures:

| Structure                   | What it means                                         |
| --------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------- |
| One fixed price             | The same price every time the details match           |
| A base price plus extras    | The base covers your costs; extras stack on top       |
| A price range               | From your break-even floor up to your target          |
| Hourly with a minimum       | Your hourly rate, never below the minimum             |
| I review every quote myself | No number is drafted — every quote comes to you first |

Drafting a rule creates an unverified proposed Statement on your Book draft. Nothing can quote from it until you verify it through [Verify Statements](/product/book/verify).

## What Kordless produces

Kordless composes your answers into a structured draft: services, rules, factors, tables, and policies. Each rule shows its derivation on demand. Calculated values carry **From your numbers** provenance; owner-stated values carry **You told us**; any Kordless suggestion carries **Suggested**.

## What remains unverified

<Warning>
  Completing the guided flow is not evidence that the model is commercially correct. You must still verify every material rule through [Verify Statements](/product/book/verify) before the Book can publish.
</Warning>

Every proposed value — whether calculated, owner-stated, or suggested — remains unverified until you explicitly verify it. No suggested or calculated value becomes an authorized rule without your explicit action.

## Combining with other methods

You can add sources from other starting methods to the same Book later. For example, complete the guided setup, then import a spreadsheet to fill in specific prices.

## If it does not work

<Accordion>
  <AccordionItem title="Cannot save economic numbers">
    If saving your economic numbers fails, check that you have entered at least one cost input (materials, labor, other costs, or minimum charge). The floor calculation requires at least one of these.
  </AccordionItem>

  <AccordionItem title="Cannot draft a pricing rule">
    To draft a rule, name the service it applies to and save your economic numbers first. If you chose "I review every quote myself," no saved numbers are required — the rule simply routes every quote to you.
  </AccordionItem>

  <AccordionItem title="Permission-limited member">
    If you are a member without administrator access, you can view the Book but cannot start a new one. Ask a workspace administrator to create the first Book or grant you the necessary role.
  </AccordionItem>
</Accordion>

## Next

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Review the draft" icon="file-text" href="/product/book/review-draft">
    Inspect the constructed Book draft and correct meaning.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Calibrate scenarios" icon="flask-conical" href="/product/book/calibrate">
    Test the Book against representative and boundary cases.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>