Painless Pricing by The Futur

The Futur Painless Pricing is an online video course by Chris Do about how creative businesses price and bid on their work. Across 26 videos it explains three types of bid (input, output and value), how to set a minimum engagement, how to plan a bidding strategy and how to find your break-even point. It comes with pricing guidelines and templates, example bids, homework and a bonus. At $1,499 it is the most expensive course in The Futur's catalogue, and it is aimed squarely at established agency owners rather than beginners.

Most of The Futur's business courses are pitched at freelancers who are just starting to charge for their work. The Futur Painless Pricing assumes you already run an agency or studio, already have clients and already send out proposals. The question it tries to answer is not "what should I charge for a logo?" but "how do I structure bids so the business stays profitable and the right clients say yes?"

What You Will Learn

The course focuses on the mechanics of bidding and the thinking behind each type of price.

• The difference between input, output and value bids, and when each makes sense
• How to set a minimum engagement so small jobs do not drain the studio
• How to build a bidding strategy rather than pricing each project from scratch
• How to work out your break-even point and use it as a floor for quotes
• How to use the supplied pricing guidelines and templates in your own proposals
• How real bids are put together, through the example bids included with the course

Who Is The Futur Painless Pricing For?

The official page lists the level as moderate to advanced, with being an established agency owner as the prerequisite. In practice that means studio founders, creative directors who run their own shop and partners in small agencies who already have a steady flow of enquiries.

It is not a good first purchase for students, new freelancers or anyone still building a portfolio. If you have not yet sent many proposals, the cheaper courses on negotiation, portfolio building or managing money will be more useful for the price, and you can come back to pricing once you have real numbers to work with.

Course Structure

The course is delivered as 26 videos, together with practical material to apply the ideas to your own business:

• Bid types: input, output and value bids explained and compared
• Minimum engagement: setting a lower limit on the work you take on
• Bidding strategy: a repeatable approach to quoting
• Break-even point: knowing the number below which a job loses money
• Pricing guidelines and templates: tools for writing your own bids
• Example bids: worked examples to study
• Homework and bonus: exercises to put the lessons into practice

The official page does not give a total running time, so check it if you want to plan your viewing schedule.

Price and Access

The Futur Painless Pricing costs $1,499 as a one-time purchase on The Futur's website. That makes it by some distance the most expensive course the company sells; most of its other courses are priced between about $59 and $299, and Positioning & Lead Generation sits at $699. The price reflects the audience: for an agency, one better-priced project could cover the cost.

The facts we checked do not state the access period or refund terms, so read the official page before buying.

About the Instructor

Chris Do is an Emmy award-winning director, designer, strategist and educator, and the founder and CEO of The Futur. He teaches several of the platform's design and business courses, including Typography 01, Logo Design 01, Stylescapes and Positioning & Lead Generation.

Things to Consider

• Fit: this is for agency owners with an existing client base; the price only makes sense if you quote regularly.
• Bring your numbers: the break-even and minimum engagement lessons work best if you know your monthly costs and recent project fees.
• Pair it with positioning: Positioning & Lead Generation, also by Chris Do and also for established agency owners, deals with who you sell to; this course deals with how you charge them.
• Negotiation: if your trouble is holding your price in conversation, How To Negotiate is a cheaper course aimed at that specific problem.
• Do the homework: the value comes from rewriting your own bids with the templates, not from watching the videos alone.
• Check the page: confirm the current price, access terms and what the bonus contains on the official course page before you buy.

Start the Course

Interested in learning with The Futur?

Start Painless Pricing

For the full syllabus and pricing, visit the official The Futur website.

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Last verified: November 9, 2026