Your Value Is Not Your Timesheet

1 December 2025 Reading Time: 5 minutes

Neville Hobson, ABC:

AI is quietly dismantling the logic of billing by the hour. For communication consultants, the real test is whether your pricing reflects what clients actually buy from you – judgement, authority and outcomes – not how long the work takes.

AI has not killed the communication consultant. It has killed the logic of the billable hour. For decades, consultants and agencies sold time: hourly fees, day rates, retainers built from timesheets. It felt neat and auditable when research, drafting, monitoring and reporting took hours or days. Now, AI can complete tasks in minutes that once required a week of effort.

If your pricing is still tied to the clock, it is no longer telling the truth about your value. And clients have an obvious question: if AI makes you faster and better, why are they still paying for all those hours¹?

This is not about discounts. It is about alignment. In an AI enabled world, communication consultants must decide what they actually sell: time or outcomes. Those who lead will stop charging for hours and start pricing for value – the results, insights, and risk management they deliver as strategic partners.

Why the billable hour collapses under AI

The billable hour has always had flaws. It rewards activity over impact and reduces judgement to a spreadsheet line. AI exposes those flaws.

First, it punishes efficiency. AI compresses media monitoring, coverage analysis, briefings, and first-draft content. If fees depend on time, every efficiency gain looks like lost revenue.

Second, it commoditises expertise. When your offer is “X per hour”, you invite comparison with anyone who charges less – including AI-assisted operators who can generate adequate outputs quickly. You make it harder to see the distinctive value of your experience and counsel.

Third, it erodes trust. As clients become more AI literate, line items such as eight hours for monitoring or two days for a draft attract scrutiny. If your process changes but your pricing story does not, suspicion follows.

Recent research from the Financial Times² on how AI is reshaping professional services reinforces this shift: nearly two-thirds of businesses say AI has improved the speed of analysing client data, more than half say clients now expect faster delivery, and half say clients expect more value from strategic advice.

In that environment, the FT report concludes that the billable hour is no longer always an accurate measure of value or expertise when technology changes how work is done.

Across PR and other professional services, AI-driven efficiency is already pushing firms towards hybrid, outcome-based models that more directly link fees to value³. Communication advisory work will not be an exception.

Clients are not buying less – they are buying differently

Senior leaders are under pressure to move faster, anticipate issues, use AI responsibly and protect their reputation. They expect advisers who:

• use AI to scan signals and surface insights
• bring sharper, data-informed recommendations
• help avoid ethical, legal and reputational missteps

They are not demanding a race to the bottom. They are demanding clarity on what they get for what they pay.

The FT’s findings echo this: firms report that clients are becoming more interested in alternative fee arrangements, such as a fixed fee or monthly subscription, rather than the traditional bill-by-the-hour relationship, as AI allows them to deliver work faster and more efficiently.

Clinging to billable hours in this context sends three unhelpful signals: that you are selling labour just as labour is being automated; that you price inputs while they buy outcomes; and that you are slow to adapt to the technology you talk about.

Value-based pricing, done with integrity, answers the question many of them are already asking: if you help us navigate bigger risks and decisions, price the impact, not just the time.

What value-based pricing looks like in practice

Value-based pricing is not a vague success fee. It is a way to align what clients pay with the significance of the problem you help to solve.

For communication consultants, that includes:

• Reputation and risk – crisis readiness and counsel that reduce potential damage when something breaks.
• Stakeholder trust and alignment – messaging and engagement that support strategy and reduce friction.
• Leadership visibility and credibility – positioning leaders where tone and transparency have real cost.
• AI and communication governance – policies and training that prevent careless use of generative AI from undermining trust.

These are high-leverage interventions that affect the licence to operate. They should not be reduced to hours multiplied by a rate.

Here, the FT report is useful because it suggests a more straightforward way to define value in an AI enabled environment. Firms are urged to look beyond narrow activity metrics to questions such as: are you doing more with less; are you bringing in more revenue while charging clients less; and are you differentiating through proprietary insight and tailored strategic advice when generic information is everywhere.

Translated for communication consultants, value has at least four lenses:

• Strategic outcomes – influence on decisions, behaviour, policy, or culture.
• Risk reduction – crises averted or softened, misinformation contained, regulatory trouble avoided.
• Efficiency and capacity – using AI so clients get better, faster support without paying for waste.
• Distinctive insight – sector fluency, stakeholder understanding and narrative judgement that generic tools cannot replicate.

AI strengthens this case. When tools handle volume and speed, your differentiator is how you interpret, challenge and guide. Once machines outperform humans on the tasks sold by the hour, the credible response is to price what remains distinctly human: judgement, context and integrity.

From implementer to curator, strategist and ethical guide

AI is not a threat to serious professionals; it is a spotlight⁴. It reveals who was only selling implementation.

The consultants who thrive will embrace three roles:

• Curator – identifying robust AI tools, integrating them into workflows, explaining capabilities and limits.
• Strategist – turning noisy data into decisions: where to engage, what to say, when to pause.
• Ethical guide – guarding accuracy and fairness so that AI use in communication strengthens trust, not weakens it.

This aligns directly with the FT report’s wider conclusion that, in an age of instant information, proprietary insights and trusted, contextual advice become a primary source of value, and that institutional knowledge and human interpretation are more valuable than speed alone for informed decision-making.

Pricing on value signals that clients are buying this stewardship, not just extra hands.

How to start the shift

You do not need to flip your hourly billing model overnight. Four practical steps can move you in the right direction.

1. Audit where AI is already changing the work
   Identify services where automation has reduced effort or increased quality. These are pressure points where time-based pricing makes the least sense.
2. Define three or four signature value propositions
   Use language leaders recognise, such as “reputation and resilience partner,” “AI-ready communication governance,” or “leadership trust and transparency.”
3. Repackage one or two offers as value-based pilots
   With trusted clients, agree on stakes and desired outcomes. Set a fixed or tiered fee aligned to that value, with a clear scope. Evidence from other advisory sectors, including those highlighted in the FT research, suggests clients often welcome such clarity and predictability.
4. Capture evidence
   Document results and testimonials. Use these to refine your pricing and show hesitant clients the benefits of a model that aligns your incentives with theirs.

Conclusion: price what leaders cannot outsource

AI will keep improving the mechanics of communication, making them faster and cheaper. Let it.

What leaders cannot outsource to algorithms and machines – and what must be priced accordingly – is the ability to discern which signals matter, to advise honestly when it is uncomfortable, to connect communication with strategy and values, and to ensure AI is used in ways that enhance trust.

Clinging to hourly billing ties your value to the part AI is already automating. Moving to value-based pricing aligns your fees with what forward-looking clients actually need: a curator, strategist and ethical guide who can navigate AI-driven change while keeping human insight at the core.

That is the opportunity. The question is whether we take it.

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¹ AI and the End of Billable Hours – https://www.nevillehobson.io/ai-and-the-end-of-billable-hours/

² Trust Issues: Why Authority Beats Speed in the Age of AI – https://www.ragan.com/white-papers/trust-issues-why-authority-beats-speed-in-the-age-of-ai/

³ Clients increasingly expect consultants to be AI-powered, but also believe pricing must adapt – https://www.consultancy.uk/news/38655/clients-increasingly-expect-consultants-to-be-ai-powered-but-also-believe-pricing-must-adapt

⁴ Price model shifts in the age of AI – https://www.simon-kucher.com/en/insights/price-model-shifts-age-ai

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Neville Hobson, ABC, is an independent communication professional focused on purposeful leadership, ethical AI, and human-centred communication.

Written by: Editor