Almost nobody in this industry publishes on price, which is itself a positioning decision and mostly a bad one. So, plainly.
What moves the number. Four things, in order of impact. How many decision makers have to agree. How many markets or business units the position has to hold across. How much primary research you need, meaning interviews with real customers and real non-customers rather than a desk review. And whether you are deciding a position or repairing one, because repair carries the extra cost of unwinding what is already in market.
Note that none of those is time in the abstract. The thinking does not take longer for a large company. The agreeing does.
What the market charges. Strategy-only positioning work from a credible independent studio in the UK generally runs from the low tens of thousands for a single-market, founder-led business, to the mid six figures for a group with multiple brands and international complexity. Network agency rates sit above that, usually because you are funding an account team and an office rather than more thinking. Freelance consultants sit below it, sometimes excellently.
If someone quotes you five thousand pounds for positioning, you are buying a workshop and a template. That can genuinely be enough for a small business with one owner and one product, and I would rather say so than pretend otherwise.
Where the money actually goes. In our work, roughly: a third into evidence, a third into the decision itself, a third into making it usable. Clients consistently underestimate the last third and it is the one that determines whether any of it survives. A position that nobody can apply on a Tuesday afternoon is a position that expires.
What it is worth, honestly. The uncomfortable answer is that positioning does not generate return on its own. It changes the yield on everything else you spend. The same media budget, the same sales team, the same product, against a clear position, converts differently. So the return shows up as improved performance in other lines, which is inconvenient for attribution and is why finance directors are sceptical, often reasonably.
Where I would look for the value, in order of how quickly it appears: win rate on competitive pitches, because clarity beats familiarity in a shortlist. Then price realisation, because discounting is what you do when you cannot justify the number. Then cost of acquisition, because well-positioned brands are cheaper to explain, and explaining is most of what media spend pays for. Then recruitment, then retention.
When not to spend it. If your product is broken, positioning will accelerate the discovery. If you have no capital to act on the decision, do not make it yet, because a position you cannot fund is just a source of internal frustration. And if the business is about to be sold in under a year, the buyer will reposition it anyway.
That is the honest shape of it.