I’m offering a personalized email automation service and want a performance‑based price tied to the number of clients my system delivers, based on each client’s LTV. If LTV is $1,000, I’d charge 20% at close. Is that logical? Should I charge at close, or use another milestone like meeting booked or positive reply? What value definer (LTV, average order value) works best, and why?

I’d recommend charging based on meetings booked rather than on closed clients, because you don’t control whether a deal closes—you only control generating the opportunity. If you tied payment to closed clients and sent leads to someone who can’t close, you’d do all the work and get nothing. Meetings booked are further up the buying chain, so you can’t charge as much per meeting, but you can still charge something. In my experience I charged about $98 per sales call for most industries, with some high‑value deals going up to $300 per call; on average it’s around $100 per call. For the value definer, just pick one—average order value works well, or LTV—and be consistent. To track milestones, hook into their meeting‑booked system with a simple webhook that sends you a notice whenever a meeting is booked, and make sure you have access to their Instantly account to set this up. If you’re building the system and handing it off, I suggest you nurture the opportunity, generate it, talk to it, and let the client see only the booked meeting at the end—this is containerizing/packaging/productizing your service. From the client’s perspective they give you money and you give them roughly five times that back.