What's scope abuse? Sounds like when you add features to the project and charge more without approval from your clients.

My language was vague, but I didn't mean to imply that you charge current clients more, just charge new clients more.

It struck me as odd that you'd have to tie any price increase to an increase in your costs. If Lexus wants to start charing more for their cars they don't need to think of ways to use more steel. They just charge more and justify it however their marketers think is best.

If you sell developer-hours instead of products why not just charge more per developer-hour?

Here's an example from my field, software security:

"Oh, you want this application tested? Well, first you want a 2-person, 2-week threat modeling project where we give you a report on your attack surface, then you want a 3-person 4-week testing project, and if that turns anything up, you'll absolutely want a 1-person 3-month deep code review."

Here's an example from web design:

"Oh, you want a website for your new product? Well, first you'll want us to study the market for a week. Then you'll want a wireframing project so we can agree on what we're going to build; that's going to take 2 weeks. Then we'll spend 2 weeks on design and get you some comps to look at; if you want changes, we can do another week of that. Oh, you want HTML? Sure, we'll add on 3 weeks of coding."

I'm sure that some witness to software consulting could provide you with a story that fits this thread more directly.

Why not do X or why not do Y? Obviously, you're not a golfer. They do it to make money, without alerting the client to the fact that they're simply ratcheting up the dollar cost of the whole project.

So scope abuse is when you sell each component of a project separately and tell the client that they might not need some components even though every component is required for a complete project?

I can see why it's unethical to deceive the client about what components they will actually end up needing. I can see how you'd make money by luring clients in with cheap prices up-front then once they are locked-in charging more for the things they will inevitably need but didn't pay for already.

How does that relate to how you, as an ethical consultant, could raise your prices without raising your costs.

Are you saying that the only way you could raise your prices without raising your costs would be through scope abuse?

No, the opposite; it's when you break a project into component parts, inflate the effort required for each part, and convince the client they need to buy all of them. "Rustproofing" is another term for it.