Ask HN: Approach to pricing? Launching for the first time to targeted users

I'm a longtime lurker - consistent advice seems to be that one should 1) identify a need 2) build an MVP 3) reach out for feedback from users 4) iterate from there

I'm done step 1 & 2, and fine with step 4. I thought I would be okay with step 3 but I find myself with alot of questions related to pricing. Background information: my app is targeted for a specific market of users. It started off as a sideproject to build my portfolio but now I want to monetize it if possible.

My questions boil down to: how do you ask your potential customers how much they will spend for your software? I don’t have a problem negotiating once I’m in the middle of it but I don’t know how to start it; after they try it out and like it, do you just ask them how much their budget is and negotiate an agreeable price from there? Or is it better to have a pricing plan set up ahead of time? The problem with the latter is that I can come up with tiers but wouldn’t know what’s a realistic price for each; I don’t want to lowball myself with something too low and I don’t want to insult them either with something too high. I realize the best answer would be to just straight up ask before even embarking on coding...

Any answers or anecdotes of first time sales that address these questions would be really helpful. (I've tried to keep my questions as general as possible so that any other newbies in a similar situation can benefit). Thank you.