How to tell a customer the price went up

You've been quoting the same figure for two years. Materials have gone up, your van costs more to run, and the last three jobs at that price left you working for something close to nothing. You know the number has to change. What you don't know is how to say it to the woman who's had you out every spring since 2019.

So you put it off. You do one more job at the old rate, feel quietly resentful for a fortnight, and the conversation gets harder rather than easier. That delay is the actual problem here — not the increase, and not the customer's reaction, which is almost always milder than the version you've rehearsed.

People expect prices to rise; they don't expect surprises

Everybody has watched the cost of everything go up. Nobody is genuinely shocked that a tradesperson charges more than they did three years ago.

What does upset people is finding out at the wrong moment. On the invoice. Halfway through the job. When they'd already told their partner what it would cost.

That's worth holding on to, because it tells you what the conversation actually has to achieve. You're not persuading them the new price is fair. You're making sure they hear it early enough to decide without feeling cornered.

Say it before the work, in writing, with a date

The best version of this conversation happens well before anyone needs anything done.

Hi Margaret — just to let you know my prices are going up from the first of April. The spring tidy will be £180 rather than £160. Everything else stays the same and I'll still be out around the same time as usual.

Three lines. A date, a number, and a reassurance about what isn't changing. Sent by message so there's a record, and so they can react privately rather than having to produce a face in front of you.

Sending it early does something else too. It signals that you run an organised business, which is quietly worth more than the increase itself.

One reason, or none

Give one short reason, or give none at all. What you must not do is give four, because a stack of justifications reads like somebody who doesn't believe their own price.

"Materials and fuel have both gone up a fair bit since I last changed them" is plenty. So is nothing — plenty of businesses simply announce a new price list and nobody blinks.

Never say "I'm sorry". You've raised a price, which every business does. An apology invites a negotiation by suggesting you're not sure about it.

And never blame a specific supplier or explain your own finances. It makes the price feel like a temporary problem that might go away, which is exactly what you don't want them thinking.

Round numbers, whole increases

Small, apologetic increases are a trap. Going from £160 to £165 gets you five pounds, uses up the whole awkward conversation, and means you'll be doing it again in eight months.

If your price needs to go up, take it to where it should be. Most owners undercharge and then undercorrect, which is how people end up having this conversation three times in two years instead of once.

Whole numbers also read better. £180 sounds like a price. £177.50 sounds like a calculation, and invites one back.

Give loyal customers something, not a discount

There's a real temptation to keep old customers on the old rate. Resist it, because you'll end up running two price lists and quietly resenting your best people.

What works instead is a timing gesture rather than a money one. Tell them first, before anyone else. Hold the old price for anything already booked. Give them a longer run-up — "it changes in April, so if you want the spring one done in March that's still the old rate."

That costs you very little and reads as being looked after, which is what loyalty actually wants. A permanent special rate reads as charity, and it's awkward for both of you within a year.

Expect a handful to go, and mean it

Some people will leave. Usually fewer than you fear, and usually the ones who were already the least profitable and the most work.

Do the arithmetic before you decide that's a disaster. If you've got twenty customers at £160 and you go to £180, you can lose two and still be ahead — and you've got two fewer jobs to fit in. That is the whole reason to do this.

If somebody says it's too much, don't fold. "I understand, and no hard feelings at all" is the right answer. Reversing an increase for one person means you'll be doing it for everyone within a month.

Where the price actually lives

Here's the bit that makes all of this easier next time. The reason a price rise feels like a series of difficult conversations is that your prices are stored in your head and communicated one customer at a time, on the phone, from memory.

If your rates are written down and published somewhere, an increase is an edit rather than an announcement. New enquiries see the new number and never know there was an old one. Existing customers get one short message. The whole thing stops being a performance.

That's part of what we built hailera for — you write your prices and the conditions around them once, check them yourself, and publish them as an agent so your website and the AI apps people ask are giving out the current figure rather than one you quoted in 2023. A page on your own site with "from" prices does much of that for nothing, so if you haven't got one, that's the first step and it makes the next rise easier.

Do it once a year, on a date

The single best habit here is to stop treating this as an event. Pick a month, review your prices in it every year, and tell people in the same way each time.

Customers get used to it. You stop dreading it. And you never again find yourself two years behind, doing jobs at a rate that made sense when the van was newer.

Today: work out what one regular job actually earns you per hour once travel and materials are out. If it's below what you'd accept from a new customer, you already know what the message says.

Written by the team at hailera — we help small businesses answer customer questions without being there.