The Price Increase Playbook

Your rates are behind your costs, and the gap comes out of your pay. This guide gives you the order to do a price increase in: how to rank your clients before you touch a number, how to set the new rate from your real costs, how much notice to give, the exact four-sentence message, which clients get a phone call first, and what to say to the two objections you will actually get. Work through it over about a week. The writing takes an afternoon; the list takes longer than you think.

1. Build the client list before you pick a number

Open a spreadsheet. One row per active client. Columns: name, what they pay, what they pay it for, roughly how many hours a month they take, how they pay (card, transfer, check, net-30, always late), and the date their agreement or season renews if there is one.