How to tell clients you're raising prices: one email, one date, no apology

Google autocomplete offers "how to tell clients you're raising prices", then "sample", then "price increase letter to clients template".

So people want the email.

The email is the easiest part. I can give you one at the bottom of this post, and you can change three words and send it.

Here is the complication. The email only works if the decision behind it is finished. Most price rises go wrong before anything is written: someone sends a number they half believe, a client pushes once, and the agency folds. Now the client has learned that your prices are an opening offer.

So the order matters more than the wording.

Step 1: Decide the number on the work, not on the nerve

Write down what the work costs you to deliver today. Team hours, tools, revisions, the calls nobody bills for.

Then compare it with what the client pays.

If the gap is margin you are happy with, you do not need a price rise. You need more clients at this price.

If the gap is thin, or negative, the number you need is the one that fixes it. Not the one that feels safe to say.

I wrote about where agency margin comes from before. A price rise is usually that problem showing up late.

Step 2: Read the contract before you write a word

Your agreement may have a notice period for price changes. It may lock a rate for a term. It may say nothing.

Whatever it says, that is your floor.

If it says nothing, give at least one full billing cycle of notice. The client should see the new price before the invoice that carries it, never on it.

And if a rate is locked for a term, honour it. Raise it at renewal. Breaking a fixed rate to fix your margin trades a pricing problem for a trust problem.

Step 3: Raise it for everyone on the same date

This is the contrarian bit. Do not negotiate it client by client.

Pick one date. Every client on that service moves to the new price on that date, or at their next renewal if a term locks them.

Why? Because the moment two clients pay different prices for the same work, you have a secret to keep. Clients talk. Your team sees invoices. And the client who pushed hardest ends up paying least, which rewards exactly the behaviour you do not want.

New clients pay the new price from today. That part is easy.

Step 4: Give one reason, and make it about the work

One sentence. Two at most.

Good reasons are true and boring. The work takes more hours than it did. The team is paid more. The scope grew and the price did not.

Bad reasons are the ones that invite a debate. Inflation statistics. What competitors charge. How hard the year was.

And no apology. "Sorry, but" turns the new price into a favour you are asking for. Thank them for the work so far. State the change. Stop.

Step 5: Decide what happens if they say no

Before you send it, write down your answer to "we can't do that".

There are only three honest options.

1. The price stands, and you help them move on by the agreed date with a full handover.
2. You offer less scope at the old price. Fewer posts, fewer revisions, no calls.
3. You keep them at the old price for the same work.

Option 3 is the one to avoid. Every other client is paying the new rate.

If you would be relieved to lose this client, option 1 is not a threat. It is the plan. I covered how to end a client relationship properly separately, and the handover steps are the same.

If you would be upset to lose them, option 2 is your real offer. Say it on the call, not in the first email.

When not to raise it

Three cases where the rise should wait.

When the work is late or the last month went badly. A price rise straight after a missed deadline reads as a penalty for complaining. Fix the delivery first, then raise it once the client would say the work is good.

When you are about to change the scope anyway. Do both at once, in one email, so the client sees one new arrangement instead of two changes in a month.

When you have not raised new-client prices yet. If people signing today still get the old rate, your existing clients will hear about it.

Step 6: Send it, then offer a call

The email goes first, so the client has the facts in writing. Then offer fifteen minutes for questions.

Do not argue in the thread. Email debates harden. Calls resolve.

Here is a sample. Change the bracketed bits.

Subject: Your [service] pricing from [date]

Hi [name],

Thank you for the last [period] of work together. I wanted to give you plenty of notice of a change.

From [date], [service] will be [new price] per [month or project]. Everything in your current scope stays the same.

The reason is simple: the work now takes more hours than when we set the original price, and I would rather price it honestly than cut corners on it.

Your next invoice at the current rate is [date]. The first at the new rate is [date].

If you want to talk it through, I am happy to do a fifteen-minute call this week.

[your name]

Notice what is not there. No apology. No list of rising costs. No "if that's okay".

The public price question

A price rise is easier when the price is written down somewhere.

VALORAE Media prints its Full Page tier publicly, and Media's piece on listed prices against quotes, with Full Page at $2,000 to $3,500 a month, walks through how a listed price and a quote compare. A listed price changes on a page, for everyone, on a date. A quote changes in a private conversation, one client at a time, which is exactly what Step 3 warns against.

Not every service can list a price. Arc prints none, because every campaign is scoped on a call. But where a service is the same for everyone, writing the price down makes the next rise a page edit instead of a negotiation.

The short version

• Decide the new price from what the work costs to deliver, not from what feels safe.
• Read the contract. Honour locked rates until renewal.
• Give at least one full billing cycle of notice.
• Move every client on the same date. No private deals.
• One plain reason. No apology.
• Decide what happens if they say no before you send anything.
• Email first, then offer a short call.

I write these notes on running agencies at tgsidd.com.