{"course":{"slug":"independent-creative","title":"Working for Yourself","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/independent-creative","level":"intermediate","track":"create"},"lesson":{"slug":"raising-your-prices","title":"The increase nobody will offer you","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/independent-creative/raising-your-prices","position":36,"of":84,"minutes":9,"answer":"For new clients an increase is not an event (you quote the new number) and for existing ones it is a dated notification six to eight weeks ahead that does not apply to work already.","keyIdea":"For new clients an increase is not an event (you quote the new number) and for existing ones it is a dated notification six to eight weeks ahead that does not apply to work already quoted, kept short because a long justification invites negotiation."},"body":{"format":"markdown","text":"## The number that stopped moving\n\nMost independent creatives set a rate early, out of anxiety, and then keep it for years. The work gets better, the process gets faster, the market moves, the cost of living rises, and the number stays where a frightened beginner put it.\n\nThis does not correct itself. Nobody offers you more money. Clients who like you have no incentive to raise your rate, and the ones who would happily pay more never learn that you undercharge, because the figure they were given is the figure they assume.\n\nSo the increase has to be a decision with a date, and the two cases (new clients and existing ones) are completely different problems.\n\n## New clients: just change the number\n\nFor anybody you have not worked with, raising your price is not an event. There is no conversation, no announcement, no justification. You quote the new figure to the next enquiry.\n\nThe only difficulty is internal. The first few times you say a higher number you will feel it is too much, and you will be watching for a reaction that usually does not come, because the person on the other end has no idea what you charged last month.\n\nTwo observations that help. Your win rate should fall a little after an increase: if you are still winning nearly everything, the rise was too small. And the enquiries you lose at a higher rate are disproportionately the ones that would have been difficult, because price-sensitivity and demandingness correlate more often than not.\n\n## Existing clients: the mechanics that work\n\nThis is the part people dread, and there is a shape that makes it survivable.\n\n**Give notice, with a date.** Not \"I'm thinking of raising my rates\". A specific change from a specific month, sent six to eight weeks in advance. Notice is what converts it from a demand into a business fact they can plan around, and it lets anybody with a budget cycle handle it properly.\n\n**Apply it to new work, not to work already quoted.** Anything already agreed completes at the agreed price. This costs you little and removes the main source of grievance.\n\n**Keep the message short and do not over-explain.** Long justifications invite negotiation and sound apologetic. Compare:\n\n> \"From 1 April my project rates increase by about 15%. Anything we have already agreed is unaffected, and I wanted to give you plenty of notice. I have enjoyed this year's work and hope we keep going.\"\n\nagainst a paragraph about inflation, studio costs and experience gained. The first is a professional notification. The second is a request for permission.\n\n**Do not apologise, and do not ask.** \"I hope that's OK\" turns a decision into a negotiation you did not need to open.\n\n## Sizing it\n\nSmall, frequent increases are easier to absorb than rare large ones, for both sides. A rise in the range of ten to twenty per cent, once a year, is normal and rarely contested. A 60% jump after four years of no movement is arithmetically justified and will still feel like a different relationship to the client, because it is.\n\nIf you are badly underpriced, which is common after a few years of no increases, you may need a step change with some clients and you should expect to lose some of them. Plan for that before you send it, not after: know which clients you can afford to lose, and have the outreach running before the date.\n\n## What happens next\n\nThree outcomes, in roughly descending order of frequency.\n\n**Nothing.** Most clients accept it without comment. This is the most common result and it surprises people every time.\n\n**A conversation about scope.** \"We can't go to that. Could we reduce what you do?\" This is a good outcome. Reduce the scope to match the budget, which keeps your rate intact.\n\n**They leave.** Some will, and a proportion of those were the least profitable. Losing the bottom of your client list when you raise prices is the mechanism working, not failing. What should worry you is losing the top.\n\n## The clients you cannot raise\n\nSometimes there is a genuine constraint: a small charity, a friend's business, an arrangement you value for reasons other than money. Keeping a deliberate exception is fine, as long as it is **deliberate, named and bounded**: \"I am doing this at below my rate because I want to, and it is one client, not five.\"\n\nWhat corrodes a business is the undeclared exception: several clients, each individually justified, quietly forming the majority of the work.\n\n## Raising the floor instead of the rate\n\nThere is a second lever people forget: the minimum project size. Even at an unchanged rate, refusing projects below a floor (say, nothing under a stated figure) improves the year substantially, because small projects carry almost the same overhead as large ones. The enquiry, the call, the quote, the kickoff, the invoicing and the handover happen whether the fee is 5,000 or 50,000.\n\nRaising the minimum is usually easier psychologically than raising the rate, and often has a larger effect on annual income.\n\n## Evidence, if you need it for yourself\n\nThe record you keep of quoted price versus actual hours is what turns this from a nerve question into an arithmetic one. If a project quoted at a certain figure took 70% more hours than estimated, your effective rate on it is knowable, and it is usually a shock.\n\nA year of that data makes the increase feel less like a demand and more like a correction, which changes how you say it, and clients respond far more to the steadiness of the delivery than to the number itself.\n\n## The limitation\n\nRaising prices does not create demand. If you have no pipeline, a higher rate means no work at a higher rate, and the increase will feel like it caused the silence when it merely coincided with it.\n\nThe order matters: build the pipeline, then raise the price, and raise it at the moment you are busy enough to mean it. An increase announced from a position of having more work than you can take is a different message from the same words sent in a quiet month, even though the sentence is identical, because the first one you can afford to hold, and the second one you will quietly discount the first time somebody pushes back."},"check":{"question":"A freelancer raises her rates by 15% and wins essentially every project she quotes for afterwards, as she did before. What does that most likely indicate?","options":[{"text":"The increase was well judged, since the market has absorbed it without any loss of work: a falling win rate would indicate she had gone too far.","correct":false,"tempting":"Treats a full win rate as the goal. It usually indicates the price is below what the market will bear, which is the condition she was trying to correct."},{"text":"Her positioning is strong enough that price is not a factor for her clients, so future increases can be made without notice.","correct":false,"tempting":"Sometimes true of a genuinely differentiated practice, but a near-perfect win rate is much more commonly evidence of underpricing than of immunity to it."},{"text":"The rise was too small, because a price that nobody declines is probably still below what the market would pay.","correct":true},{"text":"The clients quoted since the rise were all existing ones, who accepted the new figure out of loyalty rather than because the price is right for the open market.","correct":false,"tempting":"A plausible confound worth checking, but existing clients were explicitly given notice of the change, and it does not explain new enquiries converting at the same rate."}]},"prev":{"slug":"the-retainer-that-works","title":"Designing a retainer that survives six months","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/independent-creative/the-retainer-that-works"},"next":{"slug":"discounts-and-what-they-buy","title":"What a discount tells a client","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/independent-creative/discounts-and-what-they-buy"},"authorship":"Founder and series editor: Dr Mustafa Mun. Written by AI models to a written standard. Exam keys checked blind by a second model: 3,665 of 3,666 agreed. Academic review invited.","review":{"status":"Draft, open for academic review"},"cite":"Addaly (2026) 'The increase nobody will offer you', in Working for Yourself. Edited by M. Mun. Addaly. Available at: https://addaly.com/learn/independent-creative/raising-your-prices (Accessed: 13 October 2026).","licence":{"name":"CC BY-NC-SA 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/"},"reader":{"schema":1,"title":"The increase nobody will offer you","courseTitle":"Working for Yourself","module":{"index":4,"slug":"the-money","title":"The money"},"answer":null,"keyIdea":"For new clients an increase is not an event (you quote the new number) and for existing ones it is a dated notification six to eight weeks ahead that does not apply to work already quoted, kept short because a long justification invites negotiation.","hero":{"kind":"plate","image":null,"alt":null,"caption":null},"blocks":[{"t":"h2","id":"the-number-that-stopped-moving","runs":[{"text":"The number that stopped moving"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Most independent creatives set a rate early, out of anxiety, and then keep it for years. The work gets better, the process gets faster, the market moves, the cost of living rises, and the number stays where a frightened beginner put it."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"This does not correct itself. Nobody offers you more money. Clients who like you have no incentive to raise your rate, and the ones who would happily pay more never learn that you undercharge, because the figure they were given is the figure they assume."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"So the increase has to be a decision with a date, and the two cases (new clients and existing ones) are completely different problems."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"new-clients-just-change-the-number","runs":[{"text":"New clients: just change the number"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"For anybody you have not worked with, raising your price is not an event. There is no conversation, no announcement, no justification. You quote the new figure to the next enquiry."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"The only difficulty is internal. The first few times you say a higher number you will feel it is too much, and you will be watching for a reaction that usually does not come, because the person on the other end has no idea what you charged last month."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Two observations that help. Your win rate should fall a little after an increase: if you are still winning nearly everything, the rise was too small. And the enquiries you lose at a higher rate are disproportionately the ones that would have been difficult, because price-sensitivity and demandingness correlate more often than not."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"existing-clients-the-mechanics-that-work","runs":[{"text":"Existing clients: the mechanics that work"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"This is the part people dread, and there is a shape that makes it survivable."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Give notice, with a date.","b":true},{"text":" Not “I’m thinking of raising my rates”. A specific change from a specific month, sent six to eight weeks in advance. Notice is what converts it from a demand into a business fact they can plan around, and it lets anybody with a budget cycle handle it properly."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Apply it to new work, not to work already quoted.","b":true},{"text":" Anything already agreed completes at the agreed price. This costs you little and removes the main source of grievance."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Keep the message short and do not over-explain.","b":true},{"text":" Long justifications invite negotiation and sound apologetic. Compare:"}]},{"t":"quote","runs":[{"text":"“From 1 April my project rates increase by about 15%. Anything we have already agreed is unaffected, and I wanted to give you plenty of notice. I have enjoyed this year’s work and hope we keep going.”"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"against a paragraph about inflation, studio costs and experience gained. The first is a professional notification. The second is a request for permission."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Do not apologise, and do not ask.","b":true},{"text":" “I hope that’s OK” turns a decision into a negotiation you did not need to open."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"sizing-it","runs":[{"text":"Sizing it"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Small, frequent increases are easier to absorb than rare large ones, for both sides. A rise in the range of ten to twenty per cent, once a year, is normal and rarely contested. A 60% jump after four years of no movement is arithmetically justified and will still feel like a different relationship to the client, because it is."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"If you are badly underpriced, which is common after a few years of no increases, you may need a step change with some clients and you should expect to lose some of them. Plan for that before you send it, not after: know which clients you can afford to lose, and have the outreach running before the date."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"what-happens-next","runs":[{"text":"What happens next"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Three outcomes, in roughly descending order of frequency."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Nothing.","b":true},{"text":" Most clients accept it without comment. This is the most common result and it surprises people every time."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"A conversation about scope.","b":true},{"text":" “We can’t go to that. Could we reduce what you do?” This is a good outcome. Reduce the scope to match the budget, which keeps your rate intact."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"They leave.","b":true},{"text":" Some will, and a proportion of those were the least profitable. Losing the bottom of your client list when you raise prices is the mechanism working, not failing. What should worry you is losing the top."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"the-clients-you-cannot-raise","runs":[{"text":"The clients you cannot raise"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Sometimes there is a genuine constraint: a small charity, a friend’s business, an arrangement you value for reasons other than money. Keeping a deliberate exception is fine, as long as it is "},{"text":"deliberate, named and bounded","b":true},{"text":": “I am doing this at below my rate because I want to, and it is one client, not five.”"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"What corrodes a business is the undeclared exception: several clients, each individually justified, quietly forming the majority of the work."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"raising-the-floor-instead-of-the-rate","runs":[{"text":"Raising the floor instead of the rate"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"There is a second lever people forget: the minimum project size. Even at an unchanged rate, refusing projects below a floor (say, nothing under a stated figure) improves the year substantially, because small projects carry almost the same overhead as large ones. The enquiry, the call, the quote, the kickoff, the invoicing and the handover happen whether the fee is 5,000 or 50,000."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Raising the minimum is usually easier psychologically than raising the rate, and often has a larger effect on annual income."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"evidence-if-you-need-it-for-yourself","runs":[{"text":"Evidence, if you need it for yourself"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"The record you keep of quoted price versus actual hours is what turns this from a nerve question into an arithmetic one. If a project quoted at a certain figure took 70% more hours than estimated, your effective rate on it is knowable, and it is usually a shock."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"A year of that data makes the increase feel less like a demand and more like a correction, which changes how you say it, and clients respond far more to the steadiness of the delivery than to the number itself."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"the-limitation","runs":[{"text":"The limitation"}],"role":"limit"},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Raising prices does not create demand. If you have no pipeline, a higher rate means no work at a higher rate, and the increase will feel like it caused the silence when it merely coincided with it."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"The order matters: build the pipeline, then raise the price, and raise it at the moment you are busy enough to mean it. An increase announced from a position of having more work than you can take is a different message from the same words sent in a quiet month, even though the sentence is identical, because the first one you can afford to hold, and the second one you will quietly discount the first time somebody pushes back."}]}],"check":{"question":[{"text":"A freelancer raises her rates by 15% and wins essentially every project she quotes for afterwards, as she did before. What does that most likely indicate?"}],"options":[{"text":[{"text":"The increase was well judged, since the market has absorbed it without any loss of work: a falling win rate would indicate she had gone too far."}],"correct":false,"tempting":[{"text":"Treats a full win rate as the goal. It usually indicates the price is below what the market will bear, which is the condition she was trying to correct."}]},{"text":[{"text":"Her positioning is strong enough that price is not a factor for her clients, so future increases can be made without notice."}],"correct":false,"tempting":[{"text":"Sometimes true of a genuinely differentiated practice, but a near-perfect win rate is much more commonly evidence of underpricing than of immunity to it."}]},{"text":[{"text":"The rise was too small, because a price that nobody declines is probably still below what the market would pay."}],"correct":true,"tempting":null},{"text":[{"text":"The clients quoted since the rise were all existing ones, who accepted the new figure out of loyalty rather than because the price is right for the open market."}],"correct":false,"tempting":[{"text":"A plausible confound worth checking, but existing clients were explicitly given notice of the change, and it does not explain new enquiries converting at the same rate."}]}],"order":[1,2,0,3],"why":null},"prev":{"slug":"the-retainer-that-works","title":"Designing a retainer that survives six months","minutes":9},"next":{"slug":"discounts-and-what-they-buy","title":"What a discount tells a client","minutes":9}}}