Prices Held Too Long

The postponement is the problem

Almost every small business that has not raised prices recently decided to do so at some point and did not.

The decision is rarely the difficulty; the execution is, and it fails the same way every year.

There is always a reason to wait until after this project, until the new year, until things are quieter, or until a particular customer's job is finished.

None of those reasons is unreasonable and their cumulative effect is four years at the same price.

What holding costs you

• Your own costs rose anyway.
• The gap widens each year.
• The eventual rise looks large.
• You attract the wrong enquiries.
• You cannot afford to be selective.

The third is the trap the postponement creates. Three years of small increases would have passed without comment, and one large increase to catch up is the version customers notice and object to.

Set the date first

Which inverts the usual approach and is why it works.

People try to decide the amount, get uncertain, and postpone the decision, which postpones everything.

Instead, pick the date the new prices take effect, write it down, and tell somebody.

The amount can be decided in the fortnight before, when the date is fixed and the decision has to happen.

A commitment with a date attached survives a busy month and an intention does not.

Choose a date at least six weeks out so there is room to tell people properly.

A worked example

A business had intended to raise prices for three years.

Each December they discussed it and each time deferred to a quieter moment that never arrived.

In the fourth year they picked a date in March, wrote it on the wall, and told the two people who worked there.

They decided the actual figures in February, when the date made it unavoidable.

The increase went ahead, four customers asked about it, and none left.

The three years of deferral had cost considerably more than the conversation they had been avoiding.

Small and regular beats large and occasional

Which is the pattern worth adopting permanently.

An annual increase of a few per cent, on a fixed date each year, becomes something customers expect rather than something they react to.

It also removes the decision entirely, since the only question each year is the figure rather than whether to do it at all.

Businesses that raise prices annually rarely lose customers over it, and businesses that raise them once every four years frequently do.

The same total increase, delivered differently, produces a completely different reaction.

Pick the month now and make it permanent.

Work out what the delay actually cost

Which is the number that ends the debate.

Take the increase you should have made three years ago and multiply it by roughly the volume you have done since.

For most small businesses that figure is substantial and it is money that was available and not taken.

Calculating it once is uncomfortable and effective, in a way that general arguments about pricing are not.

Do the arithmetic before deciding whether this year is a good time.

The answer changes what feels urgent.

Decide who is exempt, deliberately

Which removes the main source of hesitation.

The fear is usually about two or three specific long-standing customers rather than about the whole book.

Decide in advance whether those are exempt, for how long, and on what basis, then apply the increase to everybody else without further thought.

An exemption granted deliberately is a business decision and an increase quietly not applied is a habit that spreads.

Write down who is exempt and when that ends, since otherwise it never does.

That decision, made in advance, is what lets the rest of it proceed without renegotiation.

Two exemptions decided is fine and twenty applied case by case is not an increase at all.

Publish the new prices where they are visible

Which is the commitment that makes it real.

A price on your website is harder to quietly not apply than a figure in a spreadsheet.

So updating the site on the date is both a communication and a form of self-enforcement.

Where you do not publish prices, updating the quotation template on the day achieves the same.

Do it on the date itself rather than after the first quote has gone out at the new rate.

Tell people before it takes effect

Which is the difference between an increase and a surprise.

Give existing customers several weeks of notice, in one short message that says the new prices, the date they apply from, and that anything already quoted is honoured at the old rate.

That last clause removes almost every objection, costs very little, and is the part people remember afterwards.

Do not explain at length or apologise, since a paragraph of justification invites a negotiation about whether the reasons are good enough.

Say it once, plainly, and then hold the date, because an increase announced and then quietly delayed is worse than one never announced.

The counter-case

Timing genuinely matters.

A business losing customers, in a falling market, or halfway through a large committed project has real reasons to wait, and those are not excuses.

Some customers are also price-sensitive enough that an increase costs more than it produces, which is a judgement about your own market.

And a business that has already raised prices this year has nothing to do here except fix the month for next time.

That takes a single calendar entry and about ten seconds.

Set it for the same month next year and the question stops recurring.

Set the date before the amount, calculate what the delay has cost, decide exemptions in advance, and make it annual from now on.

What to do

1. Pick the date first.
2. Write it down and tell somebody.
3. Calculate the delay's cost.
4. Decide the amount nearer the date.
5. Decide exemptions deliberately.
6. Update the site on the day.
7. Fix the month permanently.

Step one is what breaks the cycle, since a date written down survives a busy month and a decision to raise prices at some point does not.

A prior version of this is at prices you have not changed since 2019.

Frequently asked questions

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