Work out what your costs have actually done since you last changed prices, and raise them to restore the margin rather than to increase it. Most of the resistance is anticipated rather than real.

Nothing forces the review

Prices get set when a business starts or when a service is introduced, and then nothing prompts anybody to revisit them.

There is no invoice for not raising your prices, no notification, and no obvious moment at which it becomes urgent.

Meanwhile materials, wages, fuel, insurance, software, and every other input have moved, and over the last two years several of those have moved sharply.

The gap between the two accumulates quietly and comes out of margin, which is the only place it can come from.

Work out what actually changed

Before deciding anything, establish the size of the problem.

Take your main costs and compare what they are now against when you last set prices: materials, wages, fuel, insurance, subscriptions, and premises.

Weight them roughly by how much of a job each represents.

That produces a figure for how much your cost of delivering the same work has risen, which is the number the price review is about.

Most businesses doing this for the first time in two years are surprised by the total, and the surprise is the point.

Restoring is different from increasing

A distinction that matters both commercially and for how it feels to explain.

Raising prices to match cost increases restores the margin you had. It is not an increase in profitability, it is the absence of a decrease.

Framing it that way internally makes the decision easier, because it removes the sense of asking for more.

It also sets the floor. Below the cost increase you are still losing ground, however uncomfortable the number feels.

Whether to go above that, to genuinely improve the margin, is a separate decision and should be made separately.

Where the margin has actually gone

The last is the one nobody costs and the one that has grown most for many businesses, because the administrative burden of running a business has increased faster than any single input.

A worked example

A trades business had not changed prices since setting them in 2019.

Working through their costs showed materials up substantially, fuel up, insurance up, and a wage bill that had risen to keep staff.

Weighted across a typical job, their cost of delivering the same work had risen by a meaningful double-digit percentage.

They raised prices by slightly more than that, took the decision in November, and applied it from January with existing quotes honoured.

They lost two regular customers and gained no complaints from anybody else.

Revenue was similar with fewer jobs, profit was materially better, and the owner's assessment was that they had spent two years working harder for less without ever deciding to.

The resistance is mostly anticipated

Worth stating because fear of the reaction is what prevents the review.

Customers have spent two years watching every price they encounter rise, and a small business raising prices in that environment is unremarkable rather than shocking.

Most say nothing. A few ask, and accept a one-sentence explanation. A small number leave, and those are disproportionately the ones who were least profitable.

The businesses that suffer are the ones that raise prices abruptly after five years, because the increase then has to be large.

Smaller, more frequent adjustments are easier for everybody and are what most established businesses do.

How to introduce it

The practical part, and it is mostly about timing and notice.

Decide in December, apply from a stated date in the new year, and honour quotes already given.

Tell regular customers directly and in advance rather than letting them discover it on an invoice, which is the version that causes offence.

One sentence is enough: costs have risen and prices are changing from the first of February.

Do not over-explain, apologise repeatedly, or itemise your suppliers' behaviour, all of which invite negotiation.

And update everything at once: the site, the listing, the price list, the quote template, and anything printed.

Change the structure, not only the number

An option worth considering alongside the percentage.

Sometimes the better answer is charging for something you have been giving away: a call-out fee, a minimum charge, a rate for out-of-hours, or a fee for the quoting visit on larger jobs.

Those recover margin from the specific work that has been losing it, rather than raising the price of everything.

A minimum charge in particular solves the small-job problem that appears in most reviews of unprofitable work.

Look at where the margin is thinnest before applying a uniform increase across services with quite different economics.

Check the published ones too

A practical trap that appears the moment prices change.

Figures are published in more places than anybody remembers: service pages, a price list, the listing services section, a downloadable sheet, a printed leaflet, and old quotes still circulating.

A customer who finds an old figure will expect it, and arguing about which one was current is a poor way to begin a job.

Search your own site for the old numbers before the change takes effect, and check anything you have handed out on paper.

This is also an argument for publishing ranges and from figures rather than exact prices, since those survive a review without needing to be found and edited everywhere.

The counter-case

Not every business should raise prices this year.

A business with a thin diary, competing on price deliberately, or in a market where customers genuinely cannot absorb an increase has a real constraint rather than a failure of nerve.

There are also contracts and agreements that fix prices for a period, and a business that has committed cannot simply revise.

And in some sectors an increase costs volume disproportionately, which is a matter for testing rather than assumption.

The argument here is not that prices must rise. It is that the review should happen deliberately once a year, and that most businesses have never held it at all.

The review

  1. Find the date you last changed prices.
  2. Compare your main costs against that date.
  3. Weight them across a typical job.
  4. Treat that figure as the floor.
  5. Consider a minimum charge or call-out fee.
  6. Decide in December, apply in the new year.
  7. Tell regulars in advance, in one sentence.

Step one is the question that starts this, and for a surprising number of businesses the answer is longer ago than they expect.

The arithmetic of discounting is covered in a promotion that loses money.

Frequently asked questions

Why do prices go unchanged for years?

Because nothing forces the review. There is no invoice for not raising prices and no obvious moment at which it becomes urgent, while every input cost moves.

How do I work out the right increase?

Compare your main costs against when you last set prices, weighted across a typical job. That figure is how much delivering the same work now costs, and it is the floor.

What is the difference between restoring and increasing?

Matching cost rises restores the margin you had rather than improving profitability. Framing it that way makes the decision easier and sets the minimum.

Will customers object?

Most say nothing, a few ask and accept one sentence, and a small number leave, disproportionately the least profitable. Abrupt large increases after five years cause the real difficulty.

How should I introduce it?

Decide in December, apply from a stated date in the new year, honour existing quotes, and tell regular customers directly rather than letting them find it on an invoice.

Is a percentage increase always right?

Not always. A minimum charge, call-out fee, or out-of-hours rate recovers margin from the specific work losing it, rather than raising everything uniformly.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

When did you last change your prices?

If the answer is 2019, work out what your costs have done since. That figure is the floor, not the ambition.

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