Price increase calculator: how many customers can you lose?

The numbers above tell you how much room you have. How you use it decides who stays. This is what we have seen work for the businesses we run marketing for.

• Tell people before the invoice does. A new price that shows up on the bill with no warning feels like a trick, even when it is fair. A short notice a few weeks ahead gives customers time to ask questions before they pay the new price.
• Start with new customers. Put the new price on new quotes and first bookings now, and move existing customers at a set date later or at their next renewal. Someone who has never paid the old price has nothing to compare it with.
• Small and regular beats rare and large. A modest increase every year is easier to explain than a big jump after several years flat, and customers come to expect it the way they expect their own costs to rise.
• Say what does not change. The same people, the same booking, the same standard of work. Customers worry about what else is about to move, so answer that before they ask.
• Look after long-time and maintenance plan customers. Keep plan members at their price until renewal, or give regulars longer notice. The calculator assumes the people who leave are average customers. If the ones who leave are your best repeat customers, the cushion is smaller than it looks.

If you are not sure your margin is right to begin with, check it with the job pricing calculator first. If rising lead costs are what is pushing you to raise prices, the cost per booked job calculator shows which lead sources earn their keep at your margin. And our playbook on how to keep customers coming back covers rebooking and maintenance plans, the customers a price change should never push away.