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Pricing is an emotional, stressful decision for a lot of personal service solopreneurs. It’s scary to consider raising your prices.
Will customers think I’m greedy?
Will all of my customers leave?
What if my service isn’t worth the new price?
You can get stuck in this loop of overthinking and talk yourself out of raising your prices.
But here’s the truth: Not raising your prices might be the thing holding you back from growing the business—and life—you really want.
WHY IT MATTERS:
Your pricing reflects your expertise, values your time, and keeps your business’s doors open. If your prices aren’t right, you risk burnout, undercutting your value, and missing out on clients who see the worth in what you offer.
WHAT’S NEXT:
Why you may be struggling with pricing
7 Signs From Your Customers and Market That It’s Time To Raise Your Prices
5 Signs From Your Own Effort That It’s Time To Raise Your Prices
5 Signs From Your Emotional & Business Well-Being That It’s Time To Raise Your Prices
5 Signs From Your Financial Needs & Timing That It’s Time To Raise Your Prices
Living With Big Heart Syndrome
Ease Your Anxiety About Raising Prices With This Calculator
Why You May Be Struggling With Pricing
Worrying about what to charge customers is natural.
It’s good to pause and make sure that you’re delivering enough value to justify your pricing. But once you’ve made sure you’re doing right by your customers, then that worry should fade into the background.
If you’re still all up in your head and emotions about your pricing, here are a few things to think about:
1. The service you're great at is your unconscious competency.
It feels easy to you. Whether it’s a natural gift or something you've worked hard to learn, once it feels easy, you assume it’s easy for everyone else. That’s why it feels like no one would pay for it.
(Spoiler: They will.)
2. You’re shopping out of your own pocket.
Just because you wouldn’t buy the service doesn’t mean others won’t.
Remember: There are people who pay for cuddles—literally just cuddles. Nothing else, you dirty birdy. 😏
3. You may not understand the real value you deliver.
Your clients aren’t buying the service—they’re buying the outcome and what it does for them.
Think status, peace of mind, recognition among peers, security, and reassurance.
The technical value of your service has limits—and this is where you’re likely getting stuck. But the emotional outcome you create? That’s why your services are worth more.
4. You’re comparing yourself to other services.
Competitor research can be helpful, but keep it in perspective.
You probably don’t know key details like: Are they profitable? Are they happy? Do they have a life outside of work?
You both may be pineapples, but one could be a Smooth Cayenne and the other a Rubyglow.
On the surface, they look similar—but the inside (and the price) tell a different story. Smooth Cayenne? $3. Rubyglow? $400.
If you're delivering a Rubyglow service and experience, don't try to match Smooth Cayene's price.
6 Signs From Your Customers and Market That It’s Time To Raise Your Prices
Your customers and the market you work in will provide clues (or sometimes shove it right in your face) that it’s time to raise your prices. Here are a few signs to look out for:
Your customers have literally told you.
It’s rare for someone to volunteer to pay more. So if you have good customers telling you that you need to raise your prices - listen to them.
You’ve got a waitlist of customers that want to work with you.
If you’re having to add customers on a waitlist because you literally can’t take on any more or booking out services far in advance, raising your prices will help you cull your list.
You’re working more than you want to keep up with demand.
If you’re drowning in service requests and are struggling to keep up, this is a surefire sign that it’s time to raise your prices.
Either you’re so well known that people demand you in particular, or there’s just that much demand for your service. Either way, you have the luxury of picking your customers. One way to do that is by charging more.
Your client retention is too high.
Having a customer for years is a point of pride for a lot of service providers - for good reason.
Hopefully, it means you’re good at what you do, but it can also mean that your prices are too low and your customers simply haven’t looked anywhere else.
You’re getting good publicity.
Being asked for interviews or being voted “Best of” for your industry are a good indicator that you’re doing something right. People are not only talking about you but think you’re damn good.
When you’re damn good, and others are recognizing it, your perceived value goes up. You can start charging more if you want.
Customers are surprised at how affordable you are.
If you share your price with a customer and they give you a shocked Pikachu expression because it’s so reasonable, you’re leaving a lot on the table.
5 Signs From Your Own Effort That It’s Time To Raise Your Prices
If you’re like most personal service providers that I know, you take great pride in what you do. You make investments in learning more, improving your skills, and your customers experience. That sort of dedication deserves compensation.
You’re including or doing more in the service than you used to.
How you started offering your service may not be how you currently offer your service. You may have let feature creep set in and started including little things here or there that has been eating at your profit margin.
You’ve taken continuing education that impacts your customers.
Some industries require you to take continuing education. Or, maybe you go out of your way to learn more, whether it’s required or not.
Either way, if you’re investing time and energy to improve your skills and better serve your customers, that should be reflected in your prices.
You’ve made investments to better the service or experience.
As you identify ways to make your business run smoother, deliver a better service, or create a better customer experience, you’re creating more justification to raise your prices.
Your service is more niche than what is typical or available in your area or industry.
Whether your service started more niche or it slowly drifted that way over time, if you’re more specialized that means you have more freedom to raise your prices.
You’re not in the beginner phase or new-kid-on-the-block anymore.
We all pay our dues when we first start. We start with lower prices to get customers to take a chance on us, get more experience under our belts, and to gather testimonials.
But if you’re still ‘Hanging Tough’ on your original prices, it’s time to raise them.
5 Signs From Your Emotional & Business Well-Being That It’s Time To Raise Your Prices
While we use math to determine our pricing, there’s also a human element that goes into it. What’s trending, perceived value, and how you feel about it can play a role in it, too.
You’re starting to feel resentful of the work.
Once you start feeling resentment in any relationship, that’s a major warning sign that the ship is about to sink.
Resentment in your business often comes up because you don’t feel valued and aren’t making enough to feel good about the work you’re doing.
So, if you’re feeling resentful about your work but didn’t used to, that’s a strong sign it’s time to raise your prices. If you don’t, you may end up shutting it all down from burnout.
You’re struggling to maintain a work-life balance.
You were not put on this planet to work. Your work provides you with more opportunities to live.
So, if your work is impeding your ability to live life in a way that feels good to you, then upping your prices may be one of the ways you can create more space to live your life.
You have clients you wouldn’t mind getting rid of.
Raising prices is an indirect way to get clients you don’t enjoy working with to voluntarily find a new service provider. So if you find yourself with more customers you don’t enjoy than ones you do enjoy, raising your prices is one way to address it.
You’re saying ‘yes’ to every client, even when you know they’re not a good fit.
Early in your business, you said yes to customers even if they weren’t the best fit. You needed the money and experience. Continuing to do this after you’re more established can set you in a cycle of undervaluing your services and can ultimately breed resentment.
You’re regularly offering discounts or negotiating prices.
Regularly offering discounts or allowing negotiation trains your customers to wait for the right time to buy. This tends to attract customers who are only worried about price and not value.
You end up with a pricing spiral where you keep lowering your prices. Raising your prices can help send a better signal to customers who are focused on value and not price.
5 Signs From Your Financial Needs & Timing That It’s Time To Raise Your Prices
If you’re still squirmy about pricing because the above feels more emotional or subjective, then it’s time to take a good, hard look at the numbers.
You’re expenses have gone up.
A small software price hike, a bump in insurance costs, and a half-percentage increase from your payment gateway add up quickly.
If you haven’t done it recently, I dare you to go look at your current expenses and see how much they’ve gone up and how that’s affected your profit margin.
I’d suggest grabbing a box of tissues if you do.
It’s been more than a year since your last price increase.
If you charged $125 for your service a year ago, it should be $130 now because of inflation. If it’s been three years, it should now be $147.
That’s only inflation and doesn’t include your cost of living. If you haven’t raised your prices in a year or more, you’re making less now than you were then. Inflation lowers the value of money, so what you charged last year doesn’t stretch as far today.
Your financial goals have changed.
When you first started your business, your goal may have been to make enough to leave your full-time job. As you grow your business, you may have broader aspirations, including your personal or business financial goals.
That’s a valid enough reason to look at raising your prices.
You’re transitioning from part-time to full-time.
What worked for part-time income probably won’t cut it for full-time living. Your pricing needs to reflect the fact that your business now covers everything—your rent, groceries, savings, taxes, and the occasional “I deserve this” coffee without scrambling for change in your car’s center console and floorboards.
When you were part-time, it was easier to say yes to lower-paying clients because you had another income source. But now, every hour matters.
To avoid burnout, you need to focus on clients who pay well enough to make it worth your time.
You’re outsourcing tasks to other people or software
As your business grows, you have to outsource certain things if you ever want to do anything else other than work. You may hire a bookkeeper or invest in software that can better handle tasks at the volume you have now.
Either way, you’re spending more money, and that needs to be accounted for when you price your services.
Living With Big Heart Syndrome
Most personal service solopreneurs I know have big hearts. They want to make a living, but they also truly want to help people and make a positive impact on their community.
That beautiful trait can lead to some serious guilt when it comes to raising prices.
I need you to really hear me when I tell you this: raising your prices doesn’t make you bad and making money isn’t inherently bad.
If you’re generous and giving, more money just expands your ability to do good. If you’re not... well, it’s gonna amplify that too.
A few things I want you to think about:
You deserve to make a comfortable living.
When you have your needs met, you’ll be able to give more to people and your community.
Serving people who can afford your increased prices buys you time to help those who can’t afford your services.
To help people, you don’t have to serve them directly. Charge enough for your service to give you both financial, emotional, and time freedom to help who you truly want to help.
You could set aside a few pro bono clients, create free resources, host workshops, or offer community support. There are endless ways to give back—but only if your business is sustainable enough to support it.
When you make enough money, you give yourself the luxury to follow where your big heart wants to go.
Ease Your Anxiety About Raising Prices With This Calculator
A big fear when raising your prices is likely to be, “What if customers leave?!”
Valid fear - and some will leave.
But the goal is that you keep enough customers at the new price to cover for the ones who leave.
This calculator I created for you can help you see how many clients you can afford to lose if you raise your prices while maintaining the same revenue. It’ll also tell you how much time you’d save.
Have a play around with it. 😊
THE BIG TAKEAWAY
Raising your prices doesn’t make you greedy - it’s what allows you to keep your business running, values your expertise, and gives you freedom to grow and explore. If you’re seeing signs it’s time to raise your prices, trust in your ability to deliver and raise your prices.
Your business can’t survive if you’re stuck in a cycle of undercharging and overworking.
When you price your services appropriately, you’ll attract better customers, cover your needs, and create space to serve others who may not be able to afford your services.
Your time, expertise, and impact are valuable. Your prices (and confidence in your prices) should reflect that.