Raising your prices

The two-price system

The core insight that removes 90% of the fear: you don't have one price — you have two.

The new-client price is a market dial. When the waitlist grows, when referrals arrive pre-sold, when you catch yourself dreading a “yes” because you're full — the dial turns up. No announcement, no ceremony: the next inquiry simply hears the new number. This dial can move every few months and nobody is wronged.

The existing-client price is a relationship. It moves rarely, transparently, with notice measured in months — or it doesn't move at all, on purpose. Fifteen loyal clients at last year's rate are not “lost revenue”; they're the referral engine, the testimonials, the stability that lets you raise the new-client dial confidently. Grandfathering isn't generosity — it's strategy with a warm face.

The demand signals

Raise the new-client dial when two of these are true:

• You're at or past the capacity ceiling from your equation, with the buffer eaten.
• The last three prospects said yes without hesitation — a streak of instant yeses means the price stopped being a decision.
• A waitlist exists (the next chapter's whole subject).
• The thought “I hope they don't sign” has occurred about a real inquiry.

That last one is the honest tell practitioners joke about — dread is a pricing signal wearing a mood.

Raising existing clients, kindly

When costs or capacity genuinely require it, the practitioner-standard sequence:

1. Written, personal, early. Sixty to ninety days notice, individually — never a broadcast. “From March, my rate moves from $200 to $230. You've been with me two years, so your rate is locked until June, and I wanted you to hear it from me first, with time to decide.”
2. Honest reason, one sentence. Demand, depth of service, costs — real ones. No corporate poetry.
3. Loyalty math on the table. Long-timers get later dates, smaller steps, or explicit forever-locks. The list chapter's goodwill principle: your payers hear it first and kindest.
4. The graceful branch. Some will leave — budget for it emotionally and financially. A warm exit with an open door (“if timing changes, your spot's here”) converts a percentage back within the year, verbatim pattern from the reactivation playbook.

The arithmetic that calms nerves: a 15% raise survives losing one client in eight and still nets ahead — with one fewer human's worth of attention debt. Run your numbers before the panic runs you.

What not to do

• Don't raise everyone at once under pressure. The double-dial system exists so you never need a shock therapy event.
• Don't apologize your way through the notice. “So sorry, I hate to do this…” teaches clients the price is negotiable guilt. State, explain once, thank.
• Don't grandfather secretly. Untracked legacy rates become a spreadsheet mystery and a fairness landmine. Know who pays what and why — the numbers chapter's page has a line for exactly this.
• Don't let three years pass. Annual review, small honest moves. The decade-coach charging 2019 prices isn't loyal — they're stuck, and their roster quietly knows it.