Raising prices without losing good customers

You have a customer on the books at a price you set in 2021. Since then your general liability renewal went up, a truck payment replaced a paid-off truck, and the crew got a raise. The math has been done for months. The message is the part you have rewritten four times and not sent. Size is rarely what loses a customer. Delivery does: no warning, no date, and a paragraph that reads like an apology.

Put it on an anniversary, not on a bad week

Pick a month and raise in that month every year. The anniversary of your last increase makes the next one predictable for both of you.

Waiting until you feel squeezed fails twice. You write it while frustrated, and it shows. And the jump is big enough to force a decision from a customer who would have shrugged at a small one.

Small and annual also pays better. Take a shop billing 1,000 hours a year at $70, hours flat, raising at the start of each year:

Same rate at the end, about $12,800 more in the door, and no conversation where you ask for almost 13 percent at once. The 3% is an illustration — your own number comes from what your labor, insurance, vehicles and materials actually did.

How much notice, and what notice means for your trade

Recurring work — cleaning, lawn care, pest control, pool, maintenance plans. Start with your own service agreement, not a rule of thumb. If it sets a notice period or a rate-change clause, that governs — a customary 30 days does not override a promise of 60.

Then check your state. Many states regulate automatically renewing consumer service agreements, and some of those rules cover price changes. California, for example, requires notice of a fee change on a continuous-service plan no less than 7 and no more than 30 days before it takes effect, and the notice has to include how to cancel (Bus. & Prof. Code § 17602). Other states word it differently or do not address price at all. Your state attorney general's consumer protection office publishes the current rule; ask a local attorney before you standardize a template.

Where nothing binds you, 30 days before the new price hits an invoice is a reasonable floor; commercial accounts that budget ahead appreciate more. Send it ahead of the billing cycle it affects, never stapled to the invoice.

Project trades — remodeling, electrical, plumbing, painting, concrete. There is nobody to notify: new estimates carry the new price. Two things still bind you — an estimate inside its stated validity window, and a signed contract in progress. Change orders are the murky third: they amend the existing contract, so they price the way that contract says, or the way you both agree in writing. Several states require change orders on residential work to be written and signed before the extra work starts, so check your state licensing board's rules. Notice does apply to the repeat account — the property manager or GC working off your rate sheet. Treat that sheet like a recurring agreement: 30 to 60 days.

The notice, word for word

For a recurring customer, the whole thing:

Hi Dana,

Starting with your October service, your monthly rate goes from $145 to $155. Labor and insurance costs have risen since I last adjusted prices in 2024, and this keeps your service on the same schedule and the same crew.

Nothing else changes. Your visit day stays the same and you do not need to do anything.

Thanks for being a customer since 2021 — I appreciate it. Call me if you want to talk it through.

Marcus

For a repeat commercial account, shorter still:

Hi Priya — my labor rate moves from $95 to $102 per hour on November 1. Work already estimated or in progress stays at the current rate. Updated rate sheet attached for your files.

Four things make those work. A number, not "an adjustment." A date, not "soon." One clause of reason, not a list of your cost problems; the customer has their own. And no apology: "unfortunately I am forced to" opens a negotiation nobody asked for.

Two cautions. First, say only what is true of your own books. "Labor and insurance costs have risen" is a claim about your business, and if your general liability renewal was flat, do not say it — pick the cost that actually moved and keep the receipt. Skip outside figures too. A national average for wage growth does not describe your invoice, and a customer who looks one up now has an argument instead of a notice. Second, if the plan auto-renews and your state regulates fee changes on those, the notice may legally need to include how to cancel — California does. A cancellation line will not cost you the account; leaving it out where it is required can cost you the contract.

Send it in writing, then call your largest accounts the day before it lands — so they hear it from you first.

The three replies you will get

Silence. Expect most of them. They pay the new amount and never mention it. Do not follow up asking whether they saw it.

Pushback. Usually a question, not a refusal: "Is there anything you can do?" Answer once and stop talking: "That is the rate going forward. I would rather keep the price honest than cut the visit short." If you bend, bend on time, not price — hold the old rate through year end, then it moves. An exception with no end date quietly becomes that customer's permanent price, so write the date down.

Leaving. Some will, and nobody can tell you how many — the churn figures quoted online are almost never sourced, and never to your route. The accounts that walk over a 7 percent step are often the ones already costing you: furthest off the route, most reschedules, slowest to pay, quickest to call on a Sunday.

Run your own number first; the cushion is thinner than it feels. Fifty accounts at $145 is $7,250 a month. Raise to $155, lose three, and 47 accounts bill $7,285 — slightly more money for three fewer stops. Lose a fourth and 46 accounts bill $7,130, behind where you started. Small annual steps beat betting a big jump on how many stay.

Where DoneQuote fits

The failure after a price increase is rarely the notice. It is the estimate two months later that still quotes the old number, because the price lives in a spreadsheet and in your head. Update the rate once in your DoneQuote service catalog and every new estimate drafts from it. Per-customer notes keep exceptions visible, so the account you held at the old rate through year end does not quietly become permanent.

Summary

• Raise on a fixed annual anniversary; small yearly steps earn more than one catch-up jump
• Your service agreement sets the notice period, and some states regulate fee changes on auto-renewing plans — check both
• Project trades notify nobody, but honor open estimates and signed contracts, and put change orders in writing
• The notice is a number, a date, one clause of reason from your own books, and no apology
• Expect some to leave without pretending to know how many; run your own break-even first