u/Firm-Secret-2703

For three years I charged $75/hour because I was afraid of losing clients. Every time I thought about raising prices, I imagined the awkward conversation and chickened out.

Finally did it in January. Sent a simple email: "Starting March 1, my rate is $105/hour."

Lost 12 out of 38 clients within two months. Some sent passive-aggressive replies. One said "I hope the extra money is worth it."

But the 26 who stayed were my best clients. The ones who respected my work and paid on time. The 12 who left were the ones who complained the most and paid the slowest.

Revenue in Q1 at the old rate: $47K. Revenue in Q2 at the new rate with fewer clients: $54K. More money, fewer headaches, fewer hours worked.

The clients you lose when you raise prices are almost always the ones you should have fired anyway. The ones who stay become easier to work with because they've already decided you're worth it.

If you haven't raised your prices in over a year, you're probably subsidizing your worst clients with your best clients' patience.

Ran my first real A/B test on pricing. Felt like a proper founder.

Plan A: $29/month. Plan B: $39/month. Split traffic 50/50. Let it run for 3 weeks.

Results: Plan A converted 3x better than Plan B.

I celebrated. Wrote it up in my notes. "Users prefer $29 price point. Confirmed." Almost lowered my pricing permanently.

Then a friend tried to buy Plan B. Said the checkout button looked weird. Grayed out. Like it was disabled.

Checked it myself on Firefox. The button had a CSS issue that only showed up on Firefox. It looked unclickable. It worked if you clicked it but nobody did because it looked broken.

I wasn't A/B testing pricing. I was A/B testing which browsers could render my checkout.

After fixing the CSS, Plan B actually converts better than Plan A. I was about to leave $10 per customer on the table because of a browser bug I never saw.

Now I click every button on at least 5 browsers before trusting any test results. Also run checkouts through this across different browsers because apparently I can't trust my own eyes.

Your A/B test is only valid if both variants actually work. Check that first.