Price Increase, how much is too much and how long of notice should I give?
Hi all! Happy Monday, I hope all of you are well!
So basically the title, I’d love any advice 🥲 I’ve had my cleaning business for 5 years and I basically gained all my clients in my first couple of months that I still have to this day not counting the ones who moved or sadly passed away as my client base is mostly retirees. I’ve never increased my pricing to existing clients, but any new ones I could fit in I did charge closer to my area average for cleaning services and that kind of offset the difference for a while. I started having health issues and dropped off some of my clients that were lower paying and I knew they probably wouldn’t be ok with a price increase. I started looking for other jobs not knowing this job market was terrible. After applying for months and not getting any offers, I decided to put more effort in building my business back up but my area is one of the fastest growing and there is not a lot of industry here for working class people so there is so much more competition! I’ve barely gotten any leads and the few I did told me my prices were more than they were looking to pay.
So I’ve been scared to raise my prices for my legacy clients that I still have but as we all know, things are so expensive now and I just can’t afford not to. If my clients were to get services from a licensed and insured cleaning company they would have to pay over double than what they are now. Even cleaners in the Facebook groups that maybe are not insured or licensed but pretty reliable, trustworthy and knowledgeable enough to not damage a clients property would still charge them more than they are getting charged by me just to put into perspective.
I know my legacy clients are probably never going to get up to what I charge new clients, and I know they took a chance on me when I was first getting started so I’m happy to keep their rates lower. But I do need to increase some, how much would be too much and how much of a notice of price increase is reasonable, 30 days? I really appreciate any advice! :)