I raised my prices 30% three months ago and I'm making less money now and I don't know what to do with that
Okay so I finally worked up the nerve to raise my prices. I've been full-time for about eight months and I was charging like... nothing, honestly, I was so scared nobody would buy if I went higher. So I did the thing everyone says to do, raised them 30% across the board on my original paintings, prints I bumped up a little less.
And it's been three months and I've sold maybe half of what I used to sell. My revenue is genuinely down. I had this whole pep talk prepared about how the right clients would find me and quality over quantity and all that, but I'm sitting here with more inventory than I've ever had and a very quiet PayPal account.
I'm not gonna quit, I know I'd be pissed at myself if I went back down. But nobody tells you that the "raise your prices" advice might mean you just... sell less. For a while. Maybe forever? I don't know if I'm supposed to just ride this out or if this is the market telling me my work wasn't worth that much. It's really messing with my head honestly.
4
5commentsSaveFollow threadShare
Thirty percent across the board is a lot to hit all at once. You basically changed your whole business overnight and now you're seeing what that does.
Some of those sales you lost were price-sensitive buyers. That's not necessarily bad, they weren't your long-term clients anyway. But the question is whether you kept enough to make up the difference, and it sounds like you didn't. That usually means one of two things: either the jump was too steep for where you're at in your career, or the work hasn't changed enough to justify the new number in people's eyes.
The market doesn't care about your pep talk. It only cares whether the work feels worth the price.
You might try a smaller increase on new work only, let the older inventory clear at the old prices. Or raise prices piece by piece instead of across the board so you can see what sticks. Either way, don't read too much into three months of data. Give it six and see if the buyers who stayed start coming back more often.
ugh okay yeah that second one stung a little because I think you're right and I didn't want to hear it 😭 like I knew going in that the work needed to match the price but I think I convinced myself that just having the Courage to raise prices was enough?? and maybe I skipped the part where I needed the portfolio to actually back it up. the price-sensitive thing I can make peace with, that makes sense. but the "hasn't changed enough to justify it" hit because I've been so focused on getting my numbers right that I haven't really pushed my actual painting in a minute. anyway. not defensive, I promise, I'm genuinely chewing on this. did you go through a similar thing or are you just wise and I'm the cautionary tale lol
This is the right take. The advice to raise prices is always given as if it's a simple law of nature, charge more, earn more, but it's not a law, it's a negotiation with your audience. And 30% all at once is a lot of negotiating to ask people to do in one go.
I raised my prices gradually over about two years, each time 10-15%, and even then I lost some buyers at each step. The ones who stayed were the ones who were buying the work itself, not the price point. But that took time to see. Three months isn't enough to know who those people are.