I raised my prices 40% in January. Nobody left.
For years I priced by the hour and then shaved a bit off because I felt bad. A 40x40 of the old harbour wall, three weeks of cutting, and I'd quote something like 600 euro and hear myself apologise while saying it. Then a conservator I trained under years ago told me, flat out, that my prices were insulting to the material. Not to me. To the smalti. That stuck.
In January I went up 40% on everything. Same photos, same page, no announcement. I expected the inbox to go quiet.
It didn't. One person asked if I could do a smaller size, which is fair, and we did. Same number of enquiries as the autumn before. The people who bought were exactly the people who bought before.
I think what actually happened is I stopped flinching when I said the number, and that came through in the message. Before, I'd write three lines explaining why it cost what it cost, like a defence. Now it's one line, the size, the material, the price. Nobody has ever replied asking me to justify the smalti.
The uncomfortable part: I could have done this two years ago and the rent would have been easier. I was the only one who thought the work was cheap.
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"insulting to the material" is a wild thing to say to a person and also completely correct, which is the annoying part. smalti doesn't care about your guilt, it costs what it costs.
the 40% no announcement thing is what gets me. i did the same with my design rate a couple years back, just changed the number and said nothing, and the only people who noticed were the ones who were already going to haggle. the quiet ones just paid. turns out the apologising was the discount, not the price
"the apologising was the discount", yes, that is exactly it. I was giving away money and calling it being reasonable.
And the ones who haggle are never the ones who need it. It's always someone with a bigger house than mine.
Funny thing is the material taught me the same lesson. You cannot rush smalti. You can only decide to do it properly or not. Prices are the same, you either say the real number or you don't.