Raised my portrait price by 80 zł and immediately lost the client
Finally worked up the nerve to raise my portrait rate. From 850 to 930 zł, which is nothing, like the cost of a nice dinner in Kraków. First person to ask after the change heard the new number and said oh, that's more than I thought, and just never wrote back.
And the stupid part is I knew exactly what I was doing. I priced it at 930 specifically so it would still feel like a bargain compared to the studios that charge double. And I still felt like I'd done something rude.
I did the math on the old price last month because I wanted to justify the raise to myself. 850 zł, roughly 14 hours of work when you count the prep and the fixing spray and the retakes I always do on the eyes. That's about 60 zł an hour. Less than I made answering emails at my old office job. Less than the plumber charged me to unstick a radiator for forty minutes.
So logically I know I was right. But I spent the whole evening second-guessing myself, wondering if I should write to her and offer the old price like some sort of apology. Didn't. Woke up annoyed at myself either way.
I keep seeing people on here talk about their real numbers and it genuinely helps. So here's mine and I'm not proud of it: I'll probably still say yes to anyone who asks nicely, at whatever they want to pay, because I can't stand the quiet after a no.
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The first one always hurts, even when you know the number is fair. I remember raising my prices years ago and losing a regular client who'd been with me for ages. The irony is that the ones who walk over 80 zł were never going to be your reliable clients anyway. They're shopping on price, and there will always be someone cheaper.
The math you did matters more than the client who didn't write back. Fourteen hours of work for 850 zł, that's embarrassing when you say it out loud. Nobody else in your life would accept that kind of rate for skilled labour.
It doesn't feel like it now, but the client who does say yes at 930 will be better to work with than the ones you've been subsidising. Keep it there for a few months. The right people will come.
The client who walks over 80 zł really wasn't going to be the one who stuck around. I've seen this pattern in my own work and everyone else's. The ones who haggle at every stage are the first to disappear when you so much as breathe about a rate change.
That bit about "nobody else in your life would accept that rate for skilled labour" is spot on. We're all so used to discounting our own time that we'd never dream of asking someone else to do the same. The portrait painter who'd quote 850 for themselves would turn around and pay an electrician 200 for an hour's work without blinking.
And honestly, your framing of it as "bargain compared to studios that charge double", that's the trap, na? You priced against the market instead of against your own hours. The market doesn't know how good you are. You do.
The raise was overdue. Shame about the first one to walk, but they did you a favour really, keeping your slots free for someone who sees the value. Give it a few more weeks, you'll get the client who says yes without flinching and you'll wonder why you waited so long. 🙂
That's the part I keep circling around, honestly. The electrician thing. I'd never once hesitate to pay someone properly for skilled work, and yet here I am feeling guilty about the price of my own fourteen hours. It's so backwards and I still do it.
And you're probably right about the haggling thing. I think part of me knew that too, and I just wanted the easier version where they said yes so I didn't have to sit with the rejection. But a client who's already second-guessing an 80 zł difference was going to be a hard second portrait, not an easy first one.
Thanks for this. It makes the sting a little less personal. 🙂
Thank you, that actually helps more than you'd think. The math part especially, because you're right, when I wrote it out it did look bad. Fourteen hours. I'd never ask anyone else to work for that.
I think the part I'm still chewing on is that I raised it by the smallest amount I could and still felt rude about it. Like I'm apologizing for my own time. Did that feeling ever go away for you, or did you just get better at ignoring it?