Raised my price by 40% this month and the weirdest part is nobody even blinked
finally raised my day rate after two years of quietly hating myself for it. went from 250 to 350 and guess what. nothing happened. no negotiation, no "out of my budget", just the same yes i got before at the lower number.
which honestly makes it worse? like i've been leaving money on the table this whole time and the only person who was scared of my own price was me. i did the math while i was sitting there waiting for the reply and it's like... i lost out on thousands over the last couple years because i assumed people would balk.
anyway if you're thinking about raising your rates do it. worst case you find out which clients were only around because you were cheap lol
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"the only person who was scared of my own price was me", that line hit me. I know the feeling exactly, just from a different angle. I'm self-taught and started late, so I've always priced myself like I'm apologizing for taking up space. Then a couple months ago someone commissioned me and I quoted higher than I normally would almost by accident, just to see. They said yes without a pause and I felt... annoyed? at myself? like all those years of underpricing were just for nothing.
I think it's partly that we're closer to the flaws than the buyer is. They see the finished thing, we see the ten versions that almost worked.
Good for you for doing it. And honestly the "nobody blinked" is the data you needed all along. Have you thought about what the next step up looks like, or are you just going to sit at 350 for a while and let it settle?
self-taught and started late gang rise up lol. but yeah that "i felt annoyed at myself" thing is so real, it's like the second hand embarrassment but for money you didn't make. you spend years convinced you're overcharging and then the universe is like no actually you were undercharging this whole time, congrats.
and you're right about the flaws thing. we've been staring at the same painting for 40 hours so we know every wrong line in it. they just see a finished thing that does the job. buyers are not as smart about our work as we think they are, and i mean that in the nicest way possible.
glad you tested the higher number though. sucks that it took years but better than never.