raised my prices 30% in June and lost exactly one client
not a brag, i'm annoyed i didn't do it two years earlier.
i'd been quoting the same day rate since like 2021 because i was scared. same number, same pitch, same "happy to be flexible on scope" line i'd copy paste. then in may a client asked me to redo a logo for the fourth time and i just... wrote a new rate into the next quote. didn't announce it. didn't post about knowing my worth. just put the number in the email.
three of four said yes immediately. the fourth one ghosted, and honestly that was the one i was doing the most unpaid emotional labor for anyway.
what actually changed my mind was seeing a muralist i follow post her day rate publicly. not in a hustle way, just... in the caption. two digits i would've been embarrassed to ask for. i sat with that for a month.
anyway the tip nobody gives you is that the scary part isn't the number, it's that you have to stop writing the apology paragraph underneath it. i still write it sometimes. deleting it is the whole job.
curious if anyone else has done this recently or if i'm just late
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Reading this I am thinking of my own work ji. For many years I used to quote the same price for a painting, whether it took me three weeks of fine line work or ten days. I was also scared, same like you are saying. The buyers from outside they would say "this is folk art, it should be affordable" and I would agree quietly.
The thing you wrote about not announcing it, just putting the number in the email, that part struck me. When we announce, we are asking permission. When we simply say the price, we are not asking anything. It is a small difference but it changes the whole thing.
One thing I will add from my side. The client who ghosted, you are saying that was the one you were doing most unpaid labor for. In my experience the ones who pay the least also take the most of your time and your peace. It is not a coincidence, I think. When a person does not value the work with money, they also do not value it with respect.
Two years late is still not so late. Some of us take thirty years. All the best to you.