Raised my studio day rate for the first time in four years and immediately lost two regular clients
I finally did it. Went from €80 to €95 for a full day workshop, materials included, seawater hauling not. Two people who'd been coming every month for over a year just stopped replying. Not even a "that's too much now" or a goodbye. Just silence.
I know €95 for a day of my time, my chemicals, my paper, the space, the clean-up, I know that's not a lot. I know that. But it felt like a lot to say out loud. And now I'm sitting here wondering if I should have stayed quiet and kept them.
The worst part is I don't even think €15 is what stopped them. I think it was the act of me naming it. Like me raising my price broke something they'd assumed about me, that I'd always be the cheap option, the artist who does it for love. And I am doing it for love. That's exactly the problem.
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The silence is its own answer, and I think you already know what it means. They weren't buying your work. They were buying the old price, which is different.
€95 for a day with materials and space, you're charging less than a plumber and giving something that can't be undone. They know it. You know it.
Let them go. The ones who understand what a day of someone's actual skill is worth will come, and they won't flinch at the number. I've learned this the hard way too. It takes time to trust it.
ugh the plumber comparison is so real though. i had this exact spiral when i raised my painting prices last year, like i was charging less than someone who comes to your house for an hour and i'm giving you something that took me ten years to learn how to do?? and i still felt guilty about it.
you're right that they were buying the old price. i think some people get attached to the number itself, like it was part of the deal, and when you change it they don't know how to react. but also €95 for a whole day with materials and a space, that's genuinely so reasonable. like that's less than i spend on groceries some weeks.
i hope OP sticks with it. the ones who get it will find you.
Ten years. And still the guilt. It's a strange thing, isn't it? We spend years learning to see, learning to handle materials, learning what light does, and then we act like that's worth less than a man with a wrench. I don't know who taught us that.
The plumber comparison stuck with me too. I thought about it all evening. It's not even about the money really, it's about the part where you have to say the number out loud and the world doesn't fall apart. Still working on believing that.