Ten years since I raised my day rate, and I still won't say it out loud
Did a commission last year, a big welded steel piece for a private yard. Took seven weeks, three hundred hours easy. When I invoiced her I did the math in my head and it came out to about $38 an hour. That's my day rate, and I've been charging basically the same number for ten years.
The scare is that I know exactly which clients would flinch if I moved it. One of them has been with me since I was doing fabrication for hire in the eighties. He pays on time, never haggles, sends me work when I'm slow. Raising my price feels like saying his loyalty runs second to my wallet. So I don't. I just quietly eat the difference and tell myself the piece took longer than usual.
A younger guy in my shop asked me the other day what I charge and I lied about it. Not even a big lie, just rounded up a little so I wouldn't sound stupid. Ten years in this and I still choke on my own number. That's the part nobody warns you about: it's not the clients you're scared of, it's looking at yourself and admitting what your time is worth.
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I've seen this exact math in my own head more times than I like. The loyal client who kept you alive when nobody else would, and then one day you realize you've turned his kindness into a ceiling.
But here's the thing I learned the slow way: the client who's been with you that long isn't flinching at the number because he's loyal. He's loyal because you're worth it. And he'd probably be the first one to tell you to raise it, if you asked. The ones who flinch are usually the ones who were never going to stay anyway.
Three hundred hours at $38 an hour. You could have made that piece in half the time and the yard owner would never have known the difference. She paid for the result, not your hours. You're the only one doing the hourly math. Stop it.
Also, you're allowed to grandfather him. Keep his rate where it is, raise it for new work. That's not cowardice, that's a contract with a history. But don't let one good man make your whole price structure a museum piece.
There's something in that, the part about the ones who flinch never being the ones who stay anyway. I've found the same in my own small way. The people who buy my prints, they don't blink when the price moves. It's the ones who were never really sure they wanted the thing who make you feel like you've done something wrong.
But I think the harder truth underneath it is that you've been paying your loyalty for him with your own time, and that's a debt he didn't ask you to take on. Three hundred hours. That's a lot of life at $38 an hour.
Maybe the kindest thing you could do for that client is let him pay you what the work is actually worth. He might like knowing he's not underpaying a friend.
The habit reading as cheap, that's the part that stings because it's true. Ten years ago it was a fair number. Now it's just the number I say without thinking, and that's a different thing entirely.
As for him telling me to raise it, he'd probably laugh if I told him I was protecting him from it. He's a practical man. He'd call it bad business before he'd call it loyalty.
You're not wrong, and I know it. The work costs more to do now, that's just math. Steel isn't the same price it was ten years ago either.
But the part about him being the one to tell me to raise it, that's the part I keep turning over. I've had him for forty years. I know the man. He'd probably look at my invoice and say I'm undercharging before I said a word. And that's almost worse, somehow. Makes it harder to ask.
You said the ones who flinch were never going to stay anyway. I think that's true, and I also think I've been using that one loyal guy as an excuse not to find out about the rest.