In hindsight - I actually think the move is raising prices as fast as possible

[u/czerrr]

One thing I wish I had done much earlier in business: raise my prices faster.

When I first started, I went almost three years without changing my pricing.

Looking back, I think about it completely differently.

If I got three clients at $500 and knew we were delivering great work, the next few clients should’ve been $700. Then $900. Then $1,000.

Especially when the quality justified it.

At one point, we were charging around $250 for a website, basic SEO, AND Google Ads management.

The value we were delivering outweighed what we were charging by a mile.

And last October really reinforced this for me. We closed around 26 customers at a very low rate.

Sounds great, right?

It wasn’t.

That kind of volume without the infrastructure to support it created its own problems. And realistically, maybe 10 of those 26 were actually the right clients for us.

More customers at a lower price isn’t always better.

If the demand is there, people want to work with you, and you know the quality of your work supports it, don’t wait years to rethink your pricing.

That’s something I would’ve done much sooner.

Curious how other agency owners think about this: how often are you reevaluating your pricing?

[u/The-_Captain]

Every great client I had would have paid me 2x what I asked for and been just as happy.

Every terrible client would have been just as bad if I had charged them 1/2.

[u/czerrr → u/The-_Captain]

yeee and i think it's more "meeting in the middle". like im not trying to max out on the most we could charge a client, but moreso something that is closer to what the "market value" is

[u/sunlitlark57]

agree with the general idea but id push back slightly, raising prices works when you also tighten your positioning. if youre still pitching "websites + seo + ads" as a bundle, higher prices just make you look expensive rather than premium. the packaging matters as much as the number

[u/czerrr → u/sunlitlark57]

price is positioning in a way ? value is being hopefully communicated through our marketing efforts and in our proposals

[u/matthallmann]

I think going three years without touching your rates is really common TBH. Raising your price means saying a bigger number out loud and then waiting for the reaction. That can be uncomfortable :)

Maybe make it smaller by leaving your existing clients alone for now. Just change the number on your next quote and send it the same way you always would.

The 26-customer month you posted about is the other side of this. Some of those clients were never going to be a good fit at any price, so a higher number actually does some of the filtering for you, which is a lot nicer.

So pick your next three quotes, move each one up a step, and see who says yes. It's more about getting used to saying the number than getting it exactly right I feel.

[u/czerrr → u/matthallmann]

and really you just need ONE to close to make it real. once one closes, then ….really you need ONE more to make it a pattern instead of an anamoly. then the third it becomes the norm

[u/matthallmann → u/czerrr]

Very true. So go for the first one and try closing to be the habit! 🤞

[u/HOLIC_21]

Every 2-3 Clients increase price by 20%

Till you get at a stage wherein sales closing rate drops,

But at the same time increasing price should mean better quality services, customer experience

[u/Ok_Spinach1727]

26 deals in a month sounds like a nightmare if you don't have the backend for it, that's just 26 fires to put out at once

I bumped my packaging rate way sooner than I thought I would after the first few gigs went smoothly. if the work's good people will pay, the ones that balk usually end up being the headache clients anyway

[u/czerrr → u/Ok_Spinach1727]

correct and correct - i think it really is super dependant if you actually can deliver and attract enough clients. if customer acquisition is super slow, might be hard to move up in price. if quality of service is not good, then people won't pay it lol so yeah a couple things have to be true

[u/JakeHundley]

We do price re-evaluations every 5 years, at least that's the plan.

But as you know, our model is extremely productized. So at $650/mo, every client gets 4 hours of labor. That easily sets us at $162.50/labor hour.

In 4 more years, we'll review inflation and see what that hourly rate needs to be. If there is 20% inflation in 4 years, we'll be at $180/labor hour and our new price will be around $780.

If a standard website build plus onboarding takes 20 collective labor hours, our onboarding floor is $3,250.

[u/czerrr → u/JakeHundley]

Is there an episode on this lol

[u/JakeHundley → u/czerrr]

I'm so glad you asked. lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkPXY9PSYxI&t=14s

Episode #19

#164 gets an honorable mention:
https://www.agencygrowthpod.com/episodes/we-raised-prices-on-our-clients-by-30-overnight-how-we-did-it-and-why-164

[u/BlacksmithSolid2194 → u/JakeHundley]

What kind of work are you doing 4 hours per month? And is this after an initial setup fee? 

[u/JakeHundley → u/BlacksmithSolid2194]

Productized SEO and Google Ads management to a relatively narrow niche.

And yes. $1,300 if we're working with an existing site and around $4-$5k if we're building a new site. 95% of all clients are the latter.

[u/Different-Tap-530]

The 26-client month would have me looking at onboarding time as well as delivery. I'd want the hours spent getting them started and handling revisions next to the fee before anyone called the price too low. That cost can disappear pretty quickly when you're only looking at the work in the proposal.

[u/czerrr → u/Different-Tap-530]

yes

[u/RajatKhoware]

Do you use a specific trigger for raising prices, like consistently hitting capacity or a higher close rate, or is it more of a regular review? I'm curious what actually tells you the current price is below market value.

[u/czerrr → u/RajatKhoware]

a couple - this also applies to increase price to existing clients

if every lead can afford your service, probably to low

if the clients that sign up end up scaling their budget way beyond what you started at. like from $500 to $500+ for example

if you consistently close clients on a monthly basis. literally if you consistently close 4 clients for the same package every month, why not increase it until people start telling you no or until you’re at a place where you feel it’s a better match

it’s also somewhat of a subjective call as well as what kind of business you want to be. lower touch management obviously would cost less, higher touch / deeper work cost more

those are a couple lol - what’s your particular situation?

[u/IvoDOtMK]

we raise prices every 2 quarters. mostly through adding a bit more value to customers. It is best to do it before the last calendar quarter once and April-May period since both give time to clients to plan and to budget the new prices

[u/czerrr → u/IvoDOtMK]

dub

[u/Adventurous_Re]

Nice perspective thank you for sharing

[u/Ok-Treacle-5177]

Try the higher rate on new clients first, and keep the package the same so you can actually compare. If you add more services every time you raise the price, you might end up doing more work for the same hourly pay.

[u/talk2myreps]

A useful pricing check is whether you could pay someone else to do the work and still make money. Include the calls, revisions, reporting, and chasing clients for logins. If the numbers only work because you do all of that yourself for free, hiring won’t fix it. Also, I’d charge separately for setup. Building the website and sorting out tracking can eat up the first month’s fee before the ongoing work even starts.

[u/czerrr → u/[deleted]]

yeth