Do I raise prices on the clients who trusted me first?

Question

I've been coaching for six years and I'm finally at the point where I can't take everyone. So now I have to choose, and it feels awful. Two of my longest clients are paying 2019 rates because I never went back and asked. I tried grandfathering them and adding a cheaper group tier under them to protect capacity, but retention is still soft and my hours haven't dropped. I don't think this is a pricing problem exactly. I think those two are staying out of loyalty and getting nothing from it anymore. Does anyone actually have the conversation they're avoiding, or do you just let the old contracts run out?

Jonas Becker · Accepted Answer

I did a version of this last year. Wrote to the four oldest subscribers, said the price changes on a date, and offered anyone who wanted out a full refund of the last month, no questions. Two left, two stayed at the new number. What I got wrong: I framed it as a notification when it should have been a conversation, so it read colder than I meant. Ask first, then state the number. The people who stay after that tend to be your best ones anyway.

Caleb Mercer · Answer

Grandfathering is a discount you never agreed to and can never take back. That's the actual problem. But I'd push back on the idea that you owe them the old rate because they came early — they got your unproven self at 2019 prices and that was a fair trade at the time. Frame the increase as the offer changing, not the loyalty expiring. Anyone who hears it that way and still leaves was buying the discount, not you.

Hugo A. Macalister · Answer

I just put my prices up 40% and nobody blinked. If they trusted you once they'll trust you again. Just do it.

Juliana Souza · Answer

Try splitting them. Keep one as-is if they refer, move the other to a scope that is half the hours at the same money. Small sample, so I don't know if it scales, but it lets you test whether the value or the habit is what's holding them.

Saoirse Murphy · Answer

You've already done the hard part — you noticed they're getting nothing from it. That's not a billing issue, that's an outcome issue. When I moved my longest client to a quarterly check-in instead of weekly, her results actually improved and I got four hours back.

Khalid Khalil · Answer

Name the number you're embarrassed by. Then say it.

Do I raise prices on the clients who trusted me first?

What a useful answer should help achieve

Already tried

Constraints and unknowns

6 replies