Ask HN: Do you hike prices often as a freelancer? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Do you hike prices often as a freelancer?

I try to keep my prices the same every year for my clients, as they expect to pay a certain amount each year for their website. I don't want to shock them with a fee hike, as it comes across as snakey and mean.

But with inflation, rising costs of fuel, and everything getting a little bit pricier these days, I simply have to hike my prices, because of the economy.

How do you feel about hiking prices? Is it worth (potentially) getting your reputation damaged?

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Increasing prices is standard business practice. None of the negative adjectives you applied are true.

Anyone that accuses you of being any of those things for increasing your price is just trying to rip YOU off and you should consider getting rid of them as a customer.

Better to increase a little every year then to shock people with a big increase after a while. Also you can do it nicely, "hey, I'm raising my prices but since you are a good customer I'll give you the old price for the next six months", then invoice the new price but with a discount, that way the price increase might even build loyalty.

Disagree hard here. Better to increase prices less often but with a strong justification.

"Here's why we're raising our prices by 15%" - the alternative yearly increase will be death by a million papercuts: "You are constantly raising the rates!"

Prices follow offer and demand. If your customers can't afford your prices, maybe their business model isn't viable.

It’s nothing personal.

If you've had them as a client for more than 12 months, and are only looking to increase as a match to inflation, then I would be shocked if you have any negative feedback at all from your clients, or any of them leaving.

Personally I increase my rates when I notice that my schedule is getting full, and I'm struggling to find space for new work within it - To me pricing your time is just a simple calculation of Supply/Value vs Demand, clients seem to be Ok from my experience.

Always raise prices in relation to demand for your work, especially if you don't have any employees. If there is more demand than you can fill, raise prices until you can do the work. If there is less demand, keep prices the same and find new clients. If you can't find new clients, lower prices.

At the very very least you need to be increasing prices inline with inflation. Otherwise you're getting cheaper every year...

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