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Give me three moves
any trade or service business

Should I raise my prices, or will I just lose the customers I have?

Short answer

You will lose some, and that is the correct outcome rather than the risk. A 10% rise across the board typically loses 5–10% of customers in trades and services, which leaves you meaningfully ahead: at 10% more revenue per customer and 8% of customers gone, you are up about 1.2% on revenue while doing 8% less work. The people who leave over 10% are almost always the lowest-margin accounts you have.

The break-even on a 10% rise
Now: 100 customers × £100 = £10,000
After: 92 customers × £110 = £10,120
Revenue: up £120
Delivery: 8 fewer jobs to service

You would need to lose more than 9 customers in 100 before a 10% rise costs you money.

The instinct to fear a price rise treats every customer as equally valuable. They are not. In most small service businesses the bottom fifth of accounts by margin consume a disproportionate share of hours and complaints, and they are precisely the ones most sensitive to price.

Run the number before deciding. If you raise 10% and lose 8% of customers, revenue moves from 100 units to 100 × 1.10 × 0.92 = 101.2. Slightly up, with 8% fewer jobs to deliver — so profit rises considerably more than that 1.2% suggests, because the costs left with the customers.

The break-even loss rate for a 10% rise is about 9%. Below that you are ahead on revenue and well ahead on profit. You would have to lose more than one customer in eleven for a 10% rise to actually cost you money, and that is far more than trades typically see.

What matters more than the percentage is the notice and the framing. Tell people before it appears on an invoice, name the year of the last increase, and name a specific cost driver rather than saying "rising costs". Operators who have not raised prices in three years have the strongest ground to stand on and usually do not realise it.

Want this worked out for your business specifically?

Everything above is the general case. Describe your business in one sentence — what you sell, roughly how many customers, roughly what you charge — and you will get three specific moves back, each priced per month with the arithmetic written out so you can substitute your own figures.

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Give me three moves

People also ask this as

  • Will I lose customers if I raise my prices?
  • How much can I raise prices without losing clients?
  • Is it better to raise prices or get more customers?

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Figures are typical ranges for small businesses in the UK, US and Canada, given so you can check them against your own books rather than take them on trust. They are arithmetic on stated assumptions, not a forecast, and not financial advice.