Raising my rates 3x over 18 months — what happened to volume

Went from $0.08/word to $0.25/word in three steps over 18 months.

Enquiries: down about 60%
Clients: down from 14 to 5
Revenue: up 94%
Hours worked: down roughly a third

The clients who left at each increase were, without exception, the ones who had been the most work per dollar. The ones who stayed barely commented on it.

Price is a filter. I spent years treating it as a risk.

Did the same with agency retainers last year. The clients who argue hardest about price are the same ones who email at 11pm.

As a buyer: I have never once left a good writer over a rate increase. Finding a good writer is the expensive part.

How do you raise rates on existing clients without it being awkward? That is the part I cannot picture.

One email, 60 days notice, no justification beyond "rates are going up on 1 March". Explaining yourself invites a negotiation.

The no-justification part is correct and took me years to learn.