Most owners we talk to have been meaning to raise prices for a while. Not by a lot. Just enough to cover what the truck costs now, what the help costs now, what the same gallon of paint costs now. The thing that stops them is not the math. It is the picture in their head of the regular who has called them for nine years finding somebody cheaper.
That picture is usually wrong, but it is worth taking seriously, because the way you handle the increase decides whether it comes true.
Work it out from your own books, not the guy down the road
The worst way to set a new price is to call around and see what everybody else charges. You do not know what their overhead is, what they pay their techs, or whether they are quietly losing money on every job the way you might be.
Start with what you already have. Pull last year's revenue and divide it by the number of jobs you ran. That is your real average ticket, which is almost always lower than the number an owner says out loud, because the memory keeps the big jobs and forgets the four service calls that turned into a free diagnosis.
Then add up the stuff that does not show up on an invoice. Insurance, the phone, software, the payment processor's cut, the truck payment, fuel, the hours you spend quoting work you never win. Divide that by your jobs too. Now you know what every job has to carry before you have made a dime.
If you bill by the hour, do the same thing with billable hours instead of jobs, and be honest about the ones that are not billable. A garage door tech driving from one side of the county to the other is working. Nobody is paying him for the drive unless you built it into the rate.
Once those two numbers are in front of you, the increase stops being a feeling and becomes a decision. Tax treatment and how you book any of this varies, so your accountant is the right person to ask about that side of it.
Raise the floor before you raise the rate
A lot of shops find that the problem is not the hourly rate. It is the small stuff underneath it.
A minimum charge protects you from the twenty minute job that eats an hour of windshield time. A diagnostic fee tells an auto repair customer that finding the problem is work. A trip charge outside your normal radius keeps you from driving to the edge of the map for a part swap. A pool service route can get a fuel adjustment without touching the monthly rate at all.
Moving the floor is easier on your regulars than a straight percentage on everything, because the customers who feel it are mostly the ones who were never profitable. The lady who has had you clean her house every other Friday for six years does not trip the minimum. The guy who calls once every three years for the cheapest possible answer does.
Pick a date, and say it once
The increases that go badly are the ones that show up as a surprise on an invoice. The ones that go fine are announced.
Pick a date far enough out that it feels like a plan, not a reaction. The first of a month is easy to remember. Then tell people once, in plain words, on the channels you actually use. A line on the invoice. A text to your recurring route. A note taped by the register at the barbershop. One sentence: starting the first of March, the service call is going to X.
You do not owe anybody a long apology. Long explanations read as guilt, and guilt invites negotiation. "Costs are up and I am adjusting for the first time since 2022" is a complete answer. Owners who have gone through this usually report that the flinch they were braced for did not happen, and the handful of people who said something said it once.
One thing worth deciding ahead of time: whether work already quoted at the old price stays at the old price. Most shops honor it. It costs you a little and it buys you the ability to say, without hedging, that you keep your word.
Answering the pushback
Somebody will call and ask why. Have a sentence ready and have everybody who answers the phone know it, including the spouse who picks up on Saturdays.
What works is short and specific. The painter who says materials and the crew both went up is believable. The electrician who says he is booked four weeks out and adjusting so he can stay that way is believable. What does not work is vague talk about the economy, because that invites the caller to argue about the economy with you.
If a good long time customer asks for a break, you have options that do not involve rolling the price back. Lock their rate for a year. Bundle the next maintenance visit. Give them first slot on the schedule. Loyalty is worth paying for. It is just better paid in things other than a lower number, because a lower number resets your price permanently and a favor does not.
What we decided about our own price
We put $49 a month on our page instead of making people call for a quote. That was a deliberate choice, and it cost us something: we cannot price a busy garage door shop differently than a one chair barber. What we get back is that nobody spends a phone call finding out whether they can afford it. If you are about to raise your own prices, that tradeoff is worth thinking about. Published prices make you answer fewer questions and win fewer negotiations. Both of those are real.
The pattern holds across almost every trade. Owners underprice for years, then adjust and find the world kept turning.
The weeks around the change
A price change is the worst possible time for the phone to ring out. Some of those callers are regulars who want to hear it from you, and some are new work that has no idea anything changed. A voicemail from either one is a coin flip (more on that in what missed calls cost).
So in the weeks around the change, make sure every call gets answered by someone who knows the new prices and can explain them the same way each time.