Thinking about raising your freelance prices? There’s a piece of advice that does the rounds in freelance circles: “Put your prices up once a year.”
It sounds sensible. Predictable. Safe. But in practice, it can quietly create exactly the problem you’re trying to avoid.
Because the moment you tie your pricing to a single date, you risk training your clients to expect that nothing will change until then. And in a world of rising costs, changing workloads, and shifting client needs, that’s not a strategy. How many times have your costs gone up in the last 12 months? Just once?
Why Raising Your Freelance Prices Once a Year Doesn’t Always Work
Reviewing your prices regularly is a good thing. But fixing it to a single annual event can create unintended consequences.
Clients assume your current rate is locked in until that date. You absorb rising costs in the meantime.
You delay necessary conversations and end up undercharging for longer than you should.
That is how people end up with clients on introductory rates years later.
How often has a client come to you and suggested you have a price increase? Its extremely rare, more often than not they will never raise it until you do.
Most Freelancers Never Set Pricing Properly in the First Place
What I see time and again is not a failure to increase prices so much as a failure to structure them from the start.
That usually looks like:
- Introductory rates with no clear end point
- No defined normal rate.
- No defined rate for extra hours/out-of-scope work
- No defined rate for urgent work
We see a lot of KoffeeKlatch clients keeping their older clients on legacy pricing with no review mechanism, worrying that if they increase prices they will simply lose the client.
And we see the same pricing for very different arrangements, such as ad hoc work on credit and retainers paid in advance. Those are not the same deal. They carry different risk and different commitment, and they should carry different pricing.
If you do not define that early, you spend the rest of the relationship trying to fix it. Apart from setting your profitability, pricing also sets behaviour. If you price more for behaviour you don’t want or that carries risk to you, and less for behaviour that reduces your risk and reduces your stress you will find life is gets much easier. But always make sure your lowest rate is profitable – do not start with your ideal rate and discount back from there.
If Your Contract Says Nothing—Can You Still Increase Prices?
If you use KoffeeKlatch terms you can set a price review or increase point in your key dates section.
But if you haven’t done that, or you want to increase prices at some other point, the Short answer is yes.
You do it the way businesses always do—by varying the contract through communication and agreement.
A contract isn’t frozen in time. It evolves as the relationship evolves. But you don’t just put your prices up without warning or explanation – unless you really don’t want to keep that client.
Varying a contract can result it increased rates, or it can result in one of you deciding to terminate the contract.
If you’re unsure how that works in practice, this ties closely into how contracts begin and end:
https://koffeeklatch.co.uk/contract-termination/
The key point is this:
Not having a clause doesn’t stop you.
It just means you need to handle the conversation properly, which is something we all have to do at all stages in business.
Where Pricing Should Be Set (And Why Timing Matters)
Your pricing shouldn’t first appear when you are having a discovery call. That’s far too late.
If you have packages they should be clearly visible on your website. If you work on retainers or hourly rates, you need your client to know where your pricing starts before you commit to a discovery call. Spending an hour on a discovery call with someone expecting to pay £15 an hour when your minimum rate is £35 is just wasting time for both of you.
But there is more to pricing than a rate, there are your whole terms and conditions covering late payment, payment terms, extra work and more. These should be visible throughout your sales process, not just at signature stage.
If you’re not already doing this, start here: https://koffeeklatch.co.uk/8-places-to-share-your-terms-and-conditions/
If you are using introductory rates, price increase or review points, and staged pricing changes, they should be in your initial quotation/discovery call, so that when you issue your KoffeeKlatch Booking Form you can mirror this so none of this is a surprise..
You can use your Booking form Key Dates Section to set:
- End date of introductory rates
- Review/price increase points (if you choose to use them)
- Any staged pricing changes
Done properly, this removes awkward conversations later—because expectations were clear from the start.
Build Pricing Confidence, Not Just Pricing Dates
Instead of tying everything to one moment, think in terms of ongoing positioning. Once you have filled a comfortable percentage of your time – it could be anything from a third to two thirds depending on your capacity and financial situation. Make sure your pipeline of potential clients is full. Nothing builds confidence more than knowing you have plenty of other people to talk to. Then:
- Increase prices for potential new clients first (just pitch higher rates)
- Keep going until you get several clear rejections
- Use that feedback to calibrate your value
Most people are surprised how far they can go when they are clear about what they offer. Remember people often use price as a reason to say no when in fact they have other reasons, so one “you’re too expensive” does not mean you need to charge less.
Because in an AI-driven world, clients don’t pay top rates for routine tasks.
They pay for:
- thinking
- judgement
- implementation
- reassurance
- stress reduction
If you are tentative about your value, your clients will be too. You can’t ask anyone to value you more highly than you value yourself. I work on the basis that at best people will think I am worth 80% of what I think I am – so I price accordingly!
How to Increase Prices for Existing Clients
They think the only option is to send an email saying:
“My prices are going up by 10%.”
That’s not a strategy. That’s a shock.
A better approach is:
1. Start with value
Remind them what you’ve achieved together. If they have said nice things about what you have helped them achieve now is the time to reflect that.
2. Give options
For example:
- Maintain current budget → reduced scope
- Maintain current scope → increased fee
- Change structure
Never do the same work for less money. You will end up tired and broke and your client will leave you for someone less stressed.
3. Adjust structure as well as price
You might offer:
- prepayment instead of credit (as a way of maintaining rates for credit-based clients)
- retainers instead of ad hoc work (giving access to better rates for additional work)
- staged payments instead of long invoicing cycles
Reducing risk can improve your profitability just as much as increasing your rates.
If at the end of the year a client owes you £2,000 that is never paid that is time and work you will never get back.
Psychological tip
On your routine invoices:
- Show your current full rate
- Then show a discount bringing it down to what that client pays
Every month, you are reinforcing:
- your true value
- that they are getting a preferential rate
- that others are paying more
So when the conversation comes, it’s not a surprise.
If they are on credit terms and you have a pre-paid retainer package put on your invoice:
If you converted to a monthly prepaid retainer you would save £x for the same amount of work. would you like to talk about this?
What If They Can’t Afford You?
It is your job to provide value for what you charge. It is not your job to charge only what your client can afford.
If their business can’t afford you, then you have a decision to make.
You can:
- reduce scope
- change the structure
- or let them go
If you don’t have a pipeline, that feels impossible. With one, it becomes a business decision.
If your client is not making enough money that is a business decision they will make at some point and having worked for years for too low a rate won’t stop them terminating your contract when that day comes.
If your client is heading towards cutbacks or your price increase conversation surfaces that they are you may find our article in client cutbacks is helpful.
https://koffeeklatch.co.uk/top-tips-for-freelancers-client-cutbacks/
Pricing Is Also a Way of Saying No
Sometimes a client comes back and you don’t really want the work or to work with them. This is where you can really experiment with setting your rates as high as you can imagine. Rather than simply decline (unless they really were abusive) why not quote at a really high level?
Over the years I have often found them saying yes (and made a short-term contract with them, tightly focused). It has taught me, that when I feel safe about rejection, I can charge a lot more (and get paid in advance). What would that number be for you?
The KoffeeKlatch Approach to Pricing
At KoffeeKlatch, pricing isn’t a clause—it’s a structure.
- Your terms set the framework
- Your booking form sets the specifics
- Your communication manages the relationship
And your pipeline gives you the confidence to use all three properly.
