I’ve been using an online service to track my time every day for the last 16 years. My yearly subscription renews this month, and last week I got an email informing me that they’re switching to a new business model. My subscription is jumping from $138/year to $1,158—a 739% increase, with only a few weeks’ notice.
That’s the number. But the delivery was worse. The email was long and patronizing, and it essentially told me to pay up or leave. No acknowledgment of what a big jump that is, no nod to the fact that I’ve been a loyal customer for years, not even a pretense that they’ll be sorry to see me go.
Thankfully, I’d had a heads-up from colleagues who’d gotten the email before me. Some fought back and got the new rate reduced a bit for the next year. But it took time and hassle, and they’re still paying a lot more than before. I’m not interested in doing that. I’ll be taking my business elsewhere.
To be clear—I’m not against price increases. Every business should be raising prices at regular intervals. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it, assuming customer retention is important.
1. Give more notice.
For a price jump that size, 2-3 months’ warning would have gone a long way—even without the exact number attached. A big change like that needs time to land in someone’s budget, not get shoved in at the last minute.
2. Acknowledge the relationship.
My business is small potatoes next to the new customers they’re clearly chasing. But 16 years isn’t nothing. They have no idea how many people I’ve referred to them over the years, or how much word-of-mouth business that’s brought them. Because of how they handled this, they won’t get another kind word from me. Maybe losing me doesn’t move the needle for a company that size. But losing every small business owner I’ve talked to about this just might.
3. Give people a path, not an ultimatum.
There was no tiering, no phased increase, no conversation—just a number and a deadline. Even a simple option to lock in a partial increase now with the rest phased in over a year would have shown they were thinking about existing customers instead of just the number on a spreadsheet.
When raising prices, the fix isn’t complicated:
- Give real notice, not a fire drill
- Talk to long-term clients like people, not line items
- Offer a bridge if the jump is big, even if it’s imperfect
I don’t know where I’m going from here—I’ve got two weeks to figure it out. I can download all my data, and there may even be a service out there that lets me import those hours right in. We’ll see. If you’ve got a service you love for this, tell me about it—I’m taking recommendations.