Episode 97: Fully Booked, Burnt Out, and Underpaid: The Signs You Need to Raise Your Prices

Welcome to the Creative Minds Smart Money podcast, where we turn financial confusion into creative confidence. I’m Samantha Eck, bookkeeper and fractional CFO for creative entrepreneurs. Each week, I’m sharing my financial expertise and actionable strategies to help you build a thriving creative business. Plus, you’ll hear from industry experts who bring fresh perspectives on growing your business beyond the numbers. Because building a successful creative business starts with strong financial foundations.

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When was the last time that you raised your prices and how did that feel? Honest question. Last time I personally, as a business owner, raised my prices was last year. And I consistently review my clients to see if we do need to raise the prices based on the amount of work and the amount of things that are going on in their business and everything that is happening in their business. I think there are a lot of people who tend to stay at a set price or stay undercharging for many, many years because they’re scared of not having clients. And of course, you know, when you first start out, you start out with a price in mind, and then over time, you can raise your prices. And I’ve seen many of my clients do this where they raise their prices and they’re super worried, from both services to products. And some of those clients will raise their prices and all of a sudden, you know, they’re making even more sales. I’ve had it across two product-based businesses where the reputation is so renowned that raising their prices, people didn’t even bat an eye. And then you also have services — again, people don’t bat an eye because they know that you provide a premium service. So they’re going to pay you what they know and feel that you are worth. So of course that’s a given. It’s not something that we need to be stressed or worried about because it happens, okay?

So what are the signs that it’s time to start raising your prices? When you start feeling like you are spending too much time on clients but you don’t necessarily feel like your time is being spent properly, that’s when you know it’s time to raise your prices. Now, when I say that, what I mean by that is usually I tell all my clients that they should be tracking their time. And I’m not saying you should be tracking your time because you need to be like, oh my gosh, I spent five hours on that. But you need to be tracking your time to analyze where your time is going — how much of your time is spent on content creation, how much of your time is spent on engagement, how much of your time is spent on a bajillion of these different things — so you know how much time something takes and can appropriately price it. Because like we said before, you’re going to give yourself an effective hourly rate. So let’s just say your effective hourly rate is a hundred dollars an hour and you spend 15 hours on engagement in a week. So your engagement needs to cost $1,500, or maybe that’s a month. So your package needs to at least cost $1,500. If you are realizing that your time spent on this is less than the time you had initially calculated, then you definitely know it’s time to start raising your prices. Or if you’re spending more time working on certain clients, then you know it’s time to raise prices specifically for that client, not necessarily as a blanket. Because obviously businesses change and evolve. So I can take on a client that starts off with nothing, very little when we start working together, and six months down the road they’re at 500 transactions a week. And the scope of work has changed drastically from when we started to now. And that’s when I have to say, okay, I’m doing a lot more work on this client and I need to charge appropriately for them.

So obviously there are those signals, but there’s also the signal of feeling burnt out — feeling like you’re doing a lot more work than what your time is worth and being like, hmm, I feel like I am doing a lot but I’m not getting paid for the amount of work that I’m doing. I probably need to raise my prices.

If you are fully booked and you don’t have any breathing room, that’s probably again a sign that you need to raise your prices. Because perhaps people are booking you instantly because they’re like, man, she has good prices, I’m going to book her right away. That’s not necessarily to say that people who are always fully booked have the best prices — they could just provide that premium service and people just want to work with them. But sometimes that can be a sign that you do need to raise your prices, because nine times out of ten people are going to have an issue with your pricing, especially when you have a premium service — not because it’s too high, but because maybe it’s out of their budget at that point in time. So they might have to come back at a later point. Now, of course, there are the odd person who’s like, I would never pay that. But those just aren’t the people you want to work with in the first place.

So obviously if you’re feeling resentment towards projects or clients — you’re working with people and you’re like, this is not a good feeling, I don’t like this — and you hand off the work and you’re like, I feel like I was worth more than what I got paid for this project, that’s probably a sign that you need to raise your prices. Especially if you feel so proud of a project but you feel like you just didn’t get paid for it. That’s definitely a sign for sure.

And obviously you’ve gained significant experience since you last started. So maybe you’re a website designer and you’ve now built 30 different websites. When you first started, your websites weren’t as great, but now you’re getting glowing compliments every time you build one — everyone’s like, oh my gosh, that was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. Then of course that’s definitely a sign that you are ready to raise your prices, because you’re worth more. People see that. They see the skill that you have. And as your experience grows and as your reputation grows, of course there is a ceiling — you don’t just want to keep charging more and more and more because there’s a point where people are just going to be like, that’s way too high for me. But there’s definitely a place that you want to get to. You should have that in mind. Like, I want to get to X amount. Maybe you have someone you really admire in the same industry and you’re like, they’re charging X, I’d like to get there or around there. Now I’ve told you this before in our pricing episodes, but you do not want to just follow someone else’s pricing. Their story and their business is completely different than your business. So if you’re just following their pricing, that doesn’t really help you, right? Because you want to be charging what you’re worth, not what they’re worth.

So obviously there’s a fear behind raising your prices. A lot of people get scared. They get worried that if they raise their prices, again, they’re not going to have clients, people won’t want to work with them. There’s always someone that is going to be willing to pay for a premium service. Now, obviously if you’re charging $30,000, there are going to be people who hesitate, but especially when you have good feedback, good reviews, and everything else — if people really want to work with you, they will find a way to work with you. Whether that means they’re saying, hey, I’m going to set aside money and contact you next month and we’ll start working together, or six months down the road: hey, we talked six months ago, let’s start working together. The fear is based in reality. Being scared of raising your prices is a very real fear. It’s something that a lot of creatives face every day. Because I don’t want to say there’s competition, but there are a lot of different service providers out there. But I think that when we have specific people in mind that we are working with, that person is more than likely going to choose you over someone else because you spoke to them. And a lot of times nowadays, people don’t even reach out unless they’re sure they want to work with you. They already know enough about your pricing, so they want to work with you.

Of course, if you’re raising prices on current clients, there’s a fear of losing those clients. But I think the thought process there is: are they worth your time, for one thing, and are they worth the emotional stress? For like a whole year, I had quarterly clients. And I wanted to start switching everybody to monthly. I was like, quarterly is not good enough. Getting your books quarterly does not help you understand your business at all. I really need to think about getting my clients onto a monthly schedule. I was terrified, because obviously if I’m putting people on a monthly schedule, they’re going to be paying a different rate than if I was working with them quarterly. And I was like, there’s no way these people are going to want to stay with me. I did lose several clients, but the clients that stayed with me made up for the clients that I lost. So there’s that theory that, no, I’m never going to be able to make up that income. Literally, the amount of people that I lost, I made up for in the clients that stayed. And did it cut back my work a lot? Absolutely. But it allowed me to have clients that value me and understand the value in the work that I’m doing. So it just made me feel all the better.

And of course, a lot of my clients when I’m raising my prices always tell me, you know, it’s not a matter of if I want to keep working with you — it’s a matter of how do I make sure that I have enough money to keep working with Samantha. So I’ve had clients since I started in 2023. I think it is three clients that have been with me since the very beginning, since April of 2023. And I have in total 22 clients right now. Half of those clients have been with me since that first year. Then I would say six or seven have been with me since 2024, and I think I had five new clients last year that have stuck with me. So a lot of my clients, they have that longevity. They understand the value. And every time I’ve had to raise my prices with these clients, I’ve had a pit in my stomach being like, oh my gosh, they’re going to leave. Especially the ones that have stayed with me the longest — they don’t even bat an eye. They’re like, yeah, that makes sense. Our business has changed. We want to stay with you. We’re okay with that. And literally nobody has batted an eye over that when I’ve been so worried about it.

So obviously there’s that imposter syndrome and worrying, am I really worth higher rates? But again, you know what you’re worth and you know your story. Don’t even worry about it. And of course, not knowing if the market will support it — doing some market research and seeing what other people are charging can help. If you’re higher than them, ask yourself why. Not necessarily don’t charge that rate, just ask yourself why you’re higher. And if you are around the same amount that they are, at least you know the market will support it, especially if they’re booked out all the time. Because obviously if you are charging $5,000 above what the average person charges, that’s probably going to make it a little more difficult to bring in clients. That doesn’t mean don’t charge it. It just means think about why you’re worth it and use that in your messaging to justify that pricing.

So keeping your rates really low over time is just going to cause burnout. It’s going to prevent you from being able to grow your business because you’re staying consistently at the same price. Now, if that price is supporting your business and you’re like, I don’t need anymore — absolutely, there’s no reason to ever change your pricing. But if you ever feel burnt out or like you’re not getting enough for your time, you’ll know when you’re ready to raise your prices. And again, that’s when you want to think of your pricing as a profitability lever, not just a number. You could just say $500, but there’s a lot of things that change in your business over time. You gain software, you gain clients, you gain employees, contractors, whatever that is. All of that needs to start being factored into your pricing and your profitability. Because if you start calculating the time your contractors are spending and the cost of your software and you’re realizing, oh my gosh, I lost $300 on this project because of my software cost and my contractor, you need to raise your prices. It’s going to give you a very clearly defined idea of what your prices need to be in order to support not just you in your business, but your contractors and your software costs and everything else.

So obviously fewer clients at higher rates is going to equal the same or more revenue with less stress. Did I have fewer clients when I raised my prices? Yes. But it allowed for less stress and allowed me to really refine the amount of work I was doing on the clients that stayed. It freed up my time to do better work because I had fewer clients. I was able to hone my skills and do better work for those clients than if I had 30 or 40 clients I was spreading myself across.

And obviously having a lower rate is going to attract the wrong type of client. If you are pricing yourself just to be as low as possible because you want a bajillion clients, it’s not going to attract the type of people you actually want to work with — because people are just going to look at the price tag and be like, wow, that’s really fair, I just want to work with them because they’re so cheap, not necessarily because they resonate with your messaging. That’s a clear red flag. If you get on a discovery call and someone says, yeah, your prices were just really low and that’s why I wanted to reach out — that’s probably a red flag, especially if it sends alarm bells off for you. Personally, if someone told me my prices were super low, I’d be like, that’s not where I want to be. I want to be that premium service.

So how do you actually raise your prices? The best way is to start with new clients first. Raise your prices on your website, put your prices up there, have that set in stone so that anybody new is coming in at the new rate. Then go back and review your existing clients. Look at their profitability. If they’re still profitable and you don’t see a reason to change those prices — and you love that they’ve been so loyal — then don’t. But giving them advanced notice as a courtesy is very important. Say, hey, here’s what’s changed in your business over the years. Here’s what’s changed in my business. This is why I need to raise my prices. Some sort of advanced notice will give them that comfort and visibility into expecting a price increase.

And again, frame it around value, not just the cost of living. When I raise my prices and I’m telling my clients, I give them options. I say, here’s the lower price package, here’s the higher price package, this is what’s changing, this is what you would lose if you went with the lower price package, and this is what you would gain with the higher price package. That way they clearly know and understand what they’re gaining and what they’re losing. Your new clients will always get the new rate immediately. Now you just have to work your way backwards. Realistically, you don’t owe anyone an explanation for why you’re raising your pricing, but it’s courtesy. It’s kindness to tell them why your pricing is changing. It also shows that you value them as a client. But you don’t owe anyone a justification. If they’re like, excuse me, why would I ever pay that when I could go and pay X amount? — if they feel that way, they’re probably not your best client anyway. Usually your best clients are going to be the ones that are like, I see the value, great.

So if you’re scared to make the move with your pricing, I want you to think about not just yourself, but your business as a whole. Think about your team. Think about where you want to go and grow. Think about your profitability. And if you want to be profitable as a business, how do you get to that point? It’s not by staying stuck in the same place you’ve always been. It’s by growing beyond that.

What I want you to do this week is take your most recent project or client and look at the amount of time or the amount of work that you put into them. Factor in your software costs, factor in your contractor and employee costs, and then see if you’re profitable. And if you’re not, and you know you need to raise your prices, start off by raising your prices on your website first. Allow new clients to come in at that new price point, and then work your way backwards and let your older clients know: hey, this is why my prices are changing. All right?

If you guys love this episode, as always, like it, share it, subscribe, bring a friend onto the podcast, let them hear it, let them experience it. As always, I really do appreciate you guys and I wish you guys the best week ever. Farewell, fellow travelers.