Don’t just increase your prices because a business guru said that you should “charge your worth”. I get the sentiment behind it - once you increase your prices, you can literally double or triple your income and create thousands of dollars at the end of the year. But you can also lose a lot of business.

Sometimes it’s time to raise your prices and sometimes it’s best to wait. So how do you know?

Here are 3 times when you should increase your prices. You only need one reason, not all three.

Your cost of living and/or operational costs have increased.
If your rent, your insurance, your groceries, your tools, and your software fees have gone up, it’s time to increase your prices. You won’t stay in business for very long if you’re running on a treadmill, barely making ends meet.
If you live in major cities like New York, San Francisco or Toronto, you need to charge a lot just to cover your basics, because making more money doesn’t mean you will pocketing all of it.
You won’t see much of what you make once you factor in taxes, too, so there’s that.
You are in high demand, are getting great reviews, and you’re tired.
Others at your level and skill are getting more pay and are less stressed.
If you work for a salon, your boss may say you should increase retail sales or give head massages to increase your tips, but it’s on them to increase your rates and “graduate” you to a higher position.
They can hire a junior stylist and move their budget-conscious clientele to the junior stylist.
If you’re an independent stylist, send out a thank-you email to your clients saying how much you appreciate them, and link to stylists that charge less.
Don’t try to justify why you’re increasing your price, just affirm it and thank them for their business.
You want to work less and focus on something else.
I did this when I wanted to focus on marketing and building this blog and YouTube channel. I didn’t want to work behind the chair during the week because I loved content creation, so I worked for an agency creating content and editing videos during the week and filmed YouTube videos and courses for my online Academy.
YouTube takes so. much. time and I lived frugally until I figured out my next steps. But I knew I didn’t want to do haircutting full time and was keen on studying and leveling up my skills.
You can increase your prices dramatically (say, from $90 to $180 a service) to take less clients and have more time to yourself. I increased my prices from $75 a haircut that could take 2 hours to $150 an hour, now making $300 a haircut. If I do 8 hours at the salon, that’s $1200. I work 3 Sundays a month, so that’s $3600 a month. It’s up to you to figure out your numbers and look at what you can live on.
Eventually, you will be fully booked as I am now. The spaces in your books will always fill up if you’re good at what you do!