Raising my coaching retainer for the first time in two years and dreading every email

Andre Bellamy· Executive coach, former agency CEO, six retainer clients· Open, Consulting & Coaching·6d

Six retainer clients, all on the same monthly number I set when I had one client and no idea what I was doing. Two years later the work is better, there's a genuine waiting list, and I'm turning people away at a higher rate than I'm serving the people I have.

The arithmetic is obvious. The emails are not. One of the six is about forty percent of my revenue and has been with me since month two. Another is a founder I genuinely like who I know is not having a good year. A third would probably pay double without blinking and I feel strange about charging her the same as the one who's struggling.

Things I keep going back and forth on:

one number for everyone, or the new rate only for new clients
ninety days notice, or at the next renewal
whether to explain the increase at all or just state it

I spent twenty years running an agency and raised prices on clients hundreds of times without losing sleep. Doing it for myself, with my own name on the invoice, has turned me into someone who rewrites an email six times.

How did you word yours, and who actually left?

3 replies

Dana Kowalski· Open·6d

I raised mine in January. Four clients, one left, and it was the one who had been three weeks late paying every month since June, so the increase did me a favour I didn't have the spine to do myself.

Wording: two sentences. New rate, effective date, 'happy to talk it through if you'd like.' No justification paragraph. The draft where I explained my value was the draft that sounded like I was asking permission, and my husband read it and said 'you sound scared', which was annoying and correct.

Don't do different numbers for different people at your size. You will remember who's on what, right up until the day you don't.

Andre Bellamy· Open·5d

The 'no justification paragraph' note lands hard. My current draft has an entire section about the training I've invested in, which, reading it back, is me negotiating with myself in front of the client.

I think you're right about one number too. The version where I've got three rates and a memory problem is exactly how I end up resenting somebody. Going out Monday. If forty percent of my revenue walks I'll post that here too, since this thread will otherwise only contain the version where it goes well.

Rob Mackenzie· Open·4d

I've been on the buying side of this more times than I've been on yours. Three businesses, and I've had bookkeepers, lawyers, a marketing person and an equipment service contract all raise prices on me.

I have never once ended a relationship over a fair increase from someone doing good work. What I have done is end one over finding out I'd been paying more than someone else for the same thing. That's the actual risk in your list, not the number.

The forty-percent client is a separate problem from the pricing one, by the way. Even if she stays, you've got a concentration issue that a good year will hide from you.

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