Academy › Build › Describe your business

Raising a price: the exact day the number changes

You set a specific date for the new price, honor the old price for any booking made before that date, and on that same day update the number on your website and anywhere else it appears.

By Yodai · Published on September 6, 2026 · Updated on October 12, 2026

You're raising your tattoo hourly rate from $60 to $70. Nothing unusual there: you've had a full schedule for months, and the old price no longer matches the time it takes you to do good work. The problem isn't how much to raise it. The problem is which day you change the number on your website, because right now you have three bookings made for next month at the old price.

If you update the site today, do you charge $70 to someone who booked expecting $60? If you wait until that appointment rolls around, do you leave the old price up in the meantime and keep taking new bookings for less than you want to charge? There's an exact moment to make the change, and it's neither the most convenient nor the most intuitive one.

The price is set when you promise, not when you deliver

The confusion comes from looking at the wrong date. The day the tattoo happens doesn't matter. What matters is the day the client booked.

When someone books, they're closing a deal: this time, this price. Under the Civil Code, a contract is formed the moment both parties agree, and from that moment on, both sides are bound to honor what was agreed. That deal doesn't shift just because you change your window display three weeks later: the same code says that fulfilling a contract can't be left to the whim of just one party. If you move it, you haven't raised a price, you've changed the terms on someone who already bought.

This works the other way too. If you lower the price, a booking that's already been made doesn't drop with it. The price is locked in at the moment of the promise, not at the moment of delivery. For individual customers, the consumer protection law treats as abusive any clause that sets the price at the time of delivery, or that lets a business raise an already-agreed price, when there's no objective reason and the customer can't cancel the contract if the final price ends up far above the original one. It's the same rule as with anything you've already bought: what you bought yesterday doesn't drop in price just because there's a sale today.

The day the number changes

With that settled, the headline question has only one reasonable answer: the number on the website changes on the exact same day you want the new price to start applying. Not before, not after.

Changing it early penalizes someone who hasn't booked yet but was going to this week, based on the information they had until yesterday: they go to the site, see a different price than the one you texted them on Monday, and now you're both second-guessing it. Changing it late is worse: you keep closing new bookings at the old price even though you've already decided that price doesn't work for you, and every one of those bookings is money you're leaving on the table just because you didn't update a text field.

Pick a day. Call it Day D. Anyone who books before Day D pays the old price, even if the appointment falls in January. Anyone who books from Day D onward pays the new price. The service date doesn't factor into this at all.

Give a heads-up to clients who already know you

Giving notice before day D isn't the same as changing the price before day D. These are two different things, and only the second one is a mistake. The first, when you have repeat customers, is good advice that almost always pays off.

Someone who's been coming in every month for two years doesn't want to find out about a price increase the day a different number shows up on the payment screen. They'll take it much better hearing about it ahead of time and seeing it as a decision you explained, not a surprise you slipped past them. If you don't have recurring clients, skip this part: there's no one to notify, and it's enough to just change the number on Day D.

There's a temptation that shows up after Day D: a longtime client asks to keep the old price even though they're booking after Day D. Here it pays to be clear. If you make an exception, the next client who hears about it is going to ask for the same conversation, and the exception stops being an exception. Day D is the same for everyone, including your longtime regulars. What you owe that client is advance notice, not an open-ended extension.

The price also lives outside your website

The price is no longer a floating number that depends on who messages you first: it depends on the day they booked, and that day doesn't get renegotiated later. And the price you quoted through any channel counts: under the consumer protection law, the customer can hold you to what the offer or the ad said, even if it's not in the contract. What's next isn't how much you charge, but what you do the day you start offering something that wasn't on the page before.

Checking where the price lives is mechanical, one-day work. Adding a new service to your description is a different story: there the question isn't where the text lives, but whether it needs its own section or fits into one you already have.

Yodai builds the site from what you tell it, with a store, bookings or quote requests depending on what you do. See what the website for your business looks like.