The "forever" price doesn't last forever
Every old price you keep for a customer already has an end date, decided that same day and known to them from the start.
By Yodai · Published September 6, 2026 · Updated October 12, 2026
When you raise your price, you can choose to keep a customer at the old rate. The problem is what happens when that choice doesn't have an end date. You told a customer you wouldn't raise their price. That was six months ago, or a year ago, and you never set a date. Now they're paying $35 a session while everyone else pays $45, and you don't know when you're going to tell them it's ending. Every month that passes, that exception gets more expensive to take back.
The problem isn't that you kept the old price. Keeping your word to a customer who's been with you for a while is a good thing. The problem is not saying for how long. An old price with no end date stops feeling like a favor and starts feeling like an entitlement.
An open-ended price becomes the norm
Think about what's going on in the customer's head. The first month, your old price is a favor you're doing them. By the sixth month, they don't even remember there was a price increase: to them, that's just their price now. The day you decide to end it, you won't just be raising their price, you'll be taking away something they'd already come to think of as theirs.
That's what makes a late warning so costly. It's not the money from the months in between. It's that the conversation changes character: from "I'm keeping your old rate a little longer" to "what you had is over." The second one sounds like punishment, even though it's the exact same increase you applied to everyone else a while back.
Set the end date the same day you decide to keep the price
The date gets set at the same moment you decide to make the exception, not later. If on Thursday you decide to keep your longtime customers at the old price, on Thursday you also decide when it ends. It's not a second decision to make down the road, it's the same decision with two parts.
Pick a timeframe you can stand behind without long explanations: through the end of the year, three months, the next package renewal. The more it resembles something already on your calendar, a change of season, your business anniversary, the less it looks like your whim and the more it looks like a natural cutoff.
- 1Pick the timeframe the same day
As soon as you decide to keep the old price, write down the end date right next to it. If you don't write it down that day, you never will. - 2Tie it to something already on your calendar
A change of season, your opening anniversary, a package renewal. A date with a reason gets accepted without question; a date with no reason invites negotiation. - 3Say it the first time you mention the old price
Don't save it for the increase notice. Put the date in the very first sentence: "I'll keep your price through March," not just "I'll keep your price." - 4Write it down somewhere you won't forget
On the customer's file, on your calendar, wherever works. You're the one who benefits most from that date, it's your reminder not to let it slide another year.
- Applied almost the same as everyone else, just with a token grace period
- The customer notices the gesture but doesn't have time to get used to the old price
- Works well when the relationship is recent or the service isn't booked often
- The gesture carries more weight, it reads as real appreciation
- There's more risk the old price turns into the norm
- Works well when you want to reward years of loyalty, not just avoid a complaint
Which one do I pick: With customers of just a few months, a short date works just as well and doesn't tie you down. With customers of several years, a long date, but put in writing from day one, not decided on the fly.
Now you know when the old price ends. What you still haven't figured out is how much notice to give everyone about the change, not just the customers with a special price.
- Every old price you keep already comes with an end date, set the same day you decide to keep it
- The date is tied to something on your calendar, it's not a random number
- The customer knows the date from the first time the price comes up, they don't find out after it's already passed
- You've written down somewhere when it's time to give notice, so you don't let it slide