Somewhere around this time of year, we get an email from a client — a coach, a therapist, a consultant, a bookkeeper — that opens with a version of the same sentence. "I know I need to raise my rates in January, and I don't know how to tell my existing clients." Then a long pause, and the real question. "Is it wrong?"
It is a strange thing to ask a web agency. But it makes sense when you remember who is asking. The faith-based service business is almost always run by someone who took their first clients at a favor-price, kept them there out of loyalty, and now finds themselves three years in, subsidizing longtime relationships at rates that no longer cover the work. The question is not really about the number. It is about whether raising it is faithful.
We think it is — with the caveat that the letter matters almost as much as the decision. Here is what we have learned watching those letters go out.
Send it early, in the quiet season
The worst time to send a rate increase is the week before it takes effect. The best time is roughly ninety days out, on a Tuesday morning in the slower part of your year. For most of the businesses we work with — coaches, consultants, creatives, ministry service providers — that quiet stretch is late summer or early winter. If you are reading this in late July, that lines up. A letter that goes out now, for a January change, gives clients time to plan, to ask questions, and to make a decision without a countdown clock.
Ninety days also removes the appearance of pressure. A three-week notice reads as "act now or lose your rate." A three-month notice reads as "I want you to have a lot of time to think about this." Those are two different letters, even if the number at the bottom is the same.
Say what changed, briefly
The letter that lands well opens with what changed on your side, not with the new number. Costs. Capacity. What the business is being asked to carry that it was not asked to carry two years ago. One paragraph is enough. You are not defending the increase; you are giving context. A single honest sentence — "our software costs, insurance, and the hours the work now requires have all moved in the same direction, and our pricing has not kept up" — is more respectful than a spreadsheet.
Skip the apology, especially the pre-emptive one. "I'm so sorry to do this" reads to the client as either performative or worried, and neither one helps them decide. The right tone is calm and slightly warm — the tone of a grown-up telling another grown-up something true.
Name the new rate, and one option beside it
The middle of the letter should have exactly two things: the new rate, and one alternative. Two options, not five. The alternative might be a lower-tier package, a longer commitment at the current rate, or an offer to refer them to a colleague if the new rate no longer fits. Which one you pick tells the client something about how you see the relationship, so pick honestly.
For clients who have been with you the longest, we often see a "grandfather window" work well — a defined period, three or six months, during which they can renew at the current rate before the increase takes effect. It is not a gimmick. It is a small honoring of the fact that they took the risk on you first. Just do not offer it forever. A grandfather rate that never sunsets stops being a gift and starts being a resentment.
Leave room for the yes and the no
The last paragraph is the one most letters get wrong. It should not push for a decision, and it should not close the door if the answer is no. A single sentence like "if the new rate does not work for your season, I understand, and I would love to help you find someone who fits" is doing real work. It tells the client that the relationship was not conditional on their staying, which — paradoxically — makes many of them stay.
The businesses that send this kind of letter almost never lose the clients they were afraid of losing. They do lose one or two clients they had been quietly overserving for a long time, and they usually describe that as a relief. The ones who stay pay the new rate and treat the relationship with slightly more care than before, because they were given the chance to opt out and chose not to.
That, we think, is the faithful outcome. The business becomes sustainable enough to keep serving. The client is treated like an adult with a real choice. The relationship is renewed on honest terms. None of that is unspiritual — most of it is just what it looks like to steward a small business well.
If your rate increase is on the calendar for early next year and the letter is still a blank page, we help small faith-based businesses shape these kinds of messages as part of our client work. We are happy to look at your draft.