Price Increase Plan

---
name: price-increase-plan
description: Plans a price increase client by client and offer by offer, with the new price set from your own numbers, timing and notice, what changes for each client, the order to tell them, the fallback if one leaves, and your decision per client. Use for "run price-increase-plan", "I want to raise my prices", "I keep putting off a price increase", "plan a fee increase", "which clients to raise first", "how much notice do I give", "raise rates without losing clients", part of the Pricing Under AI Pressure Pack by Polar Bear.
---

# Price Increase Plan

## When To Use
You want to raise prices and keep putting it off. Each month the floor creeps up, the work gets better, and the old price stays because the conversation feels risky. Use this to decide, per client and offer, whether the price moves, to what, from when, and what you will do if someone says no.

## When Not To Use
If the problem is the model (hours that AI shrank) rather than the level, run Retainer Redesign. If the increase is already decided and you need the words, run Price Increase Letter.

## Inputs
- Per client and offer: the current price, your floor from the Floor Rate Calculator, margin from the Client Profitability Map
- Value delivered with evidence you can point to (results, deliverables, feedback you have in writing)
- Each client's contract terms on price changes and notice
If you have none of this, I start from your current price list and your floor and mark the output as a first draft.

## Approach
A price review against your own floor and the value you delivered is a practitioner convention: the reason for a new price is your cost and your work, never what others are said to charge. The judgment is per client, not across the board: a client above floor with strong evidence of value is a different conversation from one below floor with thin evidence. The failure it prevents: a flat increase sent to everyone on the same day, which loses the one client you could least afford to lose and leaves the loss-making one untouched.

## Workflow
1. Ask at most three questions: which clients and offers are in scope, the date you want new prices to start, and whether any client is in the middle of a renewal.
2. Lay out each client and offer: current price, floor, margin, value delivered with its evidence. Flag any price below floor first; those are the urgent ones.
3. You set the new price for each line and write it in. I show the arithmetic (gap to floor, margin at the new price) and never suggest a market rate or a typical percentage.
4. Set timing and notice from each contract. Any question about notice obligations or the right to change prices: check with a qualified adviser.
5. Say what changes for the client: only the price, or price and scope. If scope changes, say exactly what.
6. You choose the order to tell clients and write why. Then for each, the fallback if they leave: the capacity it frees and the work you would put there, so the plan does not rest on fear.

## Output Format
```markdown
# Price Increase Plan
## Clients and offers
| Client | Offer | Current price | Floor | Margin now | Value delivered (evidence) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| [client] | [offer] | [your figure] | [your floor] | [your figure] | [what, and where it is written] |
## New prices
| Client | Offer | New price (you set) | Margin at new price | What changes for them | Effective date | Notice from contract |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| [client] | [offer] | [your figure] | [arithmetic] | [price only / price and scope] | [date] | [period] |
## Order to tell them
| Order | Client | Why this order | Conversation date |
|---|---|---|---|
| [1] | [client] | [one line] | [date] |
## If one leaves
| Client | Capacity freed | What you would do with it |
|---|---|---|
| [client] | [days per month] | [other work, pipeline] |
## Questions for an adviser
- [notice or contract question] (check with a qualified adviser)
## Decision
[Owner name] confirms the new price and date for each client by [date].
```

## Done When
- Every new price is written by you and sits above your floor, or the exception is explained
- Each client has an effective date, a notice period from the contract and a place in the order
- Each client has a fallback written down
- No line cites a market rate or a competitor's price

## Quality Bar
- Clients are compared on account numbers, never on judgments about the people you deal with
- Value evidence is something you can show, not an impression
- Price-only and price-and-scope changes are kept apart
- No deadline pressure or scarcity lines planned for the conversation
- The new price comes from your numbers, never a market rate Claude invented.

## Next
Run price-increase-letter (Price Increase Letter) to write each client's letter from this plan.

## About the makers

This pack is made by Polar Bear, a consultancy built by ex-McKinsey founders with a dream to make AI work for People, not instead of them. We help our clients build people systems and AI-first ways of working, and we run our own company on Claude. If your team has outgrown the self-serve version, message Pauline (linkedin.com/in/paulinebertry).