MaidBossPro Blog — Billing & Payments

Raising Prices on Recurring Cleaning Clients Without Billing Surprises

Supplies cost more, wages go up, gas goes up, and the price you set when you started no longer covers the work. Raising prices is a normal part of running a cleaning company. What turns a reasonable increase into a lost customer is almost never the amount. It is finding out from the invoice. A price change handled with notice, clear words and a careful first invoice usually goes by without a single complaint.

The Invoice Should Never Be the Announcement

The last guide, When a Customer Questions a Cleaning Invoice: Photos, Notes and a Calm Reply, covered answering billing questions after they come up. A price change is the one billing question you can answer completely before anyone asks.

Recurring customers are used to seeing the same total every visit, especially if their card is charged automatically at completion. If that total changes with no warning, the charge itself feels like a mistake. Tell them first.

Decide the Change Before You Announce It

Before anyone hears about it, get the details settled:

• Which services change. All recurring cleans? Deep cleans? Extras?
• By how much, in dollars per visit, which is easier for customers to picture than anything else.
• When it starts. A specific date, a few weeks out.
• Who it applies to. Everyone, or new customers now and existing customers later?

Some owners raise prices for new customers first and give existing recurring clients a longer runway. Others move everyone at once to keep things simple. Either is fine. What matters is that you decide before you announce.

Giving Notice

Use the channels your customers already read. MaidBossPro has two-way texting from the office, so you can send each customer a short note and get their reply in the same thread. An email with the same wording is a good backup. Keep it warm and specific:

“Hi Karen, a quick note from the team. Starting March 1, your every-two-weeks cleaning will be $165 instead of $155. Costs have gone up and we want to keep giving you the same careful clean. Thanks for being with us. Reply here with any questions.”

A few things make notice work:

• Lead with the customer's own service and price, not a general announcement.
• Give a date with enough time to think about it.
• Keep the reason short. Customers do not need a breakdown of your costs.
• Invite replies. Replies come back to the office through two-way texting.

Customers who pay by check need the notice most, since they often write the same amount out of habit. See Cash and Check Customers: Handling Cleaning Payments Outside the App.

Updating Prices in the System

When the date comes, update the prices on your service list. Invoice lines come from the service list, so new invoices use the new price. If you also show prices on your website or sign-up form, update those the same day so new customers see the same numbers.

Because MaidBossPro remembers each home and fills new jobs in from the last one, check how your recurring jobs pick up price changes before the first billing day at the new rate. Look at a few upcoming recurring jobs and make sure they will invoice at the new price, not the old one.

Check the First Invoices

The first week at the new price is worth watching closely:

• Look at the first several invoices after the change to make sure they show the new price.
• Watch for customers who were promised a different start date.
• Check monthly statements for commercial clients, if their pricing changed too.
• Keep an eye on texts and reply quickly to anyone with a question.

If an invoice goes out at the wrong price, fix it right away and tell the customer. A quick correction keeps the trust you built with the notice.

Handling Pushback

Most recurring customers accept a reasonable increase without comment, especially with notice. A few will ask questions or push back. Listen first. Sometimes the right answer is to explain the change again. Sometimes it is to offer a different frequency, like moving from weekly to every two weeks, which may fit their budget better. Occasionally a customer will leave. That is part of pricing your work properly.

Notice, Then Invoice

Raising prices on recurring clients is mostly about order: decide, give notice by text and email, update the service list on the date, and check the first invoices. Do those in order and the invoice simply confirms what the customer already knew. To see how service list prices flow onto invoices and statements, visit the MaidBossPro cleaning invoicing software page.