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Price rises

Raising MSP prices without losing clients

Updated 27 August 2026 · 11 min read · By Kyslan, a Northbeams product

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Do this before you raise anything

There is one step that comes before every other piece of advice here, and skipping it is the most common reason a price rise goes badly.

The second reason to do it first is evidential. Walking into a pricing conversation knowing exactly what you delivered for that client last year, with the hours attached, changes the tone completely. You are not asserting that you provide value. You are showing it.

When to raise, and how often

Annually, on a fixed date, for everybody. That single decision removes most of the difficulty:

• A yearly rise is expected. Clients raise their own prices annually and their suppliers raise theirs.
• Nobody feels targeted, because everyone got the same letter in the same week.
• The increases stay small, and small increases do not trigger a procurement review.
• Your margin does not need to be rescued by a large correction every four years, which is the change clients genuinely resist.

An MSP that has not raised prices in three years is not being generous. It has taken a real cut in margin every year while wages, tooling and security requirements rose, and it now needs a rise big enough to be frightening. The uplift clause exists to prevent exactly that, which is why an uplift clause that is never applied is one of the more expensive administrative failures in this business.

How much

Three inputs, in order:

1. Your input cost movement. Wages first, because delivery labour dominates cost of goods sold, then tooling, then anything new you have been forced to add.
2. The gap between the client's price and your current list. A client 30% below list needs a different plan from one already at list.
3. What the contract permits. If there is an uplift clause with a stated mechanism, use it. A rise inside the terms the client already signed is an administrative notice, not a negotiation.

Keep the standard annual rise modest and applied without exception. Where a specific client is materially below list, that is a separate, individual conversation, and it should be staged over two years rather than corrected in one jump. A 30% correction delivered in one letter reads as a penalty however it is worded.

Sequencing the conversations

Do not send them all at once on day one. Work outward from safety:

Your biggest client should never learn about a price rise from an email. A five minute call from the owner beforehand costs nothing and prevents the single worst outcome, which is a large client feeling processed.

The letter that works

Five paragraphs, one page, no apology anywhere in it.

1. What we did this year. Specific to them. Tickets resolved, projects delivered, incidents prevented, response times. Numbers from their own account, not marketing.
2. What changed on our side. What you added or improved, and honestly, what got more expensive. Security tooling and wage inflation are both true and both understood.
3. The new price, stated plainly. Old figure, new figure, the date it applies. No burying it, no percentage-only phrasing that makes them do arithmetic.
4. The alternative. A longer term at the current rate, or a lower tier. Giving a choice converts a rise from something done to them into a decision they make.
5. An open door. A named person, a direct number, and an invitation to talk. Most clients will not use it, and the ones who do were going to call anyway.

Send it at least 60 days before it applies, in writing, and put the effective date in the subject line. Notice periods are usually a contractual requirement, and they are also what separates a professional adjustment from a surprise.

Handling pushback

Expect a small proportion to respond, and most of those to be asking rather than objecting. Four answers worth having ready:

"We were not budgeting for this."

Offer the timing, not the money. Applying it a quarter later costs you one quarter and keeps the increase permanent. Discounting the rise itself costs you every year afterwards.

"Someone quoted us less."

Ask what is in their number. Out of hours, onboarding, security tooling, backup and offboarding are the usual gaps, and the comparison is almost never like for like. Then show what you delivered for them last year, in hours. If they still prefer the other number, they are buying a different product.

"What are we actually getting for the extra?"

The honest answer is usually continuity rather than a new feature, and saying so plainly lands better than inventing a benefit. Costs rose, the service continues, and the alternative to a small annual rise is a large occasional one.

"Can we have a discount instead?"

Trade, do not concede. A longer term, a payment method that costs you less, a case study, a reference call. A discount given for asking is a discount every client learns to ask for.

When someone threatens to leave

First, work out whether you want them to stay. Run their gross margin and their effective hourly rate before you respond. Some accounts should be allowed to go, and it is far better to know that at the start of the conversation than to discover it after you have made concessions to keep them.

If you do want them:

• Take it offline. Phone, not email.
• Ask what is really driving it. Price is the stated reason far more often than it is the actual one, and an unresolved service complaint from four months ago is a much more common cause.
• Offer scope changes, not price cuts. Moving them to a tier that genuinely matches what they use is a legitimate answer. Same service, less money, is not.
• Be willing to lose them. A client kept by folding is a client who will test you again next year, and every other client eventually hears how it went.

Six things not to do

1. Do not apologise. A rise framed as regrettable invites negotiation.
2. Do not blame inflation alone. It is true and it is also what everyone says. Lead with what you delivered.
3. Do not raise prices while your billing is inaccurate. You are asking for a rise while giving away more than the rise is worth.
4. Do not exempt the difficult clients. Exemptions leak, and the client who shouted loudest becomes the template.
5. Do not bundle a price rise with a model change. Two changes at once reads as a rise in disguise. Handle the model change separately.
6. Do not give less than the contractual notice. It converts a commercial conversation into a contractual dispute, which you will lose.

The underlying point is that a price rise is a test of whether you can evidence your value. If you can show a client exactly what you delivered for them last year, with the tickets and hours behind it, the conversation is straightforward. That evidence is a by-product of accurate billing, which is the same work that stops the leak in the first place. Kyslan produces it read-only from your PSA, and the first audit is free.

Common questions

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