Our core rates have been unchanged for about 10 years. Unfortunately though, a lot of other other things have changed in that time:
our wages have gone up, commensurate with skill and experience
some materials and services have gone up, especially shipping
figure complexity has boomed
I have always preferred to grow our output and sales, rather than just hike rates. However, there’s only so far that goes before putting off a price increase becomes unhealthy for the business - and 2020 has underlined this.
So we are raising our rates. Painting is going up by 10%, and Shipping is going up marginally. Depending on what happens with international shipping in the coming year, shipping may increase again. However, I don’t see painting rates changing again, for several years at least.
Navin