Small Firms Are Raising Prices at More Than Twice the Usual Rate, NFIB Says. Your Unchanged Price Is a Pay Cut.

Your price is not a fact. It is a decision you made once and stopped making.

Picture a freelance bookkeeper on a Sunday night. This is an imagined scene, not a reported case. She quoted $45 an hour four years ago, and every invoice since has carried that number like a sticker nobody peels. Rent moved. Software moved. The grocery bill moved. The $45 sits there, steady and polite, and she calls it loyalty.

On Tuesday, October 13, the NFIB released its September small business survey, and the report carried a number that should make her put down her tea. A seasonally adjusted net 31% of owners said they raised average selling prices. The historical average is net 14%.

Owners across the country are repricing out loud. The question is whether you are.

What the survey actually reported

The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index came in at 97.9 for September, a hair under its long-term average of 98. The uncertainty index rose one point to 90, against a historical average of 68. Owners ranked labor availability as their top problem and inflation second.

On prices, the same report found a net 31% raised their average selling prices, unchanged from August. Another net 31% plan to raise them, up three points from August. The long-run average for both is net 14%.

Hear what an owner sounds like inside those numbers. Danny Reynolds, who runs Stephenson's, a clothing store in Elkhart, Indiana, called the climate "erratic" in the KOMO report. He said he was "cautiously optimistic" and pointed to pockets of strength in bridal and menswear.

Hold the limits honestly. This is a survey of owners, and "net" means those raising prices minus those lowering them. It does not say the raises worked, that customers paid happily, or what freelancers and employees are doing. It shows a lot of owners treating price as something they are allowed to change.

The meeting that never gets scheduled

Comfort Zone Worship does not announce itself. It sounds like "my clients are on tight budgets" and "I'll bring it up after the busy season" and "it's only five dollars, why make it weird?" Every one of those sentences is a way of choosing a familiar small loss over an unfamiliar short conversation.

Picture a contractor in a parked van between jobs. This is another imagined scene. He has hauled the same $85-an-hour number to every estimate for three years. He writes it on the form, caps the pen, and feels a small, specific relief that nobody argued. He does not feel the invisible part: the gas, the materials and the insurance have all climbed, and the number on the form has not.

An unchanged price in a year when costs moved is a pay cut, handed to yourself, signed by you, never announced. Nobody forced it. You just kept not deciding.

That is the wishing phase: wanting the raise and waiting for a better moment to ask. The moment does not improve. It arrives pre-scheduled and unanswered.

The repricing talk is well-defined discomfort. It has a reason, a structure and an end. It is also not a reckless bet. Protect your stability first: keep your current clients on notice instead of surprising them, keep your savings untouched, and raise in steps if a single jump would put your income at risk.

Reprice with math, not mood

Start with your real hourly figure. Add up twelve months of what you spent to do the work: software, fuel, insurance, tools, the share of rent that is your workspace. Subtract that from what you billed, then divide what is left by the hours you actually worked, including the unbilled ones. That is what an hour of your life earns.

Compare it to the same figure a year ago. If it fell, your price is lagging your costs and the gap has a number.

Now set the new rate from that gap, not from your nerves. Write one sentence: "Starting on [date], my rate will be [number]." Add one reason in a clause, such as rising costs. Skip the apology and the essay.

Send it to new clients first, since they have no old number to compare. Give existing clients written notice, thirty days is a common courtesy, and apply the new rate at their next renewal or project. Then put a six-month review on your calendar, so the price never again goes four years without a decision.

Some clients will leave. Some will not blink. Either way, you will know your number. Fall off? Reset fast. No drama. If you stall on the send, open the draft the next morning and press the button. Your light is your reliability, and a price you review twice a year is a promise you keep to yourself.

Go back to that Sunday night. The tea is still warm and the invoice template is still open. This time the cursor sits on the rate field, and the new number is already typed in.

Tonight, pull your twelve months and find your real hourly figure. Write the one sentence. Pick the date and send it. Move before motivation arrives, because the nerves ease after the click, not before.

The market is repricing around you. Decide your number on purpose, then keep your word to yourself.

Shine on!