How to Raise Your Web Design Prices with Confidence
At certain points in your business journey, you’re going to have to increase your website design prices…
… but if the thought of charging more for your web design services is making you grind your teeth at night, or you’re not sure HOW to do it in the right way so that you actually feel confident, you’re not alone!
Looking back over my website designer journey, I realise now it took me WAYYY too long to raise my rates. I was convinced my ideal clients couldn’t afford to pay more (not true!), and I spent too long worrying that increasing my prices would mean all my enquiries would drop off a cliff.
Spoiler: they didn’t. 10 years later (and increasing my web design prices by 6x what they were originally 😳), I now understand exactly what needs to go into raising prices - from a practical (and mindset!) point of view.
Table of Contents
Why increase your prices as a web designer?
This goes deeper than just ‘wanting more money’, and you should never feel greedy for wanting to get paid more for your work.
For starters, inflation and the general ‘cost of living’ is constantly increasing, so as website designers we genuinely need to keep increasing our prices just to keep paying ourselves enough to live off!
But beyond that, you want to create the life you imagined when you decided to start your own business in the first place.
Many of us left secure 9 to 5 jobs because we wanted more freedom in our day to day lives, and also because we won’t be capped on how much money we can make. Your pricing should enable you to achieve those goals, because otherwise - what’s the actual point?
Let’s be real - running a business can be stressful, with way less security and fewer ‘benefits’ (ie. maternity leave, sick pay, pensions) than being an employee. So your pricing should mean that your business income is suitably compensating you to make all that worthwhile! However what usually happens is we end up on a hamster wheel of just trying to keep our businesses afloat, forgetting why we started in the first place.
TL:DR; we don’t want to simply ‘stay afloat’, we want to grow thriving, sustainable and enjoyable businesses!
What happens when you raise your web design prices?
Aside from the obvious ‘you get more money’, there are some other brilliant side effects of raising your rates too…
Higher paying clients typically micromanage less
Yes I didn’t believe this either. I was convinced that charging more would mean my web design clients would be more demanding, but in fact, they are often easier to work with! This is a generalisation, but clients with higher budgets are normally more comfortable spending that higher amount of money, and are often willing to spend that because they are limited on time and want to hand everything off to an expert.
You get time back to work ON your business (or take a damn nap)
…Because you don’t have to take on as many clients to make the same amount of money. = Less hustle and more freedom!
You create more space for creativity
There’s nothing more stifling to a creative than feeling rushed with back-to-back projects and being overwhelmed with work, and this is what happens when your prices are too low. You have to take on more just to make the money you want. Meanwhile if you raise your prices, you can take on fewer clients, which gives the more breathing space to let your creative juices flow!
When is it time to raise your web design rates?
You’re fully booked & in demand
If you’re booked up in advance with projects and more enquiries coming through the door, this is a good sign that you’re ready to raise your rates in line with your increased demand!
Want the feeling of being in demand with clients queued up to work with you? Check out my In Demand Designer® program!
You’ve gained new skills, worked on more projects, or invested in yourself
Whether you’ve invested in learning new skills, learned a new platform or tool, or you’ve simply got a few more website projects under your belt, this is the perfect time to raise your prices! Each website you design, you are learning new things and refining your skills, which is why some designers even consider increasing prices after every few projects.
you feel like you’re constantly working but barely hitting revenue goals
This sounds like you’re taking on lots of work but not being compensated enough for it, so it’s time to look at your rates! It can also happen if you constantly find yourself doing hourly or bitty small chunks of work for clients, which is why considering package pricing or day rate pricing might be more worth your while.
You haven’t raised them in over a year… 👀
Dude, it’s time. Think about how much your own personal costs and business costs have gone up in the past 12 months (hi, I’m writing this from 2025 where this is a real issue 😅). You NEED to increase your prices already simply to keep in line with this.
How to raise your web design prices with confidence
1. Audit your current offers & pricing
Take a look at your services pages and your website design packages, and check - do they still reflect your energy, skills and the client results you’re getting? Does the price you’re putting on these feel like fair compensation? And do they reflect the work you actually end up doing for the client (eg. is there anything you find yourself often adding to the scope/workload without charging for etc.)?
2. Upgrade your case studies & portfolio
Our portfolio pages on our websites can quickly start gathering dust if we don’t have a routine for keeping these up to date. After each project launches, I have a task to create a case study and add this to my portfolio (if relevant) to ensure it’s always looking fresh (AND actually communicating the journey of the project rather than just sharing pretty pictures).
3. Know & communicate your value
This is probably the most important step when it comes to being able to confidently raise your prices. If you are able to justify how much you charge because you KNOW the value you bring, and what makes you stand out as a website designer, you’ll feel excited to send that quote/proposal out (rather than biting your nails)!
This is something we work on inside my program, In Demand Designer®, as messaging and communicating your unique value is key for marketing your business.
“I feel so much more confident and I’m now looking at putting my prices up - thank you!”
“I’ve just signed my first international client and feel like I’m really attracting the right people. It’s made me feel so much more confident and I’m now looking at refining my services & putting my prices up too.”
— Tamsin (In Demand Designer® student)
4. Create low-risk entry points to working with you
If you’re worried about clients being hesitant to spend a large amount of money with you, you can consider introducing low commitment offers to give people a taste of what it’s like to work with you. This can help to build trust and eases people into spending more!
Inside In Demand Designer® we create these ‘taster offers’ and nurture potential clients with emails and content to turn them into ‘warm’ leads.
5. Deliver an exceptional client experience
You could deliver a beautiful website but if your client has had a clunky, awkward, (or even just average) experience with working with you, they’re unlikely to send you more work or referrals. Your onboarding and offboarding workflows need to reflect a premium price, by being streamlined & organised, and providing all the support your client needs (before they even know they need it!).
6. Build a personal brand that people can’t wait to work with
Having a strong & memorable personal brand is the difference between clients weighing up other designers with similar styles and price points, and KNOWING that you’re the designer they want to work with and being excited to work with you (even before you’ve had a call!).
If you truly want to stand out and build a business that people want to pay more for, personal branding is where it’s at. Which is why this is a key part of the messaging and content creation we work on inside In Demand Designer®.
Extra pro tips for raising your rates
Normalise annual increases
It’s completely normal in many industries for companies to have an annual price increase, so why not implement this into your web design business! Standardised rate increases like this are typically between 5-10%, and this again helps make sure you’re compensating yourself for general cost increases too.
take your mind out of other peoples’ pockets
Stop assuming what your clients can and can’t afford, because you can never truly know (and the real answer is often surprising!). People also buy for many more reasons than just price; they might have other priorities such as sustainability, convenience, or how it will make them feel or how it will affect their reputation/social status.
For example, think about crockery (plates, bowls etc.). There are cheap and expensive crockery sets, but at the end of the day they all do the same thing of allowing people to eat off them and it’s very hard to say that one version allows people to do that better than the other, and yet people still choose to buy expensive designer crockery sets vs. Ikea ones.
How ‘expensive’ something is to someone is completely relative!
Avoid comparison (you don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes)
If you see someone offering what you do for much less, remember you don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes! They might be at a completely different stage of their business journey than you, with less experience, or they might REALLY be struggling to make ends meet on those prices, and they have their own money mindset blocks stopping them from increasing their prices.
OR they might be having their income from this subsidised by something else so they don’t feel they need to charge more! You just never know.
Work on your mindset
Imposter syndrome is a real problem for many creatives, and wondering ‘who am I to charge this?’ or ‘Am I good enough?’ is so normal at every stage of business!
If you’re ever in need of some motivation and positive mindset shifts, just take a look at previous testimonials and reviews you have from previous clients who love what you do and have seen first-hand the value you offer.
Remember that price objections are normal
As I say, how expensive something is is completely relative. One client might say ‘that’s way to expensive’, and another may say ‘wow that’s great value’! It’s okay to get objections, but don’t let it mean anything deeper than it is to you.
A common objection is clients commenting that you might be charging more for something you can do quickly, remind them that they are paying for your years of experience, NOT for the time it takes you to do something. Otherwise, just think, you’d be penalised for being good at your job and completing a task efficiently, which takes years of practice and skills to allow you to do that!
But realistically even in 10 years of my business I’ve only ever been questioned about my prices a handful of times; it rarely ever happens! This is largely due to how I deliberately communicate the value I offer too.
Want to learn how to book more of your dream web design clients in 2025?
Join the In Demand Designer® program to build an in demand brand ready to raise your prices!
