That is a very good question actually. Would love to see what web host operators say to this.
If your old customer is not costing you money, then you should leave them alone. Chances are that they are one of your new customer streams.
The minute that customer starts costing you money though, then you should look to raise the prices, you cannot afford to lose money to keep customers. (Do take any new customers they bring into this equation though).
One of the biggest lessons I learnt, was to let unprofitable customers go. It goes against the grain because you have to fight hard to get a customer. But you will need multiple customers just to offset an unprofitable customer.
I'm happy that my time running a business is over!
I merely rent space now to subsidise new ventures.
I think if the customer is happy and still paying why cause them to maybe want to leave you after you tell them about price increase. This is just my 2 cents
As a customer, I don't like price increases. But I can understand them, especially if properly explained why they take place.
On one hand, a price increase can relate to rising cost of business, software price hikes (looking at you, cPanel), development that goes directly into making my life as a customer better, etc. On the other hand, I do not see why you would annoy a customer who is paying a monthly fee for 10 years. Chances are, the package that I signed up for 10 years ago would actually be less expensive today, so if anything, you should be adjusting the price/package in reverse.
I greatly value companies who manage their clients' offerings proactively. Conor from BigRedSEO used to do that with the company he used to run. For example, they would upgrade my server's RAM free of charge, just to keep the specs in line with the price I was paying, against competition. I thought it was a brilliant strategy, one that would win any customer for life.
Web hosting should be treated like any other business
Overtime your costs can increase and if so you need to pass on those costs usually in order to maintain a profitable business
But you also need to balance this with keeping your customers happy and making sure you are still providing a great service for the amount you are charging
Another options when you costs increase instead of raising prices is to look at different ways you can structure your business to bring your costs down and have a much greater chance of retaining customers
Last point you are better to have small price rises if needed than wait too long and have a large increase, this will upset customers much more!
A few years ago I had bought a web hosting customer base which was offering crazy low prices - and almost zero-sum profit, however it looked like a faithful customer base. Raised prices and lost 70-80% within a 2 years.
Yes, you have to raise prices, but you also need to understand your customer base. Why do they choose you? Are they strictly price conscious? How long has the price been the same?
At that time I had mis-read the client base.
Make sure you know yours.
While increasing price you may offer some extra benefits to that client by considering 10 years of business!
hmmm hard one! Personally I have done it a little over the years but not much and mostly to new signups only.
You have to rise with the rising costs so even if you do, they will only be slightly.
One of our datacenter emailed us a few months ago and said prices were going up by 2% but I never really noticed much extra on the bills.
You would need to look if these extra benefits would cost you money as no good increasing prices and then give clients benefits that would wipe out the price increase.
Its a fact of life prices increase, just look at supermarkets where prices increase almost on a weekly basis, but hosting a price increase maybe annually or biannual.
It is how you handle any increases, you have more chance of losing clients if you just increase prices without notice, but if you inform clients at least 14 days before any increase and give them a reason to why you are increasing the costs then you have less chance of losing clients.