Waiting means the increase, when you finally make it, is large and abrupt - which is exactly what makes customers leave. A price rise is either a shock or a rhythm, and you choose which. Businesses that review on fixed dates and announce in advance keep far more customers than businesses that hold on for eighteen months and then jump 40 per cent in one message.

Do the arithmetic from receipts, not memory. Rebuild one product's true unit cost from the last three months of actual spending: materials, transport, packaging, diesel or fuel for the generator, bank charges, wastage, and your own hours priced at a rate you would pay someone else. Most owners discover their best-selling item is their thinnest one, and that they have been subsidising it with the rest of the business.

Then pair the increase with something visible. Raising a price while nothing else changes feels extractive, however justified it is. Faster turnaround, better packaging, a written guarantee, a delivery window - one improvement changes the conversation from what you are taking to what they are getting. Expect to lose a handful of customers; in practice, the ones who leave over ten per cent are usually the ones consuming the most of your attention.