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Courtney
Cat grooming expert and contributor to Cat Grooming Directory. Passionate about helping cat owners find the best grooming solutions for their feline friends.
Courtney
Cat grooming expert and contributor to Cat Grooming Directory. Passionate about helping cat owners find the best grooming solutions for their feline friends.
If you're still charging what you charged in 2022, you've taken a pay cut. Twice, actually — once when you didn't raise prices in 2023, again when you didn't in 2024, and here we are in 2026 with the same number on your booking screen that you set four years ago. The work is the same. The costs are not. And your pricing hasn't caught up.
I ran American Puppy for two years before I figured out that not raising prices is just a slow way to go broke while staying busy. This is what I wish someone had said to me sooner.
The biggest mistake isn't refusing to raise prices. It's treating a price increase like a one-time event instead of a business rhythm.
You raised your rates in 2021. Fine. Did you raise them in 2022? In 2023? Does your pricing keep pace with your actual cost of doing business, or did you set a number once and make peace with it?
Here's what happens in practice. A groomer raises their menu price for new clients but grandfathers existing clients indefinitely. Three years later, their longest-tenured clients — the ones they feel the most loyalty toward — are also paying the lowest rates in the book. Meanwhile, new clients booking the exact same service are paying $15-20 more per appointment.
I've watched groomers sustain this imbalance for five years. "I can't raise Linda's price — she's been with me since the beginning." I understand that loyalty. But at some point that math becomes a problem. Linda is paying 2021 prices for 2026 labor, supplies, and overhead. The arithmetic eventually breaks you, not her.
The second mistake is believing your clients are more price-sensitive than they actually are. Most cat owners are not comparison-shopping your rates against every groomer in town. They found someone who handles their animal without a catastrophe, and they are not looking for a reason to leave. You have more latitude than you think — and you're probably not using it.
The generic small-business pricing advice usually goes: send an email 30 days out, raise rates 5-10%, move on. Clean. Efficient. Done.
It misses two things specific to cat grooming.
Cat owners have a different kind of switching anxiety. A dog owner can walk into any competent grooming salon and generally be okay. A cat owner who has found someone their reactive, arthritic, formerly feral Persian tolerates without a trauma response — that owner is not leaving over $10. They don't have that luxury. Finding you probably took months. The relationship you've built with their animal is the product, not just the groom.
This works in your favor when you raise prices. Most of your solid clients aren't going anywhere. They're staying because they value the relationship, the results, and the peace of mind that comes from not having to start over. Let that knowledge steady you when the discomfort of the conversation shows up.
The second thing generic advice misses: cat grooming prices are not transparent the way dog grooming is. There's no PetSmart price board for professional feline grooming. Many cat owners genuinely don't know what services like yours cost elsewhere. If you've been undercharging for years, they may not even realize it. You're not competing against a published benchmark — you're setting your own standard.
What doesn't work: vague or apologetic framing. If your announcement says "I'll be raising prices soon, but I'll work with long-term clients on a case-by-case basis," you've just told every client they can negotiate. You'll spend two months having individual awkward conversations instead of one clean transition. Announce it, mean it, move on.
This isn't complicated. It's just uncomfortable. Here's how to think about it.
Price to your costs, not your comfort level. Your shampoo costs more than it did three years ago. Your insurance costs more. If you're renting space, your rent costs more. If you're mobile, gas and vehicle maintenance cost more. Every input on the cost side of your business moved up. If your prices didn't follow, you absorbed the difference — from your own income. That's not generosity. That's a slow subsidy you didn't agree to provide.
Give notice, not apologies. The word "sorry" has no place in a price increase notice. A brief explanation is fine: "As my product and operating costs have increased, I'm adjusting my rates beginning [date]." That's enough. You don't owe clients a line-item breakdown of your expenses, and you definitely don't owe an apology for running a business that needs to generate income.
Raise the whole relationship, not just the number. The best price increases pair the rate adjustment with a small enhancement — better product, cleaner booking communication, a new add-on, an updated service menu. You're not just charging more. You're investing in the experience. That framing is honest, because it's usually true.
Know who you're willing to lose. Look, here's the thing nobody wants to say out loud: some clients should leave when you raise prices. The one who books, confirms, and no-shows twice a year. The one who tips $2 on a $90 groom and texts at 9pm with follow-up questions. The one who argues about every add-on charge. A price increase is a natural filter. Let it filter.
Your real clients — the pre-bookers, the regulars, the ones who trust you with a cat that won't let anyone else come near it — those clients are staying. And if you've done right by them, they want to support your business. Let them.
You don't need a perfect system before you start. Here's what Monday morning actually looks like.
Pull your appointment history and do the math. What did you charge your top 20 clients per groom last year? What are they paying annually? What would they pay at market rate today? The gap between those two numbers is your annual cost of not raising prices. See it clearly before you decide whether or not to act.
Set a go-live date. Not "sometime this spring." A date. Pick 30-45 days out, write it down, and treat it like a commitment. Ambiguity is where this kind of decision goes to die.
Draft your notice — one paragraph. New rates. Effective date. Thank you for your continued support. That is the whole message. If you want to call your top three or four long-term clients before the general announcement, that's a thoughtful touch — but keep the same message, not a different deal.
Update your booking software first. Before any client communication goes out, make sure your prices are updated in your system. The worst outcome is a client books at the old price after your announcement because you forgot to update MoeGo or whatever you're running. That creates confusion you don't need and a conversation you really don't want.
The framework above will get you moving. What it won't give you is the worked math on segmenting your client book by revenue and hassle ratio, the exact message templates for every scenario — email, text, in-person, the "I've been coming for seven years" conversation — or the full implementation timeline broken into week-by-week actions.
That's what the Cat Groomer Price Increase Playbook covers. It includes a client segmentation audit worksheet you can run on your actual book, before/after revenue models based on real salon numbers, and specific objection scripts that hold up when a long-term client pushes back. If you've got the Price Increase Calculator open in another tab but aren't sure what to do with the numbers, the playbook is where to start.
How much should I raise prices after a two-to-three year gap? A two-year gap with normal inflation usually supports a 12-18% total increase — but that often lands better split into two adjustments 12 months apart rather than one jump. A $12 increase on an $85 groom rarely creates friction. A $25 increase on the same groom sometimes does, even when it's warranted.
Should I raise prices for all clients at once, or phase it in? Generally, across the board at once. Piecemeal increases create a client tier system that's hard to manage — different clients paying different rates for the same service, for reasons that start to feel arbitrary. A clean transition is simpler and easier to explain.
What if a longtime client says the increase is too much? You can offer to hold their current rate for one additional cycle — one more appointment at the old price, then the new rate after that. Don't offer it preemptively; offer it only if they ask. And put a clear end date on it. Indefinite exceptions become permanent problems.
Do I need to explain the reason for the increase? A single sentence is enough — or nothing at all. "As my costs of operation have increased" covers it. You don't owe clients a justification. "My rates will be increasing effective [date]" is a complete and professional announcement.
What if I lose clients over this? You might lose one or two. Most groomers who implement a clean price increase retain 90% or more of their book. The clients who leave over a fair rate adjustment are often the same ones who were already the most difficult to manage — chronic no-shows, chronic hagglers, chronic low tippers. The math on losing them and replacing them with better-fit clients frequently works in your favor.
What's the right timing — before or after busy season? Before. Execute in spring so your summer book runs at new rates from the start. Raising prices heading into slow season means a revenue gap at exactly the moment you can least afford it.
Charge what you're worth. The clients who leave weren't staying anyway.
Related: Building a Cat Grooming Menu That Actually Makes Money | Groomer Burnout: Protecting Your Body, Schedule, and Career | Price Increase Calculator