Virtual Assistant Rate Increase: How to Raise Your Retainer Without Losing the Client

A virtual assistant rate increase is the email most VAs put off for a year longer than they should. The client has been with you since 2023. The rate was fine then. Your workload has grown, your tools cost more, and you are still billing at the number you picked when you were nervous about landing the contract.

This is a practical walkthrough of how to do it: when, how much, what to say, and what to do when a client pushes back. It assumes you work on retainers or hourly packages, not one-off projects.

The real reason you haven't done it

It is rarely about the money. It is that you cannot defend the number. If a client asks "why the increase?" and your honest answer is "it has been a while," that is a weak position. You feel it, so you delay.

The fix is not a better script. The fix is evidence. Before you write anything, pull the last six months of actual time on that client. Not what you quoted. What you logged. If you do not have logged time, that is the first problem to solve, and it will probably surprise you.

Take a client on a 20-hour monthly retainer at $35 an hour, so $700 a month. If your records show 24, 26, 23, 27, 25 and 26 hours, you have been giving away roughly five hours a month, about $175, for half a year. That is over $1,000 in free work. The conversation changes from "I want more money" to "the scope grew and the rate did not."

Pick the type of increase before you pick the number

There are really two different things people call a rate increase, and mixing them up causes most of the awkward emails.

A rate change. The hourly price goes up. Same scope, same hours, higher cost. This is the cleanest to explain when your skills or costs have moved.

A scope correction. The hours in the retainer go up to match what you actually do. The hourly price may stay the same. This is the right move when the client has been quietly sending 25 hours of work into a 20-hour box.

Often you want both. Do them in one message but name them separately. A client who sees "your rate moves from $35 to $40, and your retainer moves from 20 to 25 hours to match current volume" can follow it. A client who sees a single bigger monthly number with no explanation assumes the worst.

How much to raise it

There is no universal figure. Published surveys of VA pricing vary widely by niche, region and skill level, and most of them are written by people selling something, so treat any single number with suspicion. What holds up better is your own situation: what new clients pay you today, what the work now requires, and what your cost of doing business has done since the last change.

A rule that works in practice: your existing clients should not be your cheapest clients. If a new client signed last month at $45 and a client from two years ago is at $30 for comparable work, you have a loyalty discount you never agreed to offer. Closing that whole gap in one step is a hard sell. Moving it partway, with a stated plan to review again in twelve months, is easier to accept.

Many VAs land somewhere between a modest bump and a double-digit percentage. The number matters less than whether you can explain it in two sentences.

Give notice, and give a date

Thirty days is the floor. Sixty is better for larger retainers, because the client may need to adjust their own budget. State the effective date in the first paragraph. "Starting January 1" leaves nothing to interpret. "Soon" or "next quarter" invites a negotiation about when.

Also check your contract. If your agreement says rates are fixed for a term, you cannot just send a notice mid-term. You wait for the renewal or you ask for an amendment. If your agreement says nothing about changes, now is a good time to add a rate review clause to every new contract, and it takes one sentence.

What the message should contain

Keep it short. Four parts are enough.

Start with the plain fact: your rates are changing on a specific date. Then give the reason in one sentence, tied to the work and not to your feelings. "Over the last six months your account has averaged 25 hours against a 20-hour retainer, and my rate has not changed since 2023." Then state the new terms with numbers. Then say what stays the same, which is the thing the client actually cares about.

Leave out the apology. "I'm so sorry to do this" reads as an invitation to push back. Leave out the long justification too. Three paragraphs of reasons make the client think the decision is up for debate.

Attach or link the hours summary. You do not need to make it a spreadsheet war. One monthly table showing logged time per month is enough, and most clients will not read past the first row. Having it there signals that this is a considered decision, not a mood.

When the client pushes back

Some will. That is normal and it does not always mean they are leaving. The common responses, and what tends to work:

"Can you do it for less?" You can offer a smaller increase in exchange for something: a longer commitment, prepayment, or a tighter scope. Do not just discount. A discount with nothing attached teaches the client that your numbers are negotiable.

"We can't afford that right now." Offer to keep the rate and reduce the hours to match the budget. This is often the most honest outcome. They get fewer hours, you stop working for free, and everyone sees the real price of the work.

Silence. If the effective date passes and they have not objected, invoice at the new rate. Do not chase for acknowledgment. You gave notice, and the invoice is the next step in the process.

Some clients will leave over an increase. If a client at the bottom of your rate range goes, you lose a little revenue and gain back hours you can sell at the current price. That is a trade you should be willing to make, and if the thought of losing them is paralyzing, you probably have too few clients, which is a different problem.

What this requires from your systems

The whole approach depends on two things you may not have: accurate logged hours per client, and a billing setup that lets you change a rate without rebuilding everything. If your hours live in a notes app and your invoice is a template you copy each month, a rate change means editing every future invoice by hand. You will forget one. The client will notice the old number and assume the increase was optional.

A rate change should be one edit that applies from the effective date forward, with the old rate still attached to the old invoices.

A short sequence you can reuse

Review your logged hours for the last six months. Decide whether you need a rate change, a scope correction, or both. Check the contract for notice terms. Send the message at least 30 days ahead with a fixed date. Update the rate in your billing at the same time so the first invoice is correct. Put a reminder on your calendar twelve months out for the next review, so you are not back here in 2028.

If you are tracking this across several clients with different retainers, FocalVA keeps logged time, retainer hours and invoicing in one place, so the numbers behind a conversation like this are already there. You can see how it works for solo VAs and small teams on the virtual assistants page.