Who is self employed and raised their rates due to price of gas??

I send out a letter each spring to my existing clients and have written that I have a price increase due to the increase of gas prices.
However I cannot quite determine how much to increase. I was planning about $1/hr. But I have weekly clients on a fixed income so I am trying to figure out if I should raise my rates the same for everyone (easier for me to keep track of). Or do a fuel surcharge???

Has anyone who is self employed raised their rates and how did you figure out how to do it??

I contacted SCORE and the person advised me to contact my competitors.

As always-THANKS!!

I'm not self employed, but I can relate what my snow removal guy did this year. He has, for several years, charged me $15 to plow my driveway (1 car wide, about 3 car lengths long), and to clear the sidewalk in front of my house. This year, with the price of gas going out-of-this-world, he raised his rate to $25. I still consider this a bargain, because he comes at 5:30 am (whenever it snows more than 2 or 3 inches), so I am able to leave for work at 6 am. In ten years, he has never missed and never been late, so I'm pretty happy to pay whatever he asks!!!

Hope this helps!

However I cannot quite determine how much to increase. I was planning about $1/hr. But I have weekly clients on a fixed income so I am trying to figure out if I should raise my rates the same for everyone (easier for me to keep track of). Or do a fuel surcharge???

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Gary raised our rates but we deal with other small business owners very rarely do we deal with individuals. . .

Many folks do a variation - in other wards if the person lives close by and you use minim amount of fuel charge a smaller rate increase - however if you have to travel a distance and it cost more in gas do a slightly higher rate for your travel.


Many of our competitors will do delivery charges based upon increments measured in radial miles - if the product is to be delivered with in 15 mile radius delivery charge is "X" amount, if delivery is 25 miles then delivery is "Y" . . . this is still a semi-set rate that should remain relatively easy to configure.

Hope this helps - My husband and I run our own business and yes we have gone up on our rates due to fuel cost but the fact you charge by the hour and deal with the elderly on a fixed income means we are not in the same business . . . . .but I did want to offer some thing viable in the way of a suggestion

Thanks for the input so far!! Good ideas!

Why not just a standard percentage increase based on your current fees. Maybe something between 3 and 5% of your current rate.

For example if your rate is $25.00 per hour, your hourly increase would be 75 cents based on a 3% rate increase and $1.25 based on a 5% increase.

Or you could do what most moving companies do, or at least the ones I've hired. Charge an hourly rate for your services, plus "travel time". Travel time either being a flat fee, or based on the mileage you put on your car travelling there. If you are doing it based on mileage, you could charge an amount of perhaps between 10 and 20 cents per mile. Of course you have to decide if you are going to charge for mileage for your return trip home or not. If you do that would be "mileage there x 2"

Of course if you are charging by the mile, you will need to keep a log book in order to back up your claims in the event anyone disputes it, plus for income tax purposes.