How to Tell Customers About a Price Increase, and What Happens Next
What to put in a price increase notice and how much notice to give, from four dated public examples, and what customers wrote after Xbox's and Spotify's increases.
To tell customers about a price increase, send a dated notice before the new price reaches their bill that states the old and new price, the date it applies to them, what they get for it, anything else that is changing, and how to switch plans or cancel. Then expect the reaction to center on value, not on the notice: in public reviews after Xbox's October 2025 Game Pass increase and Spotify's January 2026 increase, customers wrote about whether the product was still worth it, about leaving, and about other changes made at the same time, and almost never about how they were told. For a company that wants to read that reaction across every channel and count it in cancellations and revenue, Dimension Labs is built for the job.
This page answers the communication question and what follows it, using four dated public notices and 252,600 public app reviews counted in Python. Two related pages cover what it does not repeat: how to predict how customers will react to a price increase works through which segments react, using Peacock, and menu price changes and the effect on traffic covers restaurant visits.
How much notice do companies give before a price increase?
Among four well-known recent increases, existing customers first paid the new price between about two weeks and two months after the announcement. Costco announced its membership fee increase on July 10, 2024 and applied it from September 1, 53 days later. Peacock gave current subscribers 36 days. Spotify announced on January 15, 2026 and moved existing subscribers on their February bill, 17 to 44 days later depending on the billing date. Xbox raised Game Pass Ultimate from $19.99 to $29.99 on October 1, 2025, effective that day for new subscribers and from the next billing cycle for existing ones.
Public announcements
Four well-known price increases: what changed, and when existing customers first paid it
Dates and prices from the published announcements. Lead time counts days from the announcement to the first new bill for existing customers.
| Company and date | What changed | Existing customers pay from | How customers heard |
|---|---|---|---|
| Costco July 10, 2024 | Membership $60 to $65 and $120 to $130 (8.3%) | September 1, 2024, at renewal (53 days) | Press release with monthly sales results |
| Peacock July 17, 2025 | Premium $7.99 to $10.99 (37.5%); Premium Plus $13.99 to $16.99 (21.4%) | Bills on or after August 22, 2025 (36 days) | Announcement; new subscribers paid from July 23 |
| Xbox Game Pass October 1, 2025 | Ultimate $19.99 to $29.99 (50%), with new perks and other plan changes | Next billing cycle; protected in some countries | Announcement, effective the same day for new subscribers; emails to members |
| Spotify January 15, 2026 | Individual $11.99 to $12.99 (8.3%); Family, Duo and Student up too | February bill (17 to 44 days) | Email to Premium subscribers over the following month |
Two details in that table matter as much as the number of days. Xbox said the increase would not affect current subscribers in certain countries "in line with local requirements", so the law where your customers live can decide whether you may raise an existing customer's price at all, or only with their consent. Check your contracts and the consumer rules in each market before you set the date. And a notice period that ends at the customer's own next bill, as Spotify's and Peacock's did, means every customer sees the new price before they pay it.
What should a price increase notice say?
Six things, in this order:
The old price, the new price and the plan. In numbers, for that customer's plan. Customers in the reviews below quote the exact amounts back, so be exact first.
The date it reaches their bill. Not the date of the announcement. "From your bill on or after March 3" is clearer than "from next month".
What they get for it. One or two concrete things that are new or better. Spotify's statement said its prices "reflect the value that Spotify delivers"; Xbox listed new perks in Ultimate. The reviews show value is what customers argue about, so this line carries the most weight.
Anything else that is changing at the same time. One in five Xbox reviews about the increase named another change made alongside it, most often cuts to rewards points. A cut that customers discover on their own reads as part of the increase.
Their options. A cheaper plan, an annual plan, a pause or how to cancel. A customer with options writes a different review from one who feels trapped.
Where to ask. A help page or a support route ready for the questions.
Sample wording, written for this post: "From your bill on or after March 3, your Plus plan will cost $12.99 a month, up from $11.99. Since your plan started, we have added offline downloads and family sharing. Nothing else about your plan changes. If you would rather pay less, the Basic plan stays at $7.99, and you can switch or cancel any time in Settings. Questions? Reply to this email."
What happens after customers are told about a price increase?
A spike in complaints that fades within weeks, and in these two cases the larger increase drew the larger spike. In the eight weeks before Xbox's announcement, 0.2% of reviews of the Xbox app mentioned a price increase. In October 2025 it was 9.4%, about 55 times as many, and 1.9% in the five weeks after that, as existing subscribers moved to the new price at their next billing cycle. Spotify's 8.3% increase moved its share from 0.37% to 1.09%, and it stayed near 1% through the February bills.
Public Google Play reviews
A 50% increase took over the Xbox app's reviews for a month; Spotify's $1 increase tripled a small share and held it through the February bills
Share of reviews that mention a price increase, before the announcement, in the notice period, and in the five weeks after it (Spotify: the February bills; Xbox: November into December).
Xbox app, Game Pass increase (Oct 2025)Spotify app, Premium increase (Jan 2026)
The timing differed too. For Xbox, 20.3% of all reviews in the announcement week named the increase, and by the third week the share was back near 2%, with no second rise through November. Spotify's emails went out over a month, and its reviews stayed raised for about eight weeks before fading by late March. Peacock, which told new subscribers first and current subscribers a month later, had a second wave when current bills changed; that analysis shows it.
Public Google Play reviews, Xbox app
Most of the reaction came in the first two weeks after the notice, and it did not come back in November
Share of each week's reviews that mention a price increase. Weeks start on Monday; the announcement was Wednesday, October 1, 2025.
Check any jump like this against a stretch when nothing changed. Split the eight weeks before Xbox's announcement into two halves as if the first half ended in an announcement, and the share moves from 0.13% to 0.15%, a difference of 0.02 points with a range of -0.3 to 0.34, which includes zero. The October spike is the price, not the way reviews drift.
What do customers complain about after a price increase notice?
Value first. 42.0% of Spotify reviews about the increase and 28.7% of Xbox ones say the product is not worth the new price, that nothing was added, or tie the price to ads or a worse app. One Xbox reviewer put it in five words: "Price Hike? For what added value?"
What the price increase reviews say
Customers wrote about value and about leaving; almost nobody wrote about how they were told
Share of reviews that mention the increase, naming each theme. Xbox: 94 reviews, October 1 to December 5, 2025. Spotify: 333 reviews, January 15 to March 7, 2026.
Xbox appSpotify app
The notice itself barely registers. None of the Xbox reviews about the increase and 8 of 333 Spotify ones were about how or when customers heard, such as an email that never arrived or a change that felt sudden. That is useful to know: the work of a notice is in what it says about value and what else changes, and a clear, dated email does its job by not becoming the story. Customers also judge an increase against the earlier ones. A five-star Spotify reviewer wrote, "great product, let's just hope they space these price hikes a bit," and others listed every increase since they joined.
Bundled changes are where a notice can make things worse. One in five Xbox reviews about the increase named another change alongside it, mostly cuts to rewards points and the end of paying for Game Pass with points. If a perk is going away, say so in the same notice, with the reason, rather than leaving customers to find it.
Will customers cancel after a price increase notice?
Some say they will: 28.7% of Xbox reviews about the increase and 22.2% of Spotify ones talk about cancelling or switching. Among Spotify reviews that also question the value, 27.9% talk about leaving, against 18.1% of the rest. Reviews are talk from people who chose to write, so they show who is at risk and why, not how many left.
That is the reason to read your own customers rather than an app store. Your support tickets, chats, cancellation reasons and survey comments from the notice period, joined to who actually cancelled or downgraded, turn talk into a count by plan and segment. Dimension Labs makes that join on the Prove plan ($2,999 a month), with effects and confidence intervals, so the reaction you read in comments is stated in customers and revenue. Predicting the reaction by segment shows the split that usually matters.
How do I check the reaction to my own price increase?
Mark the dates. Announcement, first new bill for existing customers, and any other change made in the same weeks.
Tag every channel the same way. Tickets, chats, calls, emails, reviews and surveys, each tagged for the increase, value, cancelling, the notice and anything else changed alongside.
Compare with a baseline and a placebo. The weeks before, and a date when nothing changed, as above.
Read it twice. Once in the notice period and again after bills change, because some customers only react when they are charged.
Join to what customers did. Cancellations, downgrades and plan switches by segment, so the next increase can be set on what this one did.
Done for every pricing decision, that record of what customers said, what they did and what the business changed is a customer world model: the next increase is checked against how these same customers reacted to the last one. How to test a business decision before you make it walks one through.
How does Dimension Labs help with the next price increase?
Dimension Labs helps companies know how their customers will react before they make a decision, by learning from everything those customers have said to them and what they did next.
For a pricing or retention team, that means four things. Every channel in one place, because the reaction to a notice arrives in support tickets and chats as much as in reviews. Easy integration with billing, plan and cancellation data, so each complaint sits next to what that customer did (the revenue join is on Prove and up). Every interaction enriched with Dimensions built for your business, such as "questions the new price", "names a removed perk" or "asks to downgrade", applied the same way across channels and usable by pricing, support and finance alike. And a visual analytics layer: a notice-period dashboard, decks and PDF reports for leadership, and shareable links, refreshed on a schedule while the increase rolls out.
The support side of a price change is where this pays first. Intuit QuickBooks used Dimension Labs on more than a million chatbot sessions a month and cut human escalations by 57%. See the QuickBooks story.
FAQ
How do I tell customers about a price increase?
In a dated email or letter, before the new price reaches their bill: the old and new price for their plan, the date it applies to them, what they get for it, anything else that is changing, their options, and where to ask questions.
How much notice should I give before a price increase?
At least until the customer's next bill, so they see the price before paying it, and longer for annual plans. In four recent public examples, existing customers first paid between 17 and 53 days after the announcement, apart from Xbox, which moved them at their next billing cycle. Check contracts and local consumer rules first.
What should a price increase email say?
Be exact and specific: amounts, the date, one or two concrete improvements, every other change, and how to switch or cancel. Customers in the reviews argued about value, not about the wording of the email.
Will customers cancel after a price increase?
Some will talk about it: between 22% and 29% of the reviews that named these increases did. How many actually leave depends on your customers, the size of the increase and what else they are unhappy with, which is why the answer comes from joining their comments to cancellations.
What is the best way to track the reaction to a price increase?
For reading every channel at once and joining it to cancellations and revenue, Dimension Labs: it tags the reaction in tickets, chats, reviews and surveys and, on Prove, measures what it did to cancellations by segment. For app reviews alone, a keyword count like the one on this page is a start.
Raising prices soon, or just did? Start with one file of support tickets or reviews from the notice period and see what customers are saying.