Your costs went up. Your prices have to follow. Most businesses handle this moment badly. They bury it, over-apologize, or say nothing and let customers find out at checkout. Clausi writes the 3-email price increase sequence that keeps customers instead of losing them.
No credit card required · Works with any Klaviyo account
30%
Less negative feedback when the increase is explained transparently
3×
Growth in small business tariff costs, Jan 2025 to Jan 2026
30 days
Minimum advance notice customers expect (60 for subscribers)
Every other flow in your account is trying to sell something. This one is trying to keep something: the trust you've already earned. Customers who understood why a price went up show higher retention than customers who discovered it on their own. The copy rules are completely different, and Clausi's generation follows them.
It's the single most recognizable signal that bad news is coming. Customers brace before they've read a word. Clausi bans it outright, along with every other corporate softener that makes an honest message sound like legal cover.
"Our material costs increased 18%" is credible. "Costs have risen" is what every company says when it hopes you won't ask questions. Customers extend trust in proportion to the specificity of the explanation.
Research shows over-apologizing increases customer anxiety instead of reducing it. It signals weakness and makes people wonder what else is wrong. Acknowledge it's not ideal, once, and move to what you're doing about it.
Advance notice is respect. Customers who learn about an increase from you, with time to stock up, show higher retention than customers who discover it at checkout. Notify 30 days out minimum; 60 for subscribers and high-value customers.
Timed to the research: enough notice to feel like respect, enough follow-up that nobody is surprised at checkout.
Tell them what's changing, when, and why. Be specific about the reason: tariffs, material costs, supplier changes. Explain what you already absorbed before raising prices. Then give them agency: the chance to stock up at the current price before the change takes effect.
There's no "buy now" CTA here. The goal is trust preservation, not conversion. That's what makes this flow different from every other email you send.
For customers who didn't act on Email 1. Simpler and more direct: prices increase on [date], last chance to order at current pricing. This is the only email in the sequence with real urgency, and it's honest urgency, because the deadline is real.
Acknowledge the change is in effect. Restate the reason briefly. Reaffirm your commitment to quality and to them. Then point forward: what the new price enables, what's coming next, why long-term customers matter to you. Close the chapter and move on.
Don't dwell. Customers take their cue from you: if you treat the change as manageable, they will too.
Email 1 of the sequence, generated for a small apparel brand hit by material tariffs.
A price change on August 1st
Straight talk about our prices
Prices are changing.
“Exciting changes coming to [Brand]...”
Hi {{ first_name | default: "there" }},
Starting August 1st, our prices are going up. We've held them steady for two years while our material costs climbed. Tariffs on imported cotton hit our supplier costs hard this spring. We absorbed it as long as we could.
Here's what's changing: most pieces go up $4 to $7. Here's what's not: the fabric, the fit, and the people who make them. The increase means we keep sourcing from the same mill we've worked with since day one instead of trading down.
If you've had your eye on something, current prices hold until July 31st.
No fake urgency, no over-apologizing, a specific reason and a real deadline. That's the whole playbook.
Enter your brand, the new prices, and the real reason. Clausi writes all three emails in under 60 seconds. Free to start.
Generate your price increase flow