Prompt · Announcement
Price increase announcement
Have the customer understand the new price and the date without contacting support.
- Email type
- Announcement
- Business
- SaaS
- Tone
- Professional
- Length
- 120-170 words
The announcement email prompt
Write a plain-text email from [SENDER] telling an existing [PRODUCT] customer that the price is changing: [THE CHANGE], from [WHEN]. Words only — no HTML, no layout notes. The reader should finish this email knowing what they will pay, when, and what their options are, without needing to contact anyone. Rules: - 120 to 170 words. Neutral, precise, unhurried. - Put the old number, the new number and the date in the first three lines. A price email that makes the reader hunt for the number reads as an attempt to hide it, and that is what generates the angry reply. - Give the reason in one sentence: [WHY]. One. A paragraph of justification signals that we do not think the increase is defensible. - Do not apologise, and do not thank them for their understanding before they have given any. - State [WHAT THEY CAN DO] plainly, including the option that costs us money. Burying the downgrade path is what turns a price rise into a cancellation. - Do not bundle this with a feature announcement. Pairing a price rise with new features reads as a justification and cheapens both. - Never invent a number, percentage, cost figure or customer count beyond what I have supplied. - No exclamation marks. No emoji. Sentence case. Write a subject line under 45 characters that says a price is changing. Do not soften it into "an update to your account". Return subject, preheader, body, sign-off.
What to fill in first
[PRODUCT]- What they pay for.
[THE CHANGE]- Old price to new price, exactly. Never "a small adjustment".
[WHEN]- The date it applies, and whether it hits at their next renewal or a fixed day.
[WHY]- The real reason, in one sentence. Costs, scope, years without a change. Not "to serve you better".
[WHAT THEY CAN DO]- The options. Lock in the old rate, downgrade, export and leave. Give at least one.
[SENDER]- A named person, senior enough that the decision is clearly theirs.
When to send it
At least 30 days before the change, and before anyone finds out from an invoice. The single worst version of this email is the one that arrives after the card has been charged, because the reader is now disputing a transaction rather than reading an announcement.
What to change first
[WHAT THEY CAN DO]. Most price emails give one option: accept it. Naming the downgrade or the
export path costs some revenue from people who were leaving anyway, and it converts the reaction from
“they did this to me” into “they told me and gave me a choice”. That difference is what determines
whether the churn is a spike or a wave.
What good output looks like
Subject: Your plan price is going up in March
Preheader: From £29 to £39, at your renewal on the 14th.
From 14 March, the Studio plan goes from £29 a month to £39. That applies at your next renewal, not immediately.
The honest reason: the price has not changed in four years and the model costs behind the generation step have roughly doubled in that time.
Three things you can do. Stay and pay the new rate, and nothing needs doing. Move down to Solo at £12, which keeps everything except the higher generation count. Or export everything and close the account, which takes about a minute from the account page.
— [SENDER]
The prompt writes the words. Bring them here and the studio builds the campaign — branded, dark-mode safe, and ready to import.
Generate your ownIn the studio
A model writes copy. It does not write email.
Production HTML that survives Outlook, dark mode and a Gmail clip is a different job from writing the words. Describe the send once and export it to Mailchimp, Klaviyo, ActiveCampaign or MailerLite.