Bashir runs a furniture workshop in Kaduna. His most popular item is a six-seater dining set. He has charged ₦185,000 for it since early 2024.
The price has not moved. Almost everything behind it has.
His workshop rent, diesel and electricity now come to ₦260,000 a month. He builds and sells eight sets a month, so each set carries ₦32,500 of that. Total cost per set: ₦151,500.
At ₦185,000, Bashir keeps ₦33,500 per set. In 2024 he kept nearly double that. He is working the same hours, buying the same timber, and taking home far less — and he has not noticed, because ₦185,000 still sounds like a lot of money.
This is the most common quiet failure in Nigerian business. Nobody goes bankrupt from one bad month. They go bankrupt from three years of a price that stopped working.
Every month Bashir holds the old price, he donates the difference. Eight sets a month at ₦27,000 below where the price should be is ₦216,000 a month — ₦2.6 million a year — handed to customers who never asked for a discount.
The fear is always the same: if I raise my price, my customers will leave. So run the numbers on that fear instead of arguing with it.
Bashir's fixed overhead is ₦260,000 a month no matter how many sets he builds. What each sale contributes toward that overhead is the price minus the ₦119,000 variable cost.
Bashir can lose a quarter of his customers and still earn more than he does today. A price increase does not need every customer to say yes. It needs enough of them to say yes — and that bar is far lower than it feels at 2am.
Work out your own version of this table before you talk yourself out of anything. It changes the conversation from "will they leave?" to "how many can I afford to lose?"
Do not pick a new price by feel, and do not pick it by looking at what the workshop down the road charges. Their rent is not your rent.
Start from your costs. The Lucrive Pricing Calculator walks through this in five steps — volume, materials, labour, overhead, then the margin you want — and returns two numbers that matter:
There is also a Diagnose Past Performance section where you enter what you charge today. Bashir enters ₦185,000 against a recommended ₦212,000, and it tells him plainly: underpriced by ₦27,000, 12.7% below recommended.
Two things owners consistently leave out of the cost side, so check both:
If you have never done this exercise, do it before you read any further. Most people discover the increase they were nervous about asking for is smaller than the one they actually need. Our guide on whether your pricing is profitable covers the diagnosis side in more depth.
You now have a target. How you get there depends on how big the gap is.
Bashir's gap is 14.6%. He gives his regular customers 30 days' notice and quotes ₦212,000 on everything new from tomorrow.
Never apply a new price to work already quoted. If you sent a quote at the old price, honour it. Reneging on a quote costs you more trust than the increase earns you in naira, and it gives the customer a legitimate grievance to repeat to everyone they know.
Some moments make an increase feel routine rather than personal:
And two moments to avoid: immediately after a complaint or a late delivery, and while a customer is still waiting on unpaid work of yours. Sort out an unpaid invoice before you raise anything with that customer.
The way most Nigerian owners announce a price increase is the reason it goes badly. They over-explain, they apologise, and they invite negotiation.
Here is what Bashir sends to his regular customers, by WhatsApp, one at a time:
"Good morning sir. From 1 October, the six-seater dining set will be ₦212,000. Timber and foam prices have moved sharply this year and I have held the old price as long as I could. Any order confirmed before 1 October is still at ₦185,000. Thank you for your business — I look forward to the next one."
Four things that message does:
Say it once. Do not follow up with a softer version — that tells them the first one was negotiable.
"No problem." This is the majority. Most customers assumed your prices had already gone up.
"That's too much." Ask what budget they are working with. Then, instead of dropping your price, drop the scope — a simpler finish, four chairs instead of six, a longer delivery window. You protect your margin and they keep a price they can pay. Never discount without removing something.
"Then I'll go elsewhere." Let them. Look at Bashir's table again: he can lose two of eight customers and still be ahead. The customers who leave over 15% are usually the ones who negotiate hardest, pay slowest, and complain most.
Sixty days later, go back and enter your new price and your new monthly volume in the calculator. The diagnosis will confirm whether you have landed in the healthy range or whether costs have already eaten the increase.
Bashir also saves the run as a scenario, so when timber moves again next year he is not rebuilding the whole costing from a blank page — he opens the saved version, updates the material cost, and sees the new recommended price in under a minute.
Then put it in the diary. A price you review once every two years is a price that is wrong for most of those two years. Once a quarter is enough for a fifteen-minute check; once a year is the absolute minimum in a Nigerian cost environment.
Your customers are not paying you the price you deserve. They are paying you the price you asked for. Those are different numbers, and only one of them is under your control.
Work out what your product should really cost with the free Lucrive Pricing Calculator — no payment details needed.
People and businesses in our examples are illustrative, not real Lucrive customers. Figures are worked examples: confirm your own position with a qualified tax adviser.