Haven't raised my prices in over 2 years and I'm now the cheapest tech in town — how do I do this without losing everyone?

Lash tech, self employed, going on 3 years now. When I started I priced low on purpose to build a client base, which worked, I'm basically fully booked 5 days a week. Problem is I never actually raised anything since. Products have gone up, my rent's gone up, my electric is stupid now, and I recently found out I'm charging a full £20-25 less per set than literally everyone else locally with similar experience.

Did the maths properly last weekend and after products, rent, insurance and everything else I'm making barely above minimum wage per hour worked which is honestly embarrassing to type out for someone "fully booked".

The mental block: most of my clients have been with me since the cheap days. Some come fortnightly, they're lovely, a couple genuinely can't afford much more I think. I keep drafting the price increase message and deleting it.

Questions for anyone who's actually done this:

- how much is reasonable in one go? £5? £10? straight to market rate?

- do you grandfather existing clients at old prices for a while or does that create a mess?

- how much notice did you give and did you explain WHY (costs etc) or just announce it?

- honestly... how many clients did you actually lose? is the fear worse than the reality?

Fully booked and broke is such a stupid place to be lol. Any war stories appreciated.