You’d be surprised but I’ve done that and had them happily go with us anyways. I wasn’t the owner of the company but I knew this customer’s phone number by sight because they were such pains… I hoped they would be put off by a…I think like $250(? It’s been several years, don’t remember the exact number, but it was absurdly high) hourly rate when our going rate was $150. I explained it as having needed to raise our prices for the first time in a long while (which was true…to a much lesser degree than I told them) and that we would understand if they needed to take their business elsewhere. Nope. They agreed.

I had admin privileges on our booking/estimating/payment software so I went in and created a whole new pricing structure that I applied to that customer’s job only. Hung up the phone and turned around and my boss (owner of the company) was standing behind me looking shocked, lol. We completed the job and the horrible customer was weirdly way easier to deal with at the higher hourly rate. Went on to be a much easier customer that did work with us for a few more years and the special rate.

I called it the special customer discount. Always told them I was giving them a special X% discount to make up for the raised prices and then literally created a coupon I applied to their bills that read “special discount” and asked them not to tell anyone about it. Turned nightmares into reasonable customers. I actually did it with several people. The ones that left were a relief to lose as customers and the ones that stayed usually became more bearable.