[rmc]

Charge more. You seem to be stuck with the idea that if you charge more you will lose clients. Do you have any evidence that this is true? Have you talked to existing clients and said "I'm pretty busy, but if you pay X I can fit you in this week?" What did they say to that? Did you try putting out a new ad with higher rates? Do you get lower feedback? Or the same feedback.

[rmc]

You sound like your working in the apple software space. This is good for you, since mac app developers are more likely to be small, indie and not bigco enterprise shops. They are more likely to want to "be cool" and not want to be greedy uncle scrooge.

So that's the story you tell them when you want to raise your prices.

Tell them that you're a small indie shop, that you love working for other small indie developers working with teams that "get it" and love to produce beautiful apps. Tell them you're glad you're not working for soulless megacorporations who want to turn software into Walmart. Then tell them that you'd love to keep working with cool people like them, but you're running out of money, and would they mind paying more. Hopefully they will want to not be seen as heartless corporations like Microsoft that peddle cheap junk, and will agree to a rise.