Companies are planning price hikes averaging 4% to 5% next year, with relatively little variance across industry sectors, company sizes and geographies, a new report details.
The 2027 price increases are expected to account for 11% of revenue growth next year, according to a survey of 255 C-suite executives at software, industrial and business services companies in the United States and Europe with annual revenue between $100 million and $5 billion.
BlueRidge Partners, a revenue-growth consulting firm that conducted the survey, suggested the expected price increases may be insufficient. “Many business services and industrial companies estimate a bigger increase in 2027 costs than they plan to cover through price increases, which would cause a margin decline if more aggressive pricing actions aren’t taken,” the report said.
On the revenue-projection side, software companies are expecting a bountiful 2027, with median growth of 12%, up from a projected 7% a year ago. Business services companies are looking at a smaller increase, to 8% from 6%, while industrials project a slight reduction in growth to 6% from 7%.
BlueRidge further stratified the survey results by company size (small = $100M-$499M, medium = $500M-$999M, large = $1B-$5B), U.S. vs. European companies, and mean vs. median growth. Notable results included:
- Small software companies on average expected outsize increases in both price and revenue (8.9% and 23.7%, respectively). These companies also forecasted the highest median revenue gain at 20%.
- The smallest expected mean price increase was 4.1% for large business services companies, while the smallest mean revenue gain was 7.5% for large industrials. The smallest median revenue gain was 5% for small industrials.
- Software companies in Europe expected a mean 6.9% price increase, compared with 5.8% for U.S. software companies. In business services, the larger mean hike was expected to be in the U.S. (5.3% to Europe’s 4.7%). In industrials, the expectation was for a 4.5% mean bump-up on both sides of the Atlantic.
Addressing pricing dynamics in the three studied sectors, software companies are planning on a median 5% price increase, up from 4% in 2026. “Price increases implemented in 2026 were viewed as very successful, and as we consistently see, software companies that pushed larger price increases reported the same or less market pushback [compared to] those with smaller increases,” BlueRidge wrote.
Business services companies likewise are looking at a 5% median price bump next year, slightly below the expected 5.4% increase in their variable costs. Currently, about 24% of these firms’ revenue is based on outcome-based pricing, which is expected to increase to 27% by 2028.
Industrial companies are planning a median 4% price increase next year, below their estimated COGS increases of 5.5% in the U.S. and 4.3% in Europe, according to the report.
In 2026, the report noted, these companies increased prices by 4.7% “directly in response to cost increases stemming from the Persian Gulf crisis, but they plan to give 4.4% of that back once the crisis winds down.” Blue Ridge suggested that level of give-back may be unnecessarily high.
