Town CEO Mark Ashton has outlined the thinking behind the season ticket prices, which were announced on Wednesday.
The cost of season tickets went up on average by around six per cent, £20 for a renewed adult seat, having been frozen for the previous two seasons.
Ashton says he and his staff looked at the club’s season ticketing in depth prior to this week's announcement.
"We’re picking up historically the way things have been run and we did a really big, deep dive into the cost of our ticket prices this year,” he told TWTD.
"It’s very easy to bundle everything together and just take an average price but actually you need to look at the blend and we have got a lot of categories, that’s probably the best way to describe them.
"Some of them, we felt the prices were strong, others when you compare them with the rest of the league and other clubs, not so strong.
"So, rather than throw them all into one mix and just put a price on everything, what we did was take the categories and broke them down and looked at what we felt the prices should be in those categories.
"And I think that’s averaging out at around six per cent. The rate of inflation is over 10 per cent, be under no illusion, our costs are going through the roof. The energy bills, the electric bills are through the roof.
"But I wanted to be respectful to the fans and say ‘Look, we are going to have to raise the prices but we also value what we’re doing and the way you’re supporting the club because we’ve broken every record in the books and in retail this year’.
"Whether it’s sponsorship, whether it’s hospitality, whether it’s travelling to away games, iFollow etc etc, we’re asking a lot of fans in a cost of living crisis and fans have just been fantastic.
"We felt that the six per cent average was fair and wasn’t over the top. I think what sums it up for me, and I think is really fair and we debated this long and hard, is that if we get back to the Championship, the prices are still two per cent lower than when we were relegated. That tells you something.
"I want to keep a packed Portman Road. I set a target of 18,000 season ticket holders this season. Within a gnat’s breath we’ve done that, it’s 17,970-something. We’re right on the cusp of the 18,000 and if you threw comps etc into it you’d be above it
"But if you look at the real number we’re bang on 18,000. When I said that to the staff at the start of the season, they thought I was mad.
"Have set a target for next season? We’re working that through now because it’s got to be realistic. It would be easy to say ‘I want 18,000 again’.
"We’re working through where we want to cap it and a natural cap feels around 20,000 to me with the stadium as it currently is because I think if you go anything really above 20,000 you’re really reducing the number of matchday tickets you’ve got to sell and you’ve got to be careful what you’ve got to offer for away fans.
"We’re working through that commercially because we’re setting the budgets now, but I think the pricing’s fair and I think it gives us an opportunity with the fans to pack out Portman Road again.”
Regarding capping season tickets at 20,000, he continued: "If you’re looking at it on a risk-to-reward perspective, you sell fewer season tickets because we charge more for matchday tickets than we do for season tickets, that’s the whole essence of being a season ticket holder - you’re locked in but you’ve got it at better value.
"It’s getting the blend right and we have to develop that next generation of supporters. Not everyone can afford a season ticket, some people need to pick and be selective with the games.
"It’s that blend that we’re trying to get right and there’s been a lot of debate. This isn’t a five-minute discussion, there’s been a lot of debate, a lot of analysis, a lot of benchmarking going on and I feel from what I’m hearing from staff about the fans’ reaction, it’s been fairly positive.”