If you’re looking for another way to say increase, useful alternatives include raise, boost, grow, expand, enhance, augment, escalate, amplify, intensify, and multiply. The best choice depends on context. For example, “boost sales” sounds natural in business writing, while “augment resources” is more formal.
Looking for another way to say increase can help you make your writing more precise and engaging. Although “increase” is a useful everyday word, repeating it too often can make your sentences sound flat.
The right synonym depends on what is becoming greater. You might raise a price, boost sales, grow a business, expand a program, or enhance performance. Understanding these differences helps you choose a word that fits your meaning and tone.
“Another way to say increase” means looking for a synonym or alternative expression that communicates the idea of making something greater in amount, size, level, strength, or value.
For example, instead of saying, “The company increased its sales,” you could write, “The company boosted its sales.” The meaning remains similar, but the alternative may sound more specific or natural in a particular context.
People commonly search for alternatives to “increase” when writing emails, business reports, resumes, academic papers, essays, presentations, and everyday conversations.
Using different words for “increase” can make your writing clearer and less repetitive.
Other advantages include:
Raise means to make something higher, greater, or more expensive. It often describes deliberate changes to prices, salaries, standards, levels, or amounts.
The company plans to raise employee salaries next year.
We need to raise the minimum age requirement for the program.
Use raise when a person or organization actively causes something to become higher.
Boost means to increase something in a way that produces a stronger or better result. It commonly appears with sales, performance, confidence, productivity, traffic, and revenue.
The new marketing campaign helped boost online sales.
Regular feedback can boost employee confidence.
Choose boost when the increase is usually positive and produces noticeable improvement.
Grow means to become larger, greater, or more developed over time. It is especially natural when talking about businesses, populations, audiences, skills, income, or demand.
The startup hopes to grow its customer base this year.
Her experience helped her grow into a confident team leader.
Use grow when something develops or becomes greater, especially gradually.
Expand means to make something larger, broader, or more extensive. It works particularly well for businesses, services, programs, opportunities, markets, and physical spaces.
The company plans to expand its services across the Midwest.
The school is expanding its career training program.
Use expand when the increase involves greater size, scope, range, or reach.
Enhance means to improve the quality, value, appearance, or effectiveness of something. Unlike “increase,” it often focuses more on improvement than quantity.
The redesign will enhance the user experience.
Additional training can enhance employees’ communication skills.
Choose enhance when you want to emphasize improvement rather than simply making something larger.
Augment means to add to something so that it becomes greater, stronger, or more effective. It has a formal tone and often appears in business, academic, and technical writing.
The company hired temporary workers to augment its existing team.
The research team used additional data to augment its findings.
Use augment in formal writing when an increase comes from adding something to an existing resource or system.
Escalate means to increase in intensity, seriousness, cost, or level. It often describes situations that become more severe, although it can also refer to prices, demands, or disputes.
Customer complaints began to escalate after the service interruption.
The rising demand could escalate production costs.
Be careful with escalate because it often suggests that an increase is rapid, serious, or undesirable.
Amplify means to make something stronger, louder, more noticeable, or more powerful. It works well when discussing messages, effects, voices, emotions, signals, and marketing reach.
Social media can amplify a brand’s message quickly.
The campaign helped amplify awareness of the local charity.
Use amplify when the focus is on increasing impact, visibility, strength, or effect.
Intensify means to become or make something stronger in degree, force, or effect. It commonly describes emotions, pressure, competition, weather, efforts, and other conditions.
The team decided to intensify its efforts before the deadline.
Competition is expected to intensify during the holiday season.
Use intensify when the increase involves strength, pressure, emotion, or severity rather than simple quantity.
Multiply means to increase greatly or produce a much larger number or amount. It can describe numerical growth, opportunities, effects, problems, or resources.
The new partnership could multiply the company’s opportunities for growth.
Small improvements can multiply the team’s overall productivity over time.
Use multiply when you want to emphasize a substantial or repeated increase.
| Alternative | Best Used In | Tone |
| Raise | Prices, salaries, levels, standards | Neutral |
| Boost | Sales, performance, confidence, results | Positive |
| Grow | Businesses, audiences, skills, demand | Natural |
| Expand | Markets, services, programs, scope | Professional |
| Enhance | Quality, value, performance, experience | Polished |
| Augment | Resources, teams, systems, research | Formal |
| Escalate | Costs, conflicts, pressure, problems | Serious |
| Amplify | Messages, awareness, impact, effects | Professional |
| Intensify | Efforts, emotions, competition, pressure | Formal |
| Multiply | Opportunities, effects, results, numbers | Strong |
Not every synonym works in every sentence. For example, “increase customer experience” sounds unnatural, while “enhance customer experience” is a better choice.
Words such as augment can sound unnecessarily formal in casual conversation. In everyday English, grow, raise, or boost may sound more natural.
Escalate often suggests that a situation is becoming more serious or difficult. Avoid using it when you simply want to describe positive growth.
Think about what is becoming greater. Use expand for scope or reach, enhance for quality, and intensify for strength or severity.
You do not need to avoid the word “increase” completely. It is a clear and versatile word, so use alternatives only when they make the sentence more precise or natural.
Common alternatives to increase include raise, boost, grow, expand, enhance, augment, escalate, amplify, intensify, and multiply. The best choice depends on context. For example, you can “raise prices,” “boost sales,” “expand a business,” or “enhance performance.”
Several professional alternatives work well, including increase, raise, boost, expand, enhance, augment, and amplify. The best choice depends on the sentence. “Enhance” works well for quality or performance, while “augment” has a more formal tone and often refers to adding resources or capabilities.
In business writing, you can use grow, boost, expand, raise, enhance, or increase, depending on the context. For example, a company can “grow its customer base,” “boost revenue,” “expand into new markets,” or “raise prices.”
When discussing numbers, useful alternatives include grow, rise, climb, multiply, and increase. The correct choice depends on whether the increase happens naturally or because someone causes it. For example, “the population grew,” while “the company raised its membership target.”
Natural alternatives include boost sales, grow sales, increase revenue, drive sales growth, and improve sales performance. “Boost sales” is especially common in American business English because it clearly suggests an effort to produce better sales results.
For knowledge, you can say expand knowledge, deepen understanding, improve knowledge, build expertise, or develop knowledge. “Expand your knowledge” is a natural choice when discussing learning across a broader subject area.
The strongest alternative depends on the intended meaning. Multiply can suggest a substantial increase, while amplify emphasizes greater impact and intensify emphasizes greater strength. Escalate can also indicate a strong increase but often carries a negative or serious meaning.
On a resume, use specific verbs that show measurable results. Depending on the achievement, alternatives include boosted, increased, expanded, grew, improved, raised, and accelerated. For example, “Boosted website traffic by 35%” is more specific and persuasive than simply saying “Increased website traffic.”
There are many effective ways to say increase, but the best alternative depends on what you want to describe. Raise works well for amounts, prices, and levels, while boost is a natural choice for positive results such as sales or performance. Grow and expand are useful for businesses, audiences, markets, and other areas that become larger.
For more precise writing, choose enhance when you mean improve quality, augment when you mean add resources, and amplify when you mean strengthen impact or visibility. Use intensify for greater strength or pressure and escalate when an issue becomes more serious. For more options, explore these synonyms for increas to find the word that best matches your meaning, audience, and tone.
Senior English Editor & Stylistics Director
Michael Bennett is a veteran editor, lexicographer, and publishing consultant with more than two decades of experience in academic and educational publishing. Formerly a senior editorial director at major university presses, he specializes in structural editing, register refinement, and vocabulary development. Michael oversees tone, precision, and stylistic consistency across all publication channels, ensuring content meets rigorous editorial and pedagogical standards.
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