At the start of this year, the improv comedy powerhouse Upright Citizens Brigade Theater made a change in policy that went mostly unnoticed. For the first time since 2008, it raised ticket prices.

At its four theaters on the East and West coasts, most of the 100 or so shows a week cost $2 more: It’s now common to pay $7 on weekdays, while the prime weekend shows are $12. (There are still cheaper ones, including a few that are free.) While these new prices remain a deal compared with most other live entertainment in New York, the increase represents an important shift at the Upright Citizens Brigade, an industry leader with outsize influence, not just in jump-starting careers but also in the art and business of comedy.

One reason the change matters is that keeping prices low has long been the theater’s best defense of its controversial practice of using exclusively free labor onstage. While other improv centers like Second City and the Groundlings, which loom large in Chicago and Los Angeles, charge more for tickets, Upright Citizens Brigade is built on a different financial model, one that seems to promise to save money by not paying performers and charging consumers less.

The reality of this bargain is more complex, particularly as the theater has grown into a mature institution. In the past dozen years, it has bought or leased buildings in New York and Los Angeles (there are training centers in both cities), emphasizing growth and earning revenue through corporate work and its school. According to a profile of the company in The New Yorker last year, Upright Citizens Brigade, whose classes have long been its profit center, has increased enrollment, teaching about 12,000 students last year. Add money from branded content and workshops (last year it trained 6,000 businesspeople about the improv technique “yes, and”) without any change in artist pay, and what becomes clear is that the theater is simply and firmly committed to not compensating its performers.