"There are very few businesses that have the competitive position that Moody's and Standard & Poor's have," Buffett said. Berkshire is an "unwilling customer" of Moody's when it issues bonds, Buffett said. "We pay for ratings, which I don't like."

Moody's raised its standard fee this year on corporate bond offerings to 5 basis points, or 0.05 percentage point, of the amount being raised with a minimum of $73,000, from 4.65 basis points in 2010, according to Michael Meltz, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst in New York. S&P asks for 4.95 basis points with an $80,000 minimum, up from 4.75 basis points and a $72,500 minimum last year. It would cost $497,500 to have both companies evaluate a $500 million debt sale.

S&P and Moody's haven't lost business as a result of their increases, said Peter Appert, an analyst at Piper Jaffray & Co. in San Francisco.

"Pricing has no bearing on whether somebody is going to issue debt or not," Appert said in a telephone interview. The extra interest a borrower would have to pay on an unrated bond is a "whole lot more" than the cost of a rating, he said.

That's helped make credit ratings a lucrative business. Moody's Corp.'s return on capital, a measure of profitability, was 71.6 percent last year, the fourth-highest among companies in the S&P 500 Index, while its operating margin was 38 percent, which ranked 25th, Bloomberg data show.

The company received $1.47 billion in ratings revenue last year, or $1.22 million for each credit analyst and supervisor, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and the SEC report. S&P made $1.7 billion, or $1.26 million per analyst and supervisor, while Fitch's revenue was $554 million, or $528,160.

Moody's will use price increases to help achieve its goal of low-double-digit revenue growth, McDaniel said at the conference on Nov. 8. A 5 percent price increase for next year would be on the "high side" if bond issuance stays flat, he said.

The Federal Reserve's preferred price index, which measures inflation excluding food and fuel, rose 1.6 percent in September from a year earlier.

Ed Sweeney, a spokesman for S&P, a unit of New York-based McGraw-Hill Cos., said the company's pricing "reflects the value provided to the market." Daniel Noonan, a Fitch spokesman, said Fimalac doesn't disclose pricing information.

West Haven is paying Moody's $16,400 to grade a planned $45 million bond, which it will use to refinance debt, up from $8,500 to rate a $32 million sale in 2005, Mancini said. The city is also paying $15,300 for a grade from S&P, which said last month it was considering cutting West Haven's rating from BBB, Mancini said.