diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index d97474e50..0b7d4ff48 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@ and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0
 
 - Enabling logging by default
 - Removed debugging output
+- Clarify cli output when `covalent db migrate` needs to be run
 
 ### Changed
 
diff --git a/covalent_dispatcher/_cli/service.py b/covalent_dispatcher/_cli/service.py
index fdf3b4c82..7b52a215a 100644
--- a/covalent_dispatcher/_cli/service.py
+++ b/covalent_dispatcher/_cli/service.py
@@ -49,8 +49,10 @@
 UI_LOGFILE = get_config("user_interface.log_dir") + "/covalent_ui.log"
 UI_SRVDIR = f"{os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))}/../../covalent_ui"
 
-MIGRATION_WARNING_MSG = "There have been changes applied to the database."
-MIGRATION_COMMAND_MSG = '   (use "covalent db migrate" to run database migrations)'
+MIGRATION_WARNING_MSG = "Covalent not started. The database needs to be upgraded."
+MIGRATION_COMMAND_MSG = (
+    '   (use "covalent db migrate" to run database migrations and then retry "covalent start")'
+)
 
 
 def _read_pid(filename: str) -> int: