Top Ten Signs You May Be Charging Too Little
Finding that pricing sweet spot where you make a great income without scaring clients away is one of the most asked about issues here on FreelanceSwitch. Today for your amusement, here are ten signs you might have gone the other way are charging waaay too little…
This article has been translated into Spanish by Diana at Artegami. Thanks Diana!
10. Your client mistakes your daily rate for an hourly one.
9. You’ve won every job you’ve ever pitched for.
8. Even though you work 80 hour weeks your income level qualifies you for welfare payments.
7. New clients are always asking what “the catch” is.
6. Clients pay your invoices in cash from their wallet.
5. Other freelancers regularly send you hatemail.
4. Your old clients don’t even bother asking you how much something is going to cost.
3. You never run out of work, yet you are subsisting on baked beans and 2 minute noodles.
2. Your 12 year old brother earns more spending cash than you flipping burgers.
…. And the number one sign you may be charging too little:
Companies have been calling from India wanting to outsource their work to you.
Hilarious!
Drumroll… then, a rim shot…
Excellent list. I recently had an offer for a freelance problogging gig for $3 per article, 300 words per article, had to be researched, myriad of topics, and even then, I still couldn’t get credit for any of the work…
this was an easy NOOOO!!
So, you’re right. Pick your jobs, or you’ll find yourself chasing money all the way to the welfare house.
That makes my day – do you really think it not a good idea for me to finish the jobs they don’t even want to do in India?
Oh SNAP! Why have you been spying on me! And listening to my voicemail, isn’t that illegal? You only made one mistake, it’s mac and cheese, not ramen.
Hahhah, the last one was the greatest
I lolled :p – luckily I don’t fall into either one of those categories… well, maybe #5… but not cause I charge too little but rather cause I tend to steal customers here & there
Maybe this could also be titled the “Rite of Passage for Freelancers.” I think I’ve definitely run into a little of all of these.
As for the other freelancers sending hate mail… That’s probably a given no matter what you’re charging, if you’re good that is.
haha that last one cracked me up.
I can relate just a bit too much to that. Great list.
That is my problem!!!
Very funny :^)
How about that a client never questions when you charge them, even when you think “He He! I made a killing on this job”.
I want to punch everyone who types “lolled”
I agree with Eric, the last one was the greatest. Some content writers in India charge 20 Dollars for 500 words..
Hah, the last one was just way too funny!
Great! 
Good one, Jack. Makes you think twice- doesn’t it?
hahaha, very well done
That’ll be the day, when Idia outsources to us……
Never thaught that freelancers have such a hard situation…
The last one was by far the best. Glad I’m not the only one who gets those calls! Fantastic list!
right price… try free. I get chump change to even consider photography as a profession to go into.
IF SO …..HOW MUCH IS YOUR ADVISE..?
I hope that never happens to me [again]. I remember when I was paid cash from a client’s wallet. Since that day, I’ve learned to charge just a little more. I’m currently working on the 60 hour week
SORRY.. I LIVE IN INDIA
LOL, great list.
Definitely might lead to many people upping their rates. ROFL
Oh, shit…I qualify for #2.
Love the last one,
almost chocked in my dinner whilst reading it!
hahaha! the India one had me on the floor! great top ten!
Funny list, but really, the India pun hurt me right here.
Guilty of #4… But a very funny list – thanks!
This is one of the funniest things I have read in a long time.
Thanks.
Cool
p.s. Great design
When they see the price and say “That’s it?”. Aw man, I cringe when I hear that- I know I just f’d myself
Eh, you’re describing me.
*increasing rates like a randy republican*
I don’t get number 2? O.o
er wait scratch that, number 9!!
[...]Top Ten Signs You May Be Charging Too Little[...]
HAHAHHA KORN!
India one was awesome…..
Haha, the last one’s great
Hahahah, this is hilarious. I like the number 1!
OMG! How did you know?! Now I have to move house!!
Hahaha!! Excellent Read!!
I eat noodles for lunch…
That made me giggle.
Hahaha.. the #1 is sooo true. Sorry for India folks, but you are always giving very low price.
Eat noodles is not a sign poverty in some country
, like in Japan Noodle Ramen are quite expensive.
Heh…I knew I was charging too little the day I accidentally quoted my *complete project* price for a web sales page as a “per page” price (web sales letters can wind up being several Word pages long), and the client didn’t even blink.
Took me all of 10 seconds after the call to update my site to make that “per page” quote my new minimum price.
And the good news is that I no longer qualify for food stamps. Yay!
I really don’t think India native freelancers would find that premise exactly funny… Indeed, maybe they would be glad that at least, they had a job and get paid for it…
Sorry; don’t like xenofobist posting at all…
That is pretty funny stuff, lol.
*Adding 1 more point “End of the day, you made another person charge lower then you and you lost your lovely client even tot they keep saying you are the best.
Excellent! Love it! I’m gonna post this link on my voiceover blogsite!
Great to see our diggs are getting you dugg
hatemail! i’ve got some!
last one is great!
hihihi…
i can’t say anything. the lists is a true story!
Thanks Wayde!!! We’ve gotten so much traffic today, its been great! Spreading the FSw Spirit
Haha, great list, very funny.
Great list, except the last one. Being an Indian, I was hurt to read the last one.
Hi Aditya, I hope you understand we meant no offence on that front, it was more just about the fact that much of the world outsources work to Indian firms for their quality and cost effectiveness, hence if they are outsourcing to you then you must be REALLY cost effective
But my apologies for any hurt the post may have caused, it was not intended that way.
I’m glad you enjoyed the rest of them!
Thanks for giving me a good laugh, though.
Great list. It’s funny because it is so true . . .
Hi,
I blogged a german translation of your list here.
Sounds like my dumb butt.
I work for a University in the Caribbean (bad idea). Right now I am redesigning the website (home & top level pages which desperately need realignment) – improving usability, organization and overall aesthetics, based on actually commications strategy and reworked IA and coding in CSS of course. Easily a $100,000US private job.
I also develop several promotional sites within the network. I am not even on the web team, I work in Marketing. But because I have extensive experience in UI design and planning unlike those individuals on the webteam. And I am actually the only one on campus who codes only in CSS. Yesfront end developer as most of the web professionals in this country know only how to code tables!!!
For my hardwork, I get a lousy $1100US a month, for this and my actual job which is event management and marketing planning. In a former life I was a Canadian web freelancer making good money but wanted to travel the world and get back to my marketing roots. What a fool!
Now got my web design groove back and I have finally become passionate about webdesign and designing strong online communication models. The experience is good but I like getting paid what I am worth. At this point I need to get the hell out of here.
Ok Whining over, got to get back to the grind.
I get the sarcasm here, but this is hardly a helpful list. If any of those are true, the designer is clearly an idiot because their rates are TOO low. But most designers fall under the “I feel like I’m charging a lot, but I don’t feel like I’m making that much money” category. I’d like to see a list catering to those on that edge.
I took the liberty to translate it on my German blog for the German speaking community – thank you again for this hilarious list.
hahaha, i love the last one lolz…. good one
haha I wasn’t expecting number one lol.
Funny… I like the 12 yr old burger flipping bro – hahahaha…. interesting…
Hilarious! Last one is bottom of all bottoms
“Companies have been calling from India wanting to outsource their work to you.”
Quite mad!
)
ROFL! Number 9 was a killer. *still on the floor*
LMAO. Oh dear … I believe I’m Number 9. * immediately changes my price list *
Very amusing.. maybe we should include some of these as pointers on our freelancers site (http://www.peopleperhour.com)
I needed a good laugh today and this truly made my day! I laughed so hard, because it is so true! I was there at one point in my life! Thanks for the good chuckle!
Just finished translating this excellent article to the Greek language and added it to my blog with a reference to the original: http://www.dotnetzone.gr/cs/blogs/sfilip/archive/2007/09/22/35248.aspx
The last one’s the best one! Thanks for posting this.
Thats so funny… maybe cause there is this ringing in my head in at least half of those.
Haha…that was really funny…thumbs up…but the last one? u really needed that?
“Companies have been calling from India wanting to outsource their work to you.”
Laughed my ass off with this one…
Hilarious! But real!! XD
Will you reject an assignment just because it is from India?
I guess now I have to think over my rates. Nice post.
I’m a Idia & I’m givig work to the freelacers in US & UK
I hope they wo’t read this. Although, I pay them more tha their couterparts, they will ask more from me.
(That’s not my accent, Damn “N” key is not working ;D
Here’s a creative Top 10 Reasons for Underbilling:
http://weirdblog.wordpress.com/2007/03/22/creatives-top-ten-reasons-for-underbilling/
Enjoy!
-E
Hysterical, and spot on.. ages ago when I first began freelancing several of those would have applied to me. Thanks for putting a smile on my face amidst being buried by work — although luckily I’ll be having more than baked beans for dinner tonight
Patrick Moore
http://www.setsailmedia.com/
I love this list!
I recently spoke at an editors’ association meeting about rates, and they were trying as a group to raise their rates across the board in town. But while editing is only a part of my business and not the whole like most of them, we were all still shocked to discover that they were all charging less than half of what I charge. I’m going to pass this on to the whole group now!
Carla
http://40-nowwhat.blogspot.com/
This is a great post! Funny but the sad thing is, I am guilty of some of these!
This is a funny post but I do find myself wondering a lot, quite seriously however, what exactly DO you base your rates off of? For me; production cost blended in with hourly rate..but then somehow someone else somewhere seems to be charging the production cost (or worse; less…) and it leaves me wondering how I can compete with the samitarians in the world (who design for fucking free).
The was an awesome read
, Not sure they are real tell tales but still a good read 
I work for shiny mirrors, beads, firewater and smoking sticks. In exchange I can give you this yellow metal stuff that is too soft to make tools with and we can’t eat so it’s good for nothing
“Companies have been calling from India wanting to outsource their work to you”… God, you nearly gave me a hard attack cause of laughing!!
How many of the listed reasons are enough?:)
Very nice list. I am from India but I am not hurt at all with the last one. I am myself a victim of the those people who are ready to work for ancient peanuts from the Incas excavation site. I sometimes wonder how low can people stoop to get work. I do charge what I give. I do want to get paid for my hard work. That’s how it shud be.
Damn! I have the number 1 sign… Got to rethink how I charge my clients. Thanks FreelanceSwitch!
Yeah, I think I even have a man who disguised himself as being from the UK but he’s really from India. cheap jerk.
such a great list… Now i know how to deal with people something like this
I may have another sign of undercharging: when I finished the project the client said “I don’t think you charged enough.” and paid double what I asked!
Nice! Yup, the last one was funny. Pricing is important. . . it’s about striking that balance and you really should never undersell your skills . . . because in the end you will always lose.
What the hell you think about India, I don’t know. But you must understand that Indian Companies also outsourcing their projects to other countries. If you mistakenly done this…… DONT EVER REPEAT IT !!!
rofl after reading the last one. but nice list though.
I live in India and I do different jobs like photgraphy/computer maintenance/website designing/numerology. But why you are blaming India that we (Indian) are robbing your money, I can’t understand it. It is your problem that you can not change your high lifestyle. You may not love India or may not like India or may you hate India but you will never ignore India. Counting have just begun, from today, within next 10 years you will see Indian economy will very much near to US economy. Our middle class society will control the world economy in next 15 years from now. For stopping it you will try to use underhand techniques in so many ways. Today you are hating India but one day India will provide your own food…………..and it will happen and you will begin to love India !!!!! I love my India !!!!!!!!!!!!!
@Pixy
Don’t be so serious.Take things sportively.Nothing personal,everything general.
NOOOOOOOO!
Not the dreaded 2 Minute Noodles!………….*SIGH*
I am still boardering at that phase in life!. Oh how i hate it.
But i never loose faith, knowing this will change.
That’s hilarious!
…yet so true
Forgot one: Your clients just say “OK” when you invoice them and don’t squabble.
Number 6 had me in stitches!
Number 4 does apply to us too. Customers often don’t ask how much – they just say go ahead and do it. I’m hoping it’s due to trust, and not only price
Humm… nice list…
Been there, done that. **looks around sheepishly**
it depends on how much is US Dollar (obviously, international trade occurs in USD) wrt currency of a nation. As long as every nation has educated software people and it’s rate is very much lower than USD, we will find cheaper programmers. it is all trade globalization. Nobody, irrespective of how powerful and rich you are, can stop it!!!
1USD = 49 INR (india)
1USD= 49 PHP (philippine)
1USD = 16900 VND (vietnam)
vietnam, philippine,etc are outwitting india.
rich countries become poor to make poor countries rich so that all countries are equally rich.
it is unforced(?) socialism in action
They do lip service to the domestic economy wrt jobs and work as employers all over the globe usually seek quality work at the cheapest possible price.
Only way this outsourcing may be stopped are manipulating the nation’s currency exchange rate and discouraging outsourcing thru protectionist measures like taxing employers who outsource (have I reminded you “barack obama”?. I think this may be an politician’s election gimmick/tantrum to get votes. let us wait and see. how he will do that?. though i am from india. I am in india. our indian politicians will play all these things to get votes. I don’t know about american politics. but basically i think politicians are same all over the world just like employers except nations with low population.). But, I don’t think any of them will work for long time. Usually either employers escape taxing in many ways like corrupting the policy makers using their big deep pockets and/or disguising thru follow the sun model for better customer experience, international company(no longer an american company), blah, blah….
india is just one stop in the journey of globalization. more countries from south america and africa will follow either sooner or later.
The distinct advantage of america is it’s vast land. America is/will be the largest exporter of agriculture produce. India will become the largest importer of agriculture produce. Because number of farmers in India is rapidly decreasing for various reasons since 1990s. Air, food,water and clothes are the basic necessities. Land in Indian cities is already much costlier wrt other famous cities around the world.
And I thought it was my charm that helped get all my bids accepted.
はじめまして！また遊びに来ますね。
I can smell some smoke, that we Indians take away most of the work from you & then too give some of the best works, no wonder your industry is filled with Indians!!!!
I have been a freelancer for the last 5 years and ironically still that we charge too low, my ONLY non-paying clients have been Americans!!! I charged too low thinking at least those “rich” people would have this much to pay.
Awesome.
I thought I was doing ok…till I read # 4!
It’s probably because they make so much $$ they don’t worry about it ~ right?!?
Funny but sad in the same time ’cause it’s true! I don’t know how many times I was asked to work for free, not too mention the forever line “why don’t you do it for 20$? This guy from India would take it” . Different economy, different money value..these people just wouldn’t get it!
Nice Article there, but Can I know in the Last Point why especially INDIA is mentioned?
Point #1. was definitely the funniest. I can say that i’ve fallen into #6 a couple of times and i didn’t really enjoy the feeling that my client was able to pay me out of his wallet for all my hardwork. Nice post
Hysterical!!
india! well…i can’t disagree with the fact that we do have such nuts working, whom even we hate…but i know a lot of people whose pitches were lost…we do tend to charge the client a decent amount…just hv to tackle handling the pricing issue with them…clients are the biggest nuts…
#8 and #3 seem to apply to me, and as they say here in New England, #1 is a “wicked pissah”, though it may not be too long before it’s totally true.
oh men, #1 is to hard =D
I’d like to add another one…Amazon has contracted your company to be part of Mechanical Turk.
You seem to have gotten a lot of flak for the India one, but I gotta agree with you on that,
I started doing freelance work as a college student, but soon found out that if I worked for local businesses, I would never be able to find time to study even if I just targeted covering my day-to-day travelling expenses. So even though I am based in India, I have never had a single Indian client in 3 years of my work as a freelance writer.
Is there some sort of negative aspect attributed to India.
Shouldn’t be.
If yes, SO UNFORTUNATE.
Can I translate this into Portuguese? I run a blog for Brazilian translators and you seem to have summarized in ten phrases what I have been trying to tell my fellow translators with thousands of words.
Concerning India, my own experience as a professional translator tells me that nobody, absolutely nobody, but really absolutely nobody, has the cheek to offer me less than Indian translation agencies. Even Italian agencies — notorious for their low fees — offer more.
Ah!!! I am @ #4 and can’t be #1, because I am an Indian. #1 didn’t hurt me and I take it as lighter side of this post.
In this modern era, everyone look for their food even in other stomach. But I don’t think that Indian Freelancers are competitors for US freelancers. Mostly they can’t provide service to client directly, instead they work for US Freelancers / web design companies. This means that some US Citizens loose their job opportunity, but companies/freelancers who outsource the work to India, get HUGE profit.
Apart from that, with this kind of outsource and Indian growing economy, US Companies making good profit from Indian Market, Birla Sunlife, Max Newyork life insurance, Tata AIG, Bharti AXA, Pepsi, Coke and plenty of others.
Indian BPO/IT companies are certainly competitors for US Companies, NOT Freelancers.
Fantastic
I’ve been charging too little for a long time, photographing for free to get a good portfolio and I don’t think I’m even close to where I would want to be with the results. And I’ve been doing web design for practically free since I only charge about 100-500€ per website, mostly 100-200€. So it really sucks ass.
Hahahah! Wow! Definitely some good tell-tell signs.
Companies have been calling from India wanting to outsource their work to you. – Hahaha! This is hilarious!
#1 made me spill.
Hilarious stuff – but there are people out there doing just that! I hope they all read this.
Question to all.. How much you earn average in month. And your country name..tnx
hilarious! LOL
smile till i laugh hehehe
number 3 is most of my friend do hahaha
hahahaha ROFL …. I thought that there will be something with india at the end but… that…. HAHAHAHA… lol
Good article Jack
In India, for $20, you can get 40 burgers..
meals for 20 days and a bonus of being lazy… not bad…
Id take up such an assignment that lasts an hr…
Hullo,.. Any such project owners around??
India freelancers have put me in the poor house! This was funny though…but seriously. Scriptlance, GetAFreelancer and even elance now has become a breeding ground for cheap ass webmasters/employers with posts like this:
Clone of Facebook. Must be EXACT and I want 200 articles plus 1000 backlinks from PR10 sites. Expect you to be online 24/7 till project is done to MY liking. Must sign non-disclosure, must provide full rights, must not resell. Budget $50.
its a shame..but sadly true..
mebbe i wud have been cribbing had i been from outside india..
but thankfully.. Im happy Im not..
its a just a visa versa code of conduct the more the client is satisfied from your previous work the more he want to put in.
The funny thing is that even if you charge that low, clients would still ask you for a discount, haha, or they’ll say the same line “I’ll send you everybody I know”.
I am agree with you
Very funny article.
dont know what to say but its superb
Very Good!!!
making my laugh…. nice article!
Funny, and very true…. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, I know people who fit some of these and yet they don’t want to raise their rates in case they lose clients.
Far too many of those I answer yes to. My accountant keeps saying raise your fees!, just scared of loosing people
I am thinking about opening a website similar to 99designs, only aimed at providing quicker/cheaper way for people to higher photographers.
There will be a bidding section and a minimum retained payment, but most importantly the contracts will enforce that the buyer (client of the photographer) retains the copyrights.
Wish me luck, everybody.
I will have to show this to my clients in case they are finding themselves getting hate mail from other freelancers.. hahah!
Thanks for making my day.
I love this! I think I may have to add this to list of things that determine your rate… http://www.briandavidjoyner.com/advertising/2011/freelance-rates-and-seo
That’s a funny post. Especially the last point. We Indians criminally underrate ourselves. And our designers? Massively.
I got an inquiry from a (potential) client who wanted me to design 8 pages along with various jQuery effects and a flash game for 750 Rs. That is, less than 20$. I was like…wow.
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