Figuring Out How Much to Charge
Figuring out how much to charge is one of the hardest parts of freelancing.
Over the years I have given much thought to how to price jobs and I’m sure its a topic we’ll be discussing aplenty here on FreelanceSwitch. Today I thought I’d write out how I go about costing a job.
The first point of call when deciding on charges should always be how long it will take you to actually complete the job. If there are extra costs like printing, web hosting, outsourcing an illustration and so on, then you should also factor in how much it will cost you to have these done.
When a new job comes in I break it up into components and then estimate the time it will take to complete each one. I then multiply my hourly rate by that number of hours to get a costing for the job. When I first started out I would break down the job to the nth degree so that the components were really atomic tasks which I could estimate easily. With experience though you get better at estimating without needing to do that.
Now you could leave it at that, but in my experience just knowing the base cost for a job doesn’t take everything into account. So then I decide if that cost is appropriate for the client. Some clients have special needs, are a little risky, pay very slowly, require a lot of administrative work or just like to have lots of meetings and phone conversations. For these clients I will often pad the costing out to cover these issues. Additionally because I have been fortunate enough to have more work than I can actually take on, I will also add cost to a job which I am not particularly interested in.
On the other hand if a client is easy to work with, provides a lot of repeat work, is often happy to take my advice on things, perhaps can’t afford things, is a non-profit or has a job that I would love to be a part of then I will often reduce the cost.
So essentially I figure out my ‘real’ cost and then adjust according to all the extra factors. Of course you don’t always know whether these factors apply, particularly for a new client, so there is a certain amount of guesswork needed and sometimes you get it wrong. When in doubt theoretically you should err to the side of caution so that you don’t regret giving a cheap price, however often in practice the lure of winning the job will make you err the other way.
So that’s my rough practice, what do you do?
This article has been translated into Spanish by Diana from Artegami. Thanks Diana!
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This is definitely a skill that is built upon, I am yet to quote enough for a job.
It’s quite disheartening to be still working on a project that should’ve finished some time ago.
Live n learn eh?
One thing I am doing is reviewing past projects and totalling the different phases/elements of a project. Through understanding this I am hoping to get more of a nack at quoting the right amount (and end up getting paid the right money!).
Indeed Dylan, its hard isn’t it! No better way to learn I suppose about quoting high, but when you really want the job it goes against every instinct to quote high…
Actually thats a great idea about reviewing past projects’ hours, I think Collis mentioned in another post at some point about using time tracking software specifically for that purpose, very handy, sometimes the results are surprising too
IMO there is a trend to be overly optimistic with the time and effort it actually takes to complete a job well.
Breaking up the job into individual components is an excellent suggestion and can save you getting burnt.
A basic spreadsheet listing the different components of a job is very useful – simply put in the time required for each measurable task, multiply by a complexity factor if you are very sophisticated, and simply total the hours.
At one company I worked for we used this type of estimating spreadsheet and while it wasn’t perfect it certainly saved a lot of potential grief (i.e. having to pull all-nighters) by underestimating.
Great article! The problem I have with freelancing is that I always get clients that come right out the gate wanting to know how much I charge.
For example:
Potential Client: “I need a website. How much will it cost?”
Me: “Well it depends on what you plan to accomplish with the website and how soon you need it up.”
Potential Client: “So…$50? $100?”
Me: *headdesk*
How would you solve this problem? Just quote a flat rate?
lol, interesting question, should be the subject of a whole blog post… in fact, I’m going to tell Cyan to write it up!
I would also like to learn about this topic; I am a newbie to this. In my past life I had quite a different type of business; however everything I learned about quoting jobs then, I learned by screwing myself over at least once.
I’m on a much steeper learning curve now and need to get it right.
I follow an identical workflow for estimates, with a twist (of course). I keep timecards for each job, even though I am a one-man shop. It is annoying. I feel silly doing it. But when I can compare an ACURATE actual time to my estimated time, I find my gaps quickly. (You mean I didn’t finish the design comps in 30 minutes?)
I also learned, from my days in the print industry, to apply a pain-in-the-butt or it’ll-be-fun discount. Get your quote nailed down. Think about the job, the client, the timeframe. Ask your self “What would they have to pay me to get me to work with this guy again?” OR “What would I pay to get to do this fun/cool/new thing?” Tack it on (or subtract it, as it were). I had a client that annoyed me to no end. Horrible person. I always marked up by 25%. When I had an opportunity to add a new type of client to my portfolio (I did a LOT of work for non-profits at first) I dropped 15% off the total so I could be certain to get the job.
@KARSH
I will try to stay positive and say “I quote each job seperately because I do not believe that my clients should pay for work or features that they will not need or use. When can we meet?” This makes it sound like you want to do a quote so you don’t overcharge the client (which you do generally want to avoid) rather than the typical “How much can I get out of you” vibe.
If a potential client continues to push on final cost, I will ask for their budget and tell them what I can do for that amount. Pain-in-the-butt tax runs HIGH in this case. I try to never give a range of price, because clients only hear the bottom number. In two cases, when pushed I gave a range of X to 3X where X is the highest I had charged at that point. When I finally quoted out one at .75X, they felt like they were getting a deal.
Thanks for this, Bill. Very good real world advice.
Definitely a live and learn part of any freelance and or business.
I have only been in the game for 6 months but I myself have been paid a few different ways and have afew thoughts on how to do it. You can read more on my blog
For any illustration job, the first thing I do is consult the Graphic Artists Guild Handbook: Pricing and Ethical Guidelines. It does a great job of providing ranges for pricing, based on surveys throughout North America.
Hey all!!
This is by far, in my opinion the hardest part about freelancing. Trying to find the right price for you and the client is such a daunting task. I mean i try and stay consistent with my hourly rates and project rates but clients usually are always wanting something for nothing i find. But dont get me wrong some clients dont know how much effort goes into thier ideas that they have, thus dont think the price should be as high as i am quoting. But some do know, and still will try and play the bidding game with you. The overall problem which both types of clients share is that they are easily scared off when you stand firm in your pricing. Anyone know a good way to stay firm yet convince them of your value?
Hi Jeff,
Instead of quoting less when they are scared of the cost, offer them more for their money.
This may sound counter productive, like you’re just doing a little more for the same amount instead of doing a little less for a little less money which pretty much works out the same; however, you are bringing the client around to focusing on what you are providing them (creativity, experience and a product) instead of focusing on how much you cost.
Which will help you nail them down, and increase your odds of repeat business.
I never charge based on time anymore unless it is with a client who I so regularly work with that everything breaks down into hours.
You should charge based on what the product you are selling is worth. Not as easy to figure out but c’mon you will get faster with age and experience. Why penalize yourself for your greater speed and efficiency?
@Benjamin doesn’t the project worth usually break down into how long it took or how long it will take?
Yes and no. For Instance: Design Job #1 – Mom and Pops Breakfast cafe needs a logo design, it will be used locally only. Design Job #2 – Nike calls and wants a logo for their new line of shoes, it will be used globally, and is marketed to astronauts.
The amount of time involved will be about the same, but these two quotes will not be anywhere near the same neighborhood. And how would you feel if your logo design became internationally known like the Nike Swoosh and you had given it over for a couple hundred bucks?
I do a lot of VFX and motion graphics. Pricing is still a nebulous thing for me.
I used to do a fixed job rate because I was too scared to suprise the client with an hourly bill.
Then, I’d figure try an hourly rate, but only ended up deciding my hours after the fact according to what I thought the client would “want” to pay.
These two options tended to leave me working my butt off for little money.
Now. I say screw it, and just charge them a weekly rate, that’s slightly cheaper than my day rate, that’s slightly cheaper than my hourly rate… giving them an incentive to bring me onto bigger jobs.
Still trying this out, but I think this will work the best. I can say up front how much a week’s work is worth. If the work balloons, as it usually does, then there aren’t any surprises.
I absolutely agree with Benjamin Hirsch. Once you gain experience the same job takes less time. But that doesn’t mean the job is ‘easy’ — just that it’s easy for me. Ultimately, you learn how much time a particular task will take and know how much you should charge.
The reality is that most freelancers don’t know their own worth and get discouraged. The one’s who survive know what they have to offer and what makes them different from the rest of the herd.
I think that time should be base factor for estimate.. as this is really our personal cost.
Even if let’s say after one year you can accomplish same task twice time faster.. (or if you’re skills evolved that you’re producing higher quality product) it doesn’t mean that you become cheaper… simple your hourly rate should be adequately higher.. all comes down to your time and how much it is worth.
I’ve been told by an old proffessor that the best way to figure out how to charge is to start low, then if you ever have more work than you can handle, keep bumping up your rate until you’re not getting enough jobs. Just before that point is the sweet spot.
I’m not sure this works, however. I don’t know if you’re market would react fast enough to give you this feedback. It could take you years to find the sweet spot with this method.
I have two questions:
1. Periodically throughout my freelancing career I’ve raised my rates, and I always feel a little guilty going back to old clients with the news “Hey my rates have gone up, you’re now going to have to pay me $50/hour. I hope that’s alright.” I’ve never had one tell me it wasn’t alright, but you never know if it actually is a pinch for them and I certainly woulnd’t want to push away an old client over something like this. What’s the best way to handle this?
2. I’ve recently moved countries (from US to NZ) and I’m unsure about what I should charge. I was charging $50/hour to my US clients before I left (and I continue to charge them that amount for the one’s I still to work for). Here in NZ the cost of living is a bit higher than where I used to live so naturally I want to raise my rate, but at the same time I have a feeling that the going rate in this local market may be lower, but I’m having trouble really finding out what it is. How would you suggest I go about this?
Like medyk, I always just raised my hourly rate as I got more experienced, from the time I first started until now I have gone through a rate change of 500%
In fact basically I did what benek suggested, of just charging as much as I felt until I had too much work. The drawback of course being that you often get overworked!
@Benek, here are my thoughts:
(1) Going back to old clients is tough, I always had a hard time and generally found that over time I lost a lot of my old clients as I trekked on up the rate ladder. I don’t think there is an easy way to get around it. I used to do a lot of deals for my old clients and I would give them a lot of warning of a rate change so that if necessary they could make adjustments. This meant than in practice I would have up to three rates going at any one time, new clients would come in on my highest rate, older clients would still be on a lower rate but slowly moving up…
(2) Interesting dilemma, my suggestion would be to find local freelancers practicing in the same industry and see what the market is like. What do you do? I know a programmer and photographer who work out of Auckland, I can ask them…
Otherwise I guess you could just charge what you do and see how clients take it. Rates are one of the hardest parts of freelancing without doubt and its an issue we will be dealing with a LOT here on FSw I think!
One thing I don’t think anyone has touched on is your point regarding padding out costs to cover meetings, correspondence and so forth, to accommodate clients that “just like to have lots of meetings and phone conversations.”
I generally figure around 10% of the total project cost to cover all forms of correspondence (telephone and email), based on past experience and timesheets, and always make it very clear that I charge for meetings separately.
Not including meetings in the quoted cost has three big advantages (for me, at least):
1. I can be much more accurate in my costings. Meetings always seem to be one of the more unpredictable aspects of any job, meaning the likelihood that I’ll get my costings wrong is greatly increased.
2. Not having to add a potentially big “meeting-buffer” means that the quote doesn’t run the risk of looking unreasonably inflated.
3. Dreary, endless, pointless meetings seem to become a thing of the past when the client knows he’s on the clock. I’ve had clients who seem to use meetings as a good way to waste a few hours when they can’t be bothered to do any proper work; charging separately for that time tends to focus the mind rather well.
Stephen
Bravo! This is a great idea and I believe that I will use it. Thank you for sharing.
I like Stephen’s idea of charging separately for meetings. I’ll have to try that.
Thanks Collis for the feedback. I’m a web designer.
I charge by project rates, as well, for two reasons.
1) At the time I first set my rates, I’d not really been doing this long enough to know how long something will take me (although this is quickly becoming a non-issue), so I just looked around at some industry standard project rate cards and set mine at the low-middle range.
2) I find that some projects will take far longer than others that are superficially similar for any number of reasons – the muse is either being coy or promiscuous in her attentions, the words either flow or slow to a dribble, the subject material is either dense or lightweight, the target audience’s headspace is familiar or downright alien…etc.
As a copywriter, it seems that 500 words should take the same this week as they did last week. But they don’t – sometimes I can sit down and whack out 500 words of pure eye-searing brilliance without even warming up my keyboard, only to come back tomorrow and have to do a Bruce-Willis-grade search and rescue operation to come up with even paltry remnants of passable text, most of which will end up being recycled back into pixel-ink the next day as I wonder what in God’s name I thought I was doing near a keyboard in that condition.
No doubt, as I get more experienced this will all even out. But at the mo, If I charged by the hour some clients would be getting the benefit of my good days while others would be taking it in the pants because the word fairy went on a bender during work hours.
Since I’m part of a very small company I guess you could consider us in the freelancing business. Nice reading material here. But, since the topic is “figuring out how much to charge” and since we’re all anonymous here, hou about discussing “real” prices, “real” hourly rates? That interests me a lot and maybe other people as well..
So, I’ll start. We do our business in Romania and have pretty much come across all types of clients and projects. We’ve been knee-deep into PHP, Flash Media Center and scripting, e-commerce and all that.
We tend to charge our clients depending first on project type and then figure out hours of work involved. So we get burned a lot as we often underprice the project. But if we charge an hourly rate, I’d say we’re around 9-10$/hour. If we work outside the country we go up to 12-15$/hour (not the best market for web development, the Romanian market…).
I guess our hourly rates may seem pretty low to many as we’re sure we do pretty good work compared to the competition.
I would be really interested in finding out prices from other countries/people if that’s possible.
Good conversation all. Here’s another way to save a whole bunch of hassle. Ask the client what their budget is, and then tell ‘em what they can buy with that amount money.
Hello!!
I’ve never charged my hours, but my whole project. Paying my hours it seems I am being over controled.
Since December last year I start working with international clients, I am from Portugal. My doubt here is what to charge? The prices done in my country or the client country’s price? Or a middle term? I prefer the middle term.
Anyone with this kind of experience?
Bye!!
Most designers, I think, know when they have the perfect design, which you know will blow away the client and satsfies your very own senses…you know what I mean!?!…So my question is…Should I be responsible for any extra hours that I spent getting to that point, since I have spent more then the estimated time on the conecptual phase of the project. Is it the clients fault that I had a mild case of designer’s block? Do I charge him because I spent the hours I indicated coming up with crap? I kinda always find myself doing more hours than I should….Well I guess I just answered my own question…Add those extra hours to my estimate! Well I’ll be! Great website! Any comments, suggestions.
Good point Ana. Unfortunately when your job is of a purely creative nature (writing or design) then there will be good days and bad days. There is one universal method to calculate your hourly rate: ask yourself how much you want to earn in a year/month… Then you can arrive at an hourly figure and that’s what you charge. Simple!
I am a freelancer since last 3 years. I left my job and am employer now. What I feel is today competition amongst freelancers have risen so much resulting in less billing rate. A clone of a hot site(which was done with $50K) is offered to us for $1000. I guess this is because of too much supply of inexperienced coders into the field.
Raman, just because someone is offering a $1k clone of a site that originally costs $50k to make does not mean it is the same quality as the original. It might have the same look and feel but is it as reliable? Is it as easy to maintain and administrate? Can it perform under high load conditions? Are the new owners free from legal liability should the copyright owners of the original design and/or patent owners of any unique site functions?
The answer to all of these questions is likely to be ‘NO’. And guess what happens if you want to modify the clone site? You will have to hire someone who is going to look at it and tell you one of two things: 1. I refuse to work on this horrible code but I will build you a new site, 2. I’ll work on this horrible code but it is going to cost you 2-5 times more than my usual rate and take twice as long. Either way you won’t be saving money.
I usually just charge by the project
I’m just entering the freelance world and I have another idea. I believe in charging what the project is worth but I like to base it on what the client will get out of the site. For example, lets say I’m talking to a car dealership about a database driven site where users can browse their inventory. And lets say that I did a similar project for some one else and I would really have to do is repurpose the site for the car dealership. That automatically cuts the time down.
But more importantly, I ask myself, how much is this site WORTH to the dealership. Lets say they sell 10 cars from web leads in 1 year and the profits from those sales are around $30k.
Now the question is: if the hours match up, should you charge the same for a site that can potentially generate $30k in revenue for one client versus one that might generate $5k for another client? I think charging for work per hour is like paying athletes based on how much they weigh instead of what they produce.
Then again, I’m just starting at this.
I am finding that when I quote on a website as a fixed price, I end up building a site with heaps more pages than originally quoted – they just keep sending extra content. So even if my quote specifically mentions 6 pages, I end up with a 12-15 page site. I have been wearing it up until now but this is seriously cutting into my available billing hours.
The 2 strategies that I can see to address this are:
1. tell them that what they want is not included in the quoted price (may backfire and cause bad feelings and risk getting the final payment on time or at all due to dispute)
2. Start quoting jobs knowing full well that I will have to populate an extra pile of pages, no matter what. (may lose ‘smaller’ ie. cheaper jobs due to higher fees – but they’re not small jobs in the end anyway)
Seeing as this is happening to me on every job, I think option 2 is the best one – what do you think?
@Hanad Ismail
I would say it’s not our place to decide what is done with the end product. I can buy paint brushes and be an exceptional artist and make £1000 from it. I can be absolutely rubbish and make 0 from them with the same amount of time invested. You see what I mean?
One company can be just good at marketing and another have a separate reason for it perhaps just information/awareness plus there are other factors that go into what will generate a click conversion – customer service, the product itself and it all gets very complex. So IMO stay out of that figure out how much of YOUR time is being spent (and this like has been mentioned should include all those phones calls from some overly fussy clients to the easy going ones who leave it all up to your judgment to supplies, meetings – though I quote like Stephen’s idea of charging for meetings seperately etc). Like with most people I started low years and years ago and as the work load increased and I had less time to myself my time became more and more valuable so yes it is good to start low and increase with experience/time.
@ Bill: My method is rather similar to yours! And I will be stealing that quote for clients who want an upfront price range!
Reg: Ebi
In my humble opinion, I think your metaphors don’t work. A web site isn’t just the paint that you just sell some one. A web site is the equivalent of painting classes and advice and years of experience being packaged ALONG with the paint.
Lets say you buy a diver’s watch that can go several hundred feet under water – a professional grade watch. Should it cost less because you don’t realize its potential and go that deep? But I don’t think thats the debate.
Here is a real world example I recently dealt with. I created a web site for a vacation rental house in a remote island in the Caribbean and the site was quoted by my partner at around $5k. A week’s rental at this house is $5k and because of how remote it is, the primary source of sale will be the site – no one will be walking around the island saying, “huh, shall we stay here?” 70% of the interest will come from the web and the other 30% will go to the web site at some point anyway. This site is REALLY important to their business.
Lets compare that to a rental in Lake George, NY – a small summer resort town – that will probably get booked even if they don’t have a web site and will charge in the area of $2k a week. The site will take the same amount of time to build, but, you can’t deny the site on the island is WORTH more to the business than the one in NY.
Personally, I feel that if the site is key to generating more business and if that business is worth a significant amount of money, then the site is more valuable and hence should cost more.
Comments and criticisms are welcome.
Lots of interesting comments here
Re: Benek
I’m a new freelance web programmer and I currently charge $50USD/hour
I’ve quoted this rate to a few people and I think all have been perfectly OK with it
To be honest if you join the IRC Chat Network Freenode & ask people in channels like #PHP what they charge when freelancing, some have told me they charge $100-$150USD/hour easy
I agree with another commenter who said there is a lot of competition between average/inexperienced coders who bid on projects in freelance auction websites very low rates just to get the project. It’s funny really
I agree with Ismail who said we should not simply charge hourly rate but consider the value of a project absolutely. When it comes to freelancing I think it’s important to evaluate the VALUE of the work you do.
Let me give you an example that will clear this up
When a client comes to me one day and says,
hi pablo can you please do some work for me today, it is URGENT, I need it done today.
I say sure, I will do it today and charge you double the hourly rate. This is a slightly different way of realising the value of your work than what Ismail was referring to but it is another aspect of it. Your time is valuable and if you don’t treat it that way, clients will take advantage but more importantly you won’t make as much as you should be making
Pablo:
Excellent example. I was a HOW conference two years ago and a creative manager I met gave me a great quote that helps elaborate on the point you just made. He said he told his client that there are three variables in each job: time, cost, quality. Of these three, they can have any two, but not all three.
Here is how it works:
The client can have something of high quality in a short amount of time, but it will cost.
or
The client can have something quickly at a low cost, but it will suffer in quality.
or finally
The client can have something of high quality at a low cost, but that will take a lot of time.
I think this is a GREAT way to look at projects and it might even be something to tell clients from the beginning. I find one of the best ways to keep clients happy is to manage their expectations. Let them know ahead of time whats possible, whats probable, and whats impossible.
I just started installing blinds and shades but i have no clue how much to charge for the hourly rate?
Hi, I’m fairly new to FSw and I thought I might add my two cents here and see if the info I provide can help you.
In my first projects I would ask four or five different friends -who are in the bussiness, of course- for their usual/average rates and the I’d take that as a reference which included their experience and craftmanship, then of course I’d lower it to meet my lack of them, hoping to raise the bar as time went by.
What I do now is have my price list, in which I detail how much work will be done and when it will be delivered, so the client gets an standard and therefore sees that if he needs his project in less time, the haste is prone to elevating the final rate, and if there is less work needed to be done, that will of course lower the bill. I call it my “fast food list”: “you dont’ want fries with that, ok, it goes down; you want to upgrade to a large combo, it will be a few extra bucks”.
Thanks for the great site, hope this helps someone!
Sorry, but I HAVE to add that Im from Mexico City, so that’s why I asked friends in the bussiness (that bit might help you Sarah S -otherwise call different places that provide the same service and then you can stablish your “industry standard”), because everytime I tried to find info on the subject, most of the sites are in english and thus offer prices in dollars.
That might seem uninteresting to some of you but keep in mind that for us a t-shirt for $20-30 USD (250-400 MXP) is rather expensive; when I got the chance to travel to Europe I realized this in the cost of Coke cans, in Mexico they’re around $0.60 USD, but there they were around €1 or €1.5 which is triple or more.
I recently totally changed my pricing for web design projects. I originally charged by the number of pages ($199 for the first page and $99 for each page thereafter). I was TOTALLY UNDERCHARGING and realized I was earning less than $15/hr for my services! At the time, I didn’t mind because I was working full-time. My new pricing uses the same method as Collis and determine how long each portion of the project will take and then multiply that time by my various hourly rates (I charge a different hourly rate for content writing than I do for programming or design). On top of that quote I charge an automatic $1000 for “project management” (of course the client is not aware of a seperate charge for PM). I just give a flat rate for the project. I think the PM is absolutely necessary to factor in the time that I spend on proposals, drawing up contracts, finding plugins for certain features, changing nameservers, registering domains, adding the client to the invoicing module, adding the client to the database, back and forth emails, meetings, etc…
I lived in the Philippines and I am a freelance web designer and I have a question on how I should charge my foreign market specially in the US area… by which If I quoted a price which level the pricing from the US web designer most of my clients are saying I am asking high price for my service… and when I ask them what would be the fair price?, they will gonna give me a very low price by which tends me to think that every price is different from every part of the world….
So my question is this.. Can I charge the same price on what the US web designer charge for a US client outsourcing work in the Philippines? or I will level the price based from Philippine market?
Any opinions are much appreciated… Thanks in advanced….
Hi This is a great topic and i am actually facing an issue that i need help with right now..
I am a motion graphics artist from jamaica. When it comes to pricing i really base them off the client. So i may give discounts according to the relationship i have with the client or if the client has a budget already set in stone. The way i charge is by the second. So right now my costs go as follows for a 30sec animation it is
JA$5000 per sec. ( that would be about US$60 per sec)= JA$150,000
(US$ 1750)..
If 3D animation is included then i charge JA$5000 per sec( US$60 ) for the length of the 3d animation separately.
NOW !! for my issue i had a meeting today with a television station in my country and they want to rebrand the station..
I must admit this would be my first time doing this.
They would like.
1. Redesign of the logo
2. Network id
3. short form interstitials (for show promos)
4. lower thirds
5. Animated Bug
HOW THE HELL DO I QUOTE FOR THIS!!
More than anything, getting a client to perform their due diligence (getting photos to me or writing copy for their site,) seems to be the tooth pulling part. So, I charge 50% up front and, depending on the assumed length of the project, the remainder in a fixed amount of time, say, two weeks to a month. This tends to get the client to get me the stuff I need to finish the job on time and on budget. If things go past that fixed amount of time through no fault of mine, I start charging an hourly rate.
If a client want to purchase exclusive rights to a project, i.e. InDesign file for a 30-page workbook, how should a cost be calculated?
Help determining this is appreciated.
I am in NYC USA. I have a client who wants a drawing of a tree with words on branches and roots etc. I have already done a sketch for them with some questions from them that require changes to the sketch. Otherwise they love the drawing. Already I see that I should not have submitted a sketch up front?
The drawing will be used in a Power Point presentation and as a symbol not a masthead on a website. I have no idea what to charge and I have read carefully all categories in The Graphics Artist’s Guild Pricing and Ethical Guidelines and they don’t seem to address this particular thing.
HELP! I haven’t made changes to the sketch YET.
Thanks men and women for any and all help..
I worked out my costings based upon the amount I realistically need to earn each calender year divided by the number of hours in that year I am willing to work.
So long as I reach that figure by the third quarter I don’t mind in what form it comes, if I have to do a job I could get double the price for just to fill in a had to fill gap in the calendar then I will do it – not because I have to, but because I actually love what I do.
Then again I do refuse excessively underpaid jobs especially if I feel that first they will want more in the future and second they will not listen to advice simply because all it ends up doing is reinforcing a false cost of service in their eyes and embitters me to the point I end up providing poor product.
i charged clients base on the whole project. not hourly work rate, per sec price or any other pricing system, since it helped my client a lot in considering how much they could pay, i also feel comfortable because i don’t have to lie to them. i told them the price, when they asked why, i only described how many elements involved and i honestly tell them when i have to learn on something to make the project done.
so, everybody is happy