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!).

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.

lol, interesting question, should be the subject of a whole blog post… in fact, I’m going to tell Cyan to write it up!

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

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?

@Benjamin doesn’t the project worth usually break down into how long it took or how long it will take?

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’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?

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.