One of the more popular questions I get from current students and alumni is “What do you charge for a website or creative project?” There’s really no easy answer to this kind of question. You can ask 5 different people and get 20 different answers. However, you can break it down into manageable pieces and arrive at a reasonable value for your services.
Over the years I’ve learned a lot of hard, but good lessons on the subject of freelance. Especially on the topic of what to charge. From my experience as well as interactions with other designers and developers, the tendency is to either under charge or to way over charge. But how do you determine what the right answer is? It starts experience first and confidence second.
1. Experience and Confidence
You need the experience of knowing what your capable of and the confidence to know that you can provide that service. When freelancers start out they typically have no experience or confidence in their abilities, which leads to a lot of free work. Although it’s a good way to build a portfolio it’s bad practice. Your skills are worth money. That’s why the client your dealing with is talking to you in the first place. If they knew how to do it themselves they would have done it already.
On the flip side of that scale, a new freelancer should not price them selves so high that they are over valuing their skills and abilities. Which is a very common pitfall.
2. Get Involved
There are people out there that do what you do. Seek them out and start networking. Chances are pricing is just the first of many questions that you have about doing side work. Join a local users group in your community. There are tons of them in Pittsburgh such as the Pittsburgh Society of Illustrators, The Flash Users Group, and Refresh Pittsburgh. There are so many wonderful people that are willing to share their stories and experiences.
3. Use Resources
There are great resources such as the ethical pricing guide, and blogs such as freelance switch. Get an RSS Reader like google reader and see what other people not in your area are doing.
4. Take it with a Grain of Salt
Now that you’ve explored some resources take all of the advice and council from everyone including myself and use what applies to you. There is no clear cut answer.
On to Pricing
This is my fancy disclaimer I don’t claim to be an expert I’m only sharing what has worked for me. There are lots of different approaches, but here’s mine…
Where to Start
I figure out what I think I am worth per hour. Then I estimate how long I think it will take. Then I will add at least a third of that time on for a just in case factor. Sometimes, as you know, things don’t go as planned. Technology stops working or a small code hang up will trip you up for a few hours unexpectedly. This is apart of the process. Embrace it.
Take the total hours and multiply that by your rate and determine if you believe that it is fair. If you think it’s too much drop some off, if you think its not enough add a little. Then pitch it to your client.
Pricing out the Job
How do you figure out your worth? Well take the total amount of money salary per year you think your worth
For example
Lets say 30k divide that by 52 (weeks) $576 per month divide that by 40 hours and your rate is $14.4 per hour.
If you think it will take you 15 hours add another 5 so then you would have 20 total hours.
$15 *20 = $300. Then do everything in your power to make sure you get it done in 20 hours or less. The faster you work the more profit you make, the longer it takes the more money you lose on the deal.
For example
Lets say you told the client the job will take 20 hours… Well it really took you 37 hours ($555 ) you lost $255 dollars on that deal in time. Instead of working for $15 per hour you were actually working for $8.10 pr hour. (rate = original quote / total hours )
How Much am I Worth?
Well how do you know how much you are worth per year. Go to salary.com and search for salaries for web designer according to your zip code. There is a median scale which pretty much tells you what an average of people are making. If your new you might want to consider charging closer to the beginning of the scale until you build up some more experience.
Pricing Disclaimer
Typically contract jobs, which are freelance projects command higher rates than usual salary rates. However, until you’re established AND credible that might not enter into your pricing consideration.
Increasing Your Prices
When should you increase your prices? This is as simple as supply and demand. When your have more projects then your skills are in demand. I know this sounds nuts, but consider raising your prices and taking on less work.
The Comfort Zone
There is a comfortable spot for everyone as far as the amount of work one person can handle. So this is a tough lesson I still struggle with but… only take on as much work as you can handle. Typically a freelancer says YES to every project. This can over extend you beyond your time constraints and can lead to poor work as well as high stress.
Combat this by raising your rates because now you are in demand. This can widle your workload down to a more manageable amount.
What If I Charge Too Much?
This results in one of two things. A lost client or project and learned a good lesson, or it’s starts the beginning of negotiation. Negotiation is ok, it’s apart of the process. Ensure going in you have a base level price. Basically an at cost price. Don’t go below your base pricing level unless you feel like it’s a good cause.
Trading Services
Being open to trading services is a good idea and can come in handy. If your client can’t afford you and you really want to do the project, consider trading services.
Again this is by no means the only way to price out websites and creative projects, but this is my method and it has works for me.
I hope this helps to point the young and budding freelance developers and designers out there.
