hourly rate
Out of context: Reply #7
- Started
- Last post
- 18 Responses
- mrbee28280
Sorry for the length...
Some good points here but you guys are putting everything on the client with the short fire of advice. No once has questioned Café. Your client maybe totally right. While just about every small to mid-size client is going to say that you need to stand your ground. But are they valid?
I’ve been designing and developing for 8 years in small towns on the east coast of the USA. I have only in the last 3 years gotten bigger clients/work outside of my full time job and since have just raised my “design” rate from $45hr. My development skillz have grown more since and I changed my rate twice since school to be much hire. Design rates IMHO are always harder to justify because people just thing it’s a “pretty picture”. You have to fight for yourself and know what you are talking about to win them over. Consider this:
1) What is you experience. You can’t charge $75 out of school with no experience. $45 for straight visual design is decent for a less experienced designer IMHO.
2) What’s your scope? No one has asked what you are doing. $3k might be a ton if all you are doing is providing a simple static design for a HTML eCommerce site. If you are slicing and dicing, offering X rounds of changes in your contract or building something the size and complexity of Amazon then yeah, $3k isn’t that much. Define design and consider UI, iconography and scale.
3) What’s your timeline? Do you have a week to do this or 3 months? You might be quoting 40 hours or so but is it 40 over 1 week or 3 months spilt up. If they need something in 1 week it requires full attention and you might be able to leverage that on your side. Remind them you are a business to and you have other clients. Dropping everything for 1 doesn’t always fly.
4) Who is the client? Are you redesigning Amazon or are you designing a site for Bobby surfer dude’s pizza shop? In our eyes it makes no difference but to them it’s the world for a smaller business.
5) Who are YOU? Are you a new/unknown designer? No offense for not looking @ your folio but what have you done? Consider who you have done work for before trying to prove you are the shizzal. For all I know you all ready are the shizzal and they just need to recognize.
6) Last up, what’s your situation? Are you a moonlighter like me? At a fulltime salary and with some of the above variables being easy, is $3k really that bad? Is it blow money? Is it possible you won’t be able to deliver on time due to other commitments and they know this? Or, are you on your own and is this $3k putting a roof over your head? Greed will play into this as well. Are you going to do anything for them and they just don’t know it?