Justify High Prices?
- Started
- Last post
- 17 Responses
- boobs
What do you say to clients and potential clients to justify high prices for creative work?
- Ruffian0
"Cocaine is a helluva (expensive) drug."
- lukus_W0
Feel free to go elsewhere.
- seeessess0
Do you want a good website or a shit one?
- utopian0
If they want cheap and fast then go download a template for $49- or call someone India who will do the work for $4 bucks an hour.
- prophet0
if you produce quality work and price accordingly then it should be acceptable. if they want quality work for a bargain basement price then they are dreaming because it doesn't exist.
- GeorgesII0
depends? is it for a print, illustration, web, tv, etc
you can justify cost depending of the medium, I'm having lots of problem justifying a €5000 website, when everyone now has a friend's of a cousin that knows blogger....
I just tell them the truth, they can get cheaper work, but it doesn't always equal quality and leave them with that.
- SPECTACULAR0
There are three options:
- cheap and fast = $$$ *looks ugly
- fast and pretty = $$$$$$$$ *not cheap
- pretty and cheap = $$ *no fast turnaroundChoose one.
- boobs0
I was thinking more along the lines of "do you really want to cut corners with the impression your company will be presenting to the world?"
- PonyBoy0
quality often comes second to budget...
... some folks may think a Porshe is more than worth the money whereas others see it merely as another car that will move you from A to B...
... quality can also be likened to beer goggles - sometimes you see beauty where others don't... and regret it later...
... in the end 'quality' is up to the person making the decision... there are always clients out there who are 'cheap' and therefor will see past what others deem as quality...
I've come to the conclusion that mom & pop clients will often see past 'quality' and cut corners specifically due to an inadequate budget... thus I try and work for Agencies as much as I can - because their clients 'expect' quality and are more than willing to pay for it.
- prophet0
clients will often come to the table with things they 'think they need' but have not considered costs and time investment. sometimes simply working with them to figure out what they 'actually need' can cut a project's scope considerably; making it affordable.
- SunSunSun0
Tell them this story:
Once a giant ship engine failed. The ship’s owners tried one expert after another, but none of them could figure out how to fix the engine. Then they brought in an old man who had been fixing ships since he was a youngster. He carried a large bag of tools with him, and when he arrived, he immediately went to work. He inspected the engine very carefully, top to bottom. Two of the ship’s owners were there, watching this man, hoping he would know what to do. After looking things over, the old man reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer. He gently tapped something. Instantly, the engine lurched into life. He carefully put his hammer away. The engine was fixed!
A week later, the owners received a bill from the old man for ten thousand dollars.”What?!” the owners exclaimed. “He hardly did anything!” So they wrote the old man a note saying, “Please send us an itemized bill.”The man sent a bill that read,
Tapping with a hammer...................................$2
Knowing where to tap................................$9998- brill.prophet
- hahah - excellentlukus_W
- Where is this from .. ?lukus_W
- Can't actually remember where I first heard it. Googled "knowing where to tap"SunSunSun
- this is awesome! Basically what NN Group does.jfletcher
- this is the first time you guys have heard this?
I've heard it under fixing a boiler. Heard it when i was 18persona_non_grata
- formed0
We offer quality solutions that represent value to our clients.
*We don't really get that kind of questioning, though. I think most people recognize that if you want quality, you aren't going to be getting the bottom of the barrel prices.
- pango0
maybe you shouldn't have high price when you don't know how to justify it?
- monNom0
Your prices should represent the work you're doing for a client. If you make them a $10,000 website, 10,000 dollars worth of time and resources go into that site.
The end product depends on your overhead:
$10,000 to a recent grad will probably get a lot of work done, though maybe not very fast, and maybe not to a very high level. Where as an established design firm with seasoned talent will do less with that budget due to higher overhead, but that firm might do it faster, and might come up with the better solution for the budget.
- arthur0
You get what you pay for.
- ukit0
Hopefully your work is good enough that it self-justifies the price.
Absent that, bullshitting.