Commission Pricing

Hello! I have been commissioned to design a challenge coin, which is something that is given to members of a group as a token of appreciation/morale booster. I would be designing both sides of the coin, and I have absolutely no idea what to charge. I am a junior majoring in graphic design and when I designed a logo for this company I charged $150, but that was a few years ago when I was in high school and not art school. Any advice is greatly appreciated!

Welcome to the forum. :smiley:

We don’t really discuss specific prices here. Here’s the forum rule: “Keep all discussions on pricing to general terms. Do not discuss specific prices for services.”

There are so many variables in fees from one job to the next and from one location to another that it makes any advice on specific prices meaningless and misleading.

Since you’re fairly new and still in school, you can’t really expect to charge as much as someone with ten years experience, but consider who it’s for, how eager you are to take on the job, how much money per hour you’d like to make and how long it would take to do it. It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out a basic rate from there that fits your situation.

Regarding the pricing you might find this helpful:

Regarding the deliverables - I would go back to whomever is commissioning you to do this work and would want to be super clear about exactly how they want the files to look in terms of format etc as coins are obviously a 3D object.

Did they commission you without agreeing on a price?

Sounds strange.

This is a bit more specialised - why they didn’t go to a specific coin designer I don’t know…

The coin manufacturing process is something you will need ot know. Or at least have some guidelines from the manufacturers for minimum stroke, gaps etc.

Are you over your head here?

It’s not just a 2 page flyer you’re doing here.
Each side will be specialised designs.

Are you doing 1,2,3,4,5 options for side 1?
Same for side 2?

So you have 10 designs here - right?

Why wouldn’t you charge what it takes to create 10 designs.
Plus iterations of at least 5 changes.

10 designs @ 8 hours = 80 hours
Iterations at min 30 mins = up to 40 hours

so it’s between 80-120 hours work right?

Thanks, Smurf2 for mentioning production specs.
As you’ve often said, “Think finishing before beginning.”

Though these things are usually plastic and are everything from laser engraved disks to 3D printed, to fully cast resin, and sometimes laser etched anodized aluminum. Very very rarely cast or stamped metal (too expensive for what they are.) But the specs are important. Laser etching to a grayscale requires an understanding of gray value steps. Casting or 3D printing may require some 3D skills (or paying the fee for the company to reproduce the art in bas relief.)