Now I know this will have come up many times before about how much to charge per hour. I have done a shed load of work for a UK company who sell their to products to over 80 countries. They have a very successful subsidiary US company and I have also done a lot of work for them too.
The US company has asked me to artwork and design a new product brochure to replace their existing 64 pager. This new one will be much bigger.
They are super friendly to deal with, they pay on time 30 days ish and they keep coming back, thatās worth something. They will never be mentioned in Clients from Hell.
Since at this stage nobody knows how many pages and how long it might take, I have to be flexible. The Managing Director of the UK co. has said he prefers an hourly rate x the number of logged hours per month.
Generally things are more expensive in the UK so Iām unsure how to charge a reasonable balance on hourly rates. I have very little overheads as I have an office at home. Iāve been a graphic designer since 1970 and self employed since around 1980 Iāve done work for Marks & Spencers, Tesco, Sainsburyās, Waitrose, Coop, Mattersons, and worked for most kinds of UK industries so Iāve been around while.
Iām looking for figures here guys i.e. Ā£35ph, Ā£45ph, Ā£70ph, etc, etc ā¦ Not a page rate.
Any helpful advice will be carefully considered. If youāve read this far, thank you.
Figure out how much you want to be paid for it and work backwards on the hours.
Iād be looking for a substantial amount, say itās Ā£1,500
If you were to tell them Ā£35ph then it would take you 42 hours.
If you tell them itās Ā£30ph then it would take you 50 hours.
If they say they expect it completed in 40 hours (1 weeks work)
Then youāre Ā£37.50 an hour.
Thatās the way Iād do it.
Yes, thanks Smurf. A fair enough approach except that neither them nor I know how big this project will be until itās done. Hence my looking for a hourly rate and then it will be what it will be. For instance I have spent 36 hours on it this month and itās nowhere near finished.
Itās always a tricky one this, but at the end of the day all designers and (other trades too), have to know what their trade is worth per hour, not per job, otherwise you might as well go and drive a bus. I mean what is the minimum any designer will work for? Itās no good saying I want to make Ā£xxxx and it takes over 75 hours, then your pay is actually quite low. Appreciate your response.
Donāt think so.
I price work on what itās worth. Youād drive a bus for the same price as any other.
If I was doing a magazine for a museum or an art gallery, the price is much different than that of the local community centre.
And I work with some pharma and they get charged more than Iād charge Joe Blogg down the road.
I guess what Iām saying is that itās an hourly rate based on stature.
I couldnāt possibly charge Joe Blogg mechanic Ā£125ph - and I canāt charge the pharma companies Ā£25ph.
I guess you really need to go away and talk with the client to find out what their budget is and what is actually feasible, the hours you have worked and how much that equates to now.
You can always say youāre highest rate is Ā£90ph or something like that so they are at Ā£3000 at the moment.
If they say theyāre budget is Ā£1000 or they say itās a Ā£10,000 you know where youāre at.
But really budgetary requirements could have ironed out at the start.
This is where Iād submit a provisional quote.
And you can only really quote the job once itās decided what the content is and how many pages, and how much work is involved from your side.
At that - Iād provisionally quote at whatās comfortable for you.
Youāve already done 36 hours - Ā£1800 enough to cover your work? Or do you need to go a bit higher or lower?
Thanks Smurf, all good points. I think what Iāll do is tell them for what Iāve done so far, around 40 pages, itāll cost āthis muchā and see how they react. I was working to their printed content brief and now theyāre wondering if there is too much info. So I may have to back and delete some of the stuff Iāve done so far. Clients eh? I think in my heart I want to charge less that 50 an hour, purely because they and the associated companies are great clients. Thanks for your reply.
I once had a friend who ran a print house, and he used to say, āI call them customers, I donāt charge them enough to call them clients.ā Ha ha.
Yeh itās a tough spot. But find out the budget for the project.
I always start there.
I agree, but Iāve always found clients (or customers) reluctant to offer that info because they know youāll spend up to that when they may have got it cheaper if theyāre vague.
That kind of sentiment is best kept out of up-front business dealings, lest you are left shortchanging yourself. Maybe youāre worth 75/hr to them; if you quote 45, how will you ever know? Theyāll take you for a sucker. Better to quote at the 75, and if they ask whether it could be a lower rate, then you allow your heart to offer a discount. That way their heart feels it too.
And moreover, they wonāt take your knowledge and experience as seriously. I usually have two rates, one for commercial work and one for non-profit work. That way, if they balk at the high rate, you have some wiggle room, to a rate which is still comfortably profitable but not as low as you charge for non-profits, etc. That way, they feel like they are still getting an Ā£xx per hour designer at a negotiated discounted rate and your credibility as a quality designer remains.
I start with the top rate and if they arenāt going to go for it, you then say something like, well my rate for non-profits, etc is Ā£x p/h. I could offer you an x% discount on full rate to get a bit closer (maybe half way) to that. Win/win. They get you at what they perceive to be a reduced rate and you are still earning well. Donāt low ball it. Theyāll trust your judgement less. If you donāt get the job purely because someone came in cheaper, you didnāt want the job anyway. I want to work for clients who value my abilities and experience, not because my price is better.
Of course, all of that depends on you being able to back up a high hourly rate, but from what you say about your experience, I am guessing you can.
Iāve read lots of podcast/Facebook/Twitter/YouTube/author designers argue in favor of abandoning the hourly rate and determining fees based on something called āvalue pricing.ā Briefly, this means factoring in how much value your work brings to the client and charging accordingly. For example, a brochure for a mom & pop bakery will be of modest value to the owners, but a similar brochure might be of much larger value to a big-name company at a trade show promoting some new multi-million-dollar product. Thatās not the full argument, but it mostly relies on that concept.
Despite having heard the argument a dozen times, I still donāt entirely buy into it. It might work for those who command top dollar and have clients waiting in the wings, but this description doesnāt apply to most freelancers.
In my opinion, something more realistic considers the value the work brings to the client, the size of the client, and factoring those things into a base hourly rate. In addition, overhead, availability, past history, experience, potential hassles, unbillable time, desire to do the work, etc., all need to be factored in.
As for that base hourly rate, it depends.
It makes no sense for a fast, experienced designer who gets the work done in half the time to charge the same hourly rate as a novice. That kind of hourly pricing structure would lead to the experienced designer only making half as much as the novice. In other words, the faster and better you might be at something the more you need to charge.
In addition, someone living in London or New York City will need to charge more than someone living in Bismark, North Dakota since the cost of living differs dramatically.
Itās really a matter of factoring everything in to come up with a base rate that covers all your expenses, taxes, and downtime. Once youāve done that, you can add how much youāll need to charge to make the profit you want to make. If you want to, and the client warrants it, you can add the value-based thing on top of that.
What I try never to do is give an hourly rate to clients. Most clients arenāt savvy enough to realize that a good, experienced designer is faster than a beginner, so the higher hourly rate might seem unreasonable. If a client insists on an hourly figure, Iāll give it to them, but Iāll preface it with an explanation that I get things done in fewer hours (and better).
Thereās also the matter of freelancers just plain needing work, with almost any work at any price being better than sitting around waiting for the phone to ring. A possible strategy to deal with this is to mention your usual rate (fixed or hourly when necessary), then pause for the clientās reaction. If they balk, ask them what fee they would feel comfortable with, then negotiate something in between.
I understand all this is uncomfortable for most designers. We didnāt go into this business due to our natural sales skills. Nonetheless, itās a skill that needs to be developed or freelancing will almost always turn out bad.
I had a doctors (GP) office look for prescription pads to be designed for his office.
He wanted 150 sheets per pad and 24 pads, presumably to last the year.
A doctors prescription pad isnāt all that exciting. But weighing it up. He would roughly have ā¬150k from handing out prescriptions.
Or at leas repeat prescriptions which can cost ā¬20 and even at that if all were repeats, still adds up to about ā¬72k for the year.
I quoted say the what a doctor costs for a visit which is here ā¬60 a visit.
I quoted ā¬60 for the price of the prescription pad design. It was a bit more for the printing, gluing etc.
The quote was like this
ā¬60 design
ā¬250 print of pads
ā¬310 total
The doctors office then had the nerve to request no design fee.
I wouldnāt waiver on the price. The price is the price.
I literally said to him that I donāt go into his office and demand he treat me for free.
He finally agreed to the price.
ā¬310 for prescription pads that earns him ā¬70k+ a year.
They still have script pads over there? Not allowed here anymore. Everything is done via the net. And even then they call to make double, triple, extra sure with special chocolate sauce that the doctor actually called it in.
Actually I shouldnāt say āover hereā ā¦ here in NY at least. Other places in the country are still living in the 50ās lol 
Yeh, pretty much the way itās done here. However, since COVID I only call the GP and my script is sent to the Pharmacy and I just have to call it in to the Pharmacy, so times are changing.
Hey, we have chip and pin in our credit/debit cards though. And nobody uses cheques here 
My brother lives in Michigan and heās shocked how far behind the banking systems are
Guess we have different priorities!
Everything here has the chip too. Again ā¦ in NY I canāt speak for the rest of the country. I still do use checks on occasion ā¦ but itās rare these days. However we do have some places that simply wonāt take debit or credit as they refuse to pay a percentage of their profits to the big corps for the fees they charge to allow their use. So they are cash only businesses. I just canāt go cashless ā¦ I have to have some green in my wallet
Yeh, my brother was over last Christmas and he had to sign using his credit/debit card, the guy in the shop didnāt know what to do, my brother explained he canāt use the pin machine as thereās no chip in the card. The guy in the store had to get his managerā¦
It was weird
Yes, places here wonāt take card either due to the fees. But itās rare. Most places now want the card.
We have contactless payment cards here - just hover the card over the machine to pay up to ā¬50.
But anything over that requires pin.
I pay for stuff using my phone now too. Itās so handy.