Pricing for ~200 page furniture catalog

Hi all,

I am a graphic designer who just recently went freelance. I picked up a client (this furniture company near me) and I was hired to design a 2019 version of their furniture catalog and price list.

The catalog is 16x11.5in and has 95 double-sided pages (190 pages). Each one, excluding the cover and back, has a product photo, name, description, size, alternate colors (and their pics), etc. The pricing guide is a multi-page 8x11.5in flyer with product pictures of every product in the catalog (in order) and their respective prices.

This seems like a substantial project for just one person. It also might pan out to be an annual gig if I make them happy with this year’s.

I’m really not sure what a good price would be. I haven’t found many resources about pricing for these kinds of projects. I was thinking of doing either per hour pay or per page pay, and then I’d need to decide how much.

Any and all input is greatly appreciated, thank you.

Catalogs differ enormously in complexity as does the role of the designers putting them together. In other words, there’s no way anyone can tell you what to charge since no one here knows the details of the situation.

When it comes right down to it, clients buy our time, and in that time, we do what they need done or can’t do themselves. So with that being the case, carefully pin down the job and figure out exactly what this client needs done, then make your best estimate on how long it will take you.

You should have a good idea of how much you expect to make per hour. I mean, you won’t work for what you’d make at a fast-food place, would you? And you don’t expect to make what a heart surgeon would make. You should, however, have a good idea of what you’re worth and the minimum amount you’re willing to work per hour.

So now that you’ve figured out how long it will take you and how much you expect to make per hour, it’s a simple task of multiplication to figure out the rest. Don’t forget to include expenses and taxes in what you charge since you’re freelancing now, and those things need to be factored into the equation.

I have no idea where to start in answering this.
Probably, who is providing all the copy and images?
Is there an existing template? Or are you starting from ground zero.
One book sounds like the standard full color slick, no prices showroom version for dealers and the other sounds more nuts and bolts black and white parts/price list.

Have you done a project like this before?
The pricing involves far more than hours or pages.

They provide the images, but I design everything. Not a single template or anything of the sort has been supplied. I have done lots of things like this, but nothing to this scale. Most of my design projects are a fraction of what they want me to do. They know this as well, and they’ve told me that it would be a long process. So long, in fact, that they even offered me a desk at their office, but the drive was too far so we agreed to keep it long distance.

You’re exactly right, one is the full color showroom version designed to entice customers, and the price list is the less design-heavy version that only really serves to show prices, although it is also in color.

Isn’t this straight forward hourly fee structure?

If they are going to supply a database you can link to, and you know how to use styles, it shouldn’t be too bad. If you have to manually enter all the data, then it will be time consuming.

You may even be able to automate some of it using data merge. If you want to mix up layouts and use data merge, you might be able to also get away with placing InDesign files within other InDesign files.

I would work out how many different types of pages there will be and work towards a template with master pages, paragraph/character styles etc.

I usually quote based on complexity but once the templates are aprproved (you work out how quick you are at designing templates) , I guess it would take 10 to 30 minutes to complete a page. Multiply by 190 and your hourly rate and you’ve got a ballpark.

1 Like