One of the most troubling issues continually facing freelancers is coming up with rates. You can go to any freelance forum and find several dozen threads dedicated to pricing, estimates, rates, and the like. Especially when first starting out, I was worried that my rates would be too high and I would lose jobs because of it. But when pricing my first job, I had no idea what I was doing, because I had no frame of reference.

Like I said in my last post, I didn’t really have to work to get my first paying gig. That did take a little bit of the pressure off, but I was still worried I’d go to high on the price and they would nix the project all together. I even toyed with the idea of doing the site for free because they were the first one, which my father was all about, but they weren’t. So I came up with the modest price of $200. I figured I’d give myself a rate of $10/hour, which is more than I was making anywhere else and I was getting paid more or less to learn. They also wanted updates, which I said $50/month for- thinking $25 per week and updating every two weeks.

Looking back this wasn’t all that bad considering, but I was going to stick with those rates. I really had no idea what ‘real’ people in the industry charged. But then I got quite possibly the best advice of my career from my boss at the deli I worked at. Keep in mind, he is a very knowledgeable man who has run his own business for over 30 years now. He told me that I needed to A- charge more, and B- have confidence in what I was doing. He gave me some very important insight:

Your price portrays how confident you are, and if it’s too low people will think your work isn’t that good.

This is the absolute truth. I learned that if you throw a price out there and stick with it- if you show the client your work is worth that much- they will pay it. I also learned the hard way that if you start to back down even a little they will take advantage. I also feel that at least while you are starting out, price is something you need to evaluate on a per project basis. If you are learning new skills and more efficient ways to do things your price should portray that. But what’s most important is you need to let the client know: They will get what they pay for.

Tags: beginning, price, rates, tips | Posted in Advice, Stories |