I came across this story in the September 2009 issue of .net magazine on pricing, in an article titled, Be the boss: deciding how much to charge by Mark Boulton:
Legend has it that the artist Pablo Picasso was once sketching in a park when a woman approached him and asked him to draw her portrait. Of course, she was going to pay him, so after agreeing they sat down and- after a few moments of study- Picasso used a single pencil stroke to capture the woman’s likeness.
“It’s perfect,” she said. “You’ve managed to capture my essence with one stroke, in one moment. Thank You so much. How much do I owe you?”
“Five thousand dollars,” Picasso replied.
“What? But it only took you five minutes!” she sputtered.
“Madame, it took me my entire life,” he answered.
It’s a great story, and a nice reminder that when a freelancer prices, it should take into account our experiences, not just the amount of time we spend on a project.
Tags: .netmag, articles, experience, price, rates, tips | Posted in Advice, Lessons, Stories | Comments Off
This week Cory, a designer from NJ keeps his question pithy:
How do you come up with pricing?
It’s a question that plagues most freelancers, especially when they are starting out. How do you value yourself? What if the client doesn’t like your rates? Just starting out, the key is about flexibility. Once you get a feel for your skill, and are able to estimate time, the key is confidence. Read on….
Tags: beginning, clients, price, rates, student | Posted in Advice, Lessons | Comments Off
When you talk to potential clients, it’s pretty seldom that one will say, “It doesn’t matter how much it costs, let’s get going.” Most want an estimate. I wrote about determining my prices in a previous post, but since most of us work on some hourly rate, we need to figure out how long it will take so we can give a proper estimate.
Tags: clients, estimate, price, productivity, rates, time | Posted in Advice | 2 Comments »
Earlier in the month, I wrote about pricing my first gig. I used the hourly rate I was getting from other jobs as a base for how I came up with the price, and for the first few clients, it worked- but it wasn’t a lot. As time went on, more clients [I didn't know personally] started coming in and I had to come up with a standard way to price my services.
Tags: beginning, price, tips | Posted in Advice, Stories | Comments Off
One big problem I used to have was coming up with prices for a project. The FSw Rate Calculator helps you figure out how much you should charge by taking into account your costs, working hours, goals, etc. Definitely worth checking out. And come back in a few days for a post on my first pricing experience.
(link to post)Visit FreelanceSwitch Rate Calculator
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.
Tags: beginning, price, rates, tips | Posted in Advice, Stories | Comments Off
