Photo by Darren Hester
One of the biggest challenges for aspiring freelancers is pricing their services. Like many other topics related to freelancing, freelance pricing is always a subject that generates a lot of buzz and a lot of controversy.
This article is only a roundup of some of the best articles about freelance pricing, setting freelancing rates, etc. I’m sure there are many other articles out there, but these are definitely some of the best. I think they fall into four categories:
Factors to consider
Make the process of evaluating and coming to a conclusion as thorough as possible. And don’t be afraid to share your thinking with the client if it seems like the right thing to do. It likely won’t change your odds of getting or keeping a given gig, but it will help give you the peace of mind that the ones you lose probably weren’t worth it anyway.
- Nine Factors to Consider When Determining Your Price
- Factors to Consider When Pricing Design Services
- How to Price Freelance Writing: It’s All About Value
- Web Design Pricing: Set Prices or Quotes?
How to do the math
One of the great mysteries of pricing a project is budgets… vendors always want them, clients never want to reveal them.
- Pricing A Project
- 4 Steps To Effective Web Design Pricing
- The economics of web design pricing
- FreelanceSwitch Hourly Rate Calculator (Ok, not an article, but it’s a great resource)
Underpricing
From my experience, if a potential client mentions that they’re contacting you because your prices are low, this is a very bad sign. These types of bargain shoppers can be some of the most difficult clients to deal with.
- Why Your Rates Are Painfully Lower Than They Should Be
- The Costs of Under Pricing Your Design Services
- Freelancer Pricing: Finding Your Buoyancy Point
Conclusions?
The key is the base price. Instead of being elusive and vague every time you’re asked about your pricing, you can just say, “Well, I charge $___ for the most basic possible website and I go up from there depending on what you need.” If the price scares them, you just saved yourself a bunch of time. If not, you’ve got a good lead.
7 Comments
Good roundup, freelance pricing has to be the worse part of freelancing for me.
Curtis’s last blog post: Site Specific Browsers: Webapps for the Desktop
You may be interested in a site I just launched called LanceRates that collects and analyzes aggregate freelance rate data. It’s basically a place where people can post and/or find market rates for various freelance jobs. There’s not much data there yet, but since it’s community-powered, the more users the site gets, the more data will become available.
Michael, that sounds like a great idea for a website and I wish you the best of luck. I’m sure it will not be easy to gather all that data, but with the help of the community, you can make this happen.
But because the community is so important for you project, I feel that sticking AdSense to a website with little to offer won’t encourage people to participate. On the contrary, they will see your site once and never come back. My 2 cents.
Thanks for the link.
Matthew Griffin’s last blog post: 5 for Friday | The Week’s Best Blogs (6/13/08 Edition)
Thanks for this list - I’m in the middle of deciding how to price my first client and these links (once I read through them all) will be very helpful.
I’m also subscribing to your blog
Hi Sean! Glad this helped. Welcome to the blog!
I have been looking for exactly this. And to think, I was subscribed to your blog for Wordpress/design tips