Know what your time is worth, but should you share it with your clients?
Friday’s Creative Review for Graphic Designers
It’s important to know what your time is worth. I’m a big advocate of knowing how much to charge clients for jobs and making a profit for yourself.
Do you have a fixed idea of what to charge for jobs? Do you charge by the project? Or by the hour?
Biggest secret I keep to myself: I NEVER, ever reveal my prices to clients
I’ve had a few clients that ask for a price list. Do I give it to them? NOPE.
Why? A couple of reasons: because then they would expect to always get that price and are resistant to you changing your prices. They can go shopping around and compare my prices with other designers.
Instead, I tell them that I price it by the project depending on what the job requires and the complexity of the job.
My second closely-guarded secret: how much do I charge by the hour
I never tell them my hourly charge.
They may balk at my saying “I charge $100 an hour” but wouldn’t if I said “I charge $1500 for a brochure design.” Also, there is more room for discussion with the $1500 for a brochure design than there is at “I charge $100 an hour“.
If you provide a hourly rate charge, the client can either imagine that a job will take you 5 minutes or 20 hours! And, if you say that the job will take you 15 hours and in fact takes you 20, he may not want to pay. Either scenario, you’ll run into problems.
C O N C L U S I O N :
The object is to leave the lines of communication open. If the client has your price list or your hourly charge, then there is a lot less room for negotiation and discussion (and hiking up your prices).
A second important consideration is that you want to protect yourself and not run into problems with clients that don’t want to pay or think you are overcharging them.
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