As A Freelancer, Set Your Prices By How Much Value Your Client Receives

As A Freelancer, Set Your Prices By How Much Value Your Client Receives

When you’re setting priced as a freelancer, you might think about it in terms of how much time it takes you or what your costs are. You should also consider a less common factor: how much value does your client receive from the work you do?

Photo by Gabriel Garcia Marengo.

As creative tips site 99u points out, it’s tempting as a freelancer to set a “fair” price that’s solely based on what your work cost you. Take the cost of materials and add a set hourly wage for the amount of time it takes you and call it a day. However, if your work and materials costs you about $400, but your client is getting $7000 worth of value from your product, it’s ok to charge more:

Too often we set our rates for our work based on certain standards, like the price per hour or project. The problem with that approach is that it only takes into account what you put into the project and not what your client gets out of it. Instead, look at yourself as a creative problem solver and ask yourself How much is it worth for your client to make their problem go away? “This is going to help you create a compelling proposal that’s much more than ‘here’s a list of what I’ll do and a price,’” writes Brennan Dunn. So if you’re designing a brand logo for an international company that will be seen by people all over the world, certainly factor that into your rate, as the job is decidedly worth more to you and your client than if you were designing a brand logo for a local restaurant.

For first-time freelancers, it’s easy to think of this as being greedy or unfair. After all, why charge a bigger company more just because they can afford it? However, the flip side is that your work is valuable. If a company uses your designs or craftsmanship in a large campaign that will bring in a ton of money to the company, then you helped create that value. Charging a higher price for your work isn’t greedy, it’s a proper evaluation of how much your work is objectively worth.

Career-Propelling Money Advice for Creatives [99u]


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