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How much should I charge for the services?

How much should I charge for design services?

  • I am a writer, editor, photographer and graphic designer with six years experience and an English degree. I have worked in journalism, media relations and, more recently, for a research center at a major university. I am beginning to take on a freelance job with a new client. This will be my first side job and I have always been salaried for this kind of work. How do I determing how much to charge per hour for my services? I will be doing ad design for print, web design and editing, and developing print materials, such as brochures and booklets.

  • Answer:

    You could partition it up in two different ways: You could give yourself a fixed hourly rate, making your customer aware of the given rate. Because you've been educated and have a BA, I wouldn't charge less than $25-30/hour. Or you could pay for each individual task (this is what I do) settle on a fixed rate, that could either be payed in full up front, or when the task is done- or in incriments as the task progresses. If you look around, major corporations charge about $750-$1000 for a complete web package (design, hosting, etc.) Because you're a lone wolf you could probably manage whatever you can afford. Ad packages are often split up by size of job, or by each individual medium (like cards, prints, brouchures, etc.) this can be anywhere from $300-$1000 depending on the quality of design, amount of medium processed, and size of corportation. I also factor in the profit measure for the job- How much money will the company yield for themselves, should I create this brochure for them, for example. Depending on the answer, also figures how much I charge them. Hope this helps!

Archduke Gumbercules at Yahoo! Answers Visit the source

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well, this is a complicated procedure that you might want to get advice from an accountant if your trying to stay a flot. but i would say, start by researching what your competitors are charging, this is called the market price. you want to stay around what your competitors are charging, going too high will result in losing clients, and too low will mean that you can't keep your business a float. remember to bill the client for 100 percent for the time that you are working on their project. in this business, our service is our time that's why it is so important to record your time down to the minute, otherwise you are working for free. also figure out your overhead, stuff that cannot be billed to client (computer repairs, rent, ect.) stuff that can be included in your fees is printing costs and materials for making the booklets, don't forget to include these things, its not something you should pay for. lastly, always write up a letter of agreement stating what your fees will be and what the job is. it doesn't matter if this is a freelance job for a friend, or whatever, you can still get into legal issues, always have a contract.

You Know If You Could You Would

You can register at freelance website like http://www.getafreelnacer.com/ and start bidding for all graphic designing projects posted there , from average bid for few projects you will get good amount of idea on how much to charge for any project that you choose to undertake.

Jennifer L

You shouldn't charge an hourly amount, but a 'set amount' for each of the different things you are doing ... be sure that you give enough money to be able to take the time to do each job properly, but you should also charge no more than a 'median' amount (the middle of what is charged for similar items) ... you should also know that if you are doing the print-outs on your printer, that the brochures and booklets should have a 'set charge' for each copy, as a book would cost, and add that into the total amount. I know it's difficult to do it this way, but this is the professional way to do this 'pricing' ... and it's actually more fair to both you and the client.

Kris L

Try this method.. check how many hours you would need to complete the assignment.. the time frame would include some time for traveling to accept the works until delivery of completed works.. the 2nd part should also be an estimate.. Next use your current salary per hour as a guide round off to the nearest half hundreds.. As a start, use your discretions to give a lower value and with more experience, you should be able to command a bigger amount..

bamboo

Depends how good you are/how fast you work.

professional_entertainment

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