Freelance Graphic Designers Salaries and Factors for Charging

Freelancers must battle with this forever. Its a tricky and touchy subject to discuss money and charges with a new customer. No one wants to put a potential client off by over or under-quoting. What are the most important factors you should take into account when you are pricing up your working and deciding how much to charge? Here are some things you should consider when pricing up your services.

1. Type of Work- Most people will charge different rates for different type of projects. Conceptual work, in most cases but not always, gets charged at a higher rate than production work.

2. Type of Client- Who is the client? What industry are they in? How large are they? This is also very important in determining what you can charge. One shouldn't always value the work by how long it will take but should look at who it is for and how they will use it. Your work will bring different value to different clients. You should try to determine what your clients budget is and what their spending history has been like on similar projects. Obviously, larger organizations will pay more than an individual.

3. Your Experience Level- How much time have you spent in front of your digital darkroom? What are your skills? Give yourself an honest evaluation or ask someone else who is a mentor to you or more experienced in your industry. In most cases, work from an experienced creative director or well established design group will be more costly for a number of reasons when compared to an individual ie. office space, overhead expenses they incur, experience levels etc.

4. Web and Interactive design- When charging for web and interactive design it is generally more expensive than purely static HTML page construction.

5. Location- Your location can influence your pay as we all know. DesignTalkBoard id a designers salary survey, which highlights this reality. Use this to your advantage if you work remotely and are able to find clients in large metropolitan areas.

6. Loss leader, pro bono, free pitching- Do you pitch for free or is this a part of the process for you? Do you low ball your fees on the first project to lure a client in with the possibility of more work down the road?

7. Extras ie. Printing, travel- How much or do you add on for extra services you provide to you clients such as adding on the cost of printing. It's always tough to quote these extra costs in a sales pitch and is best spoken about beforehand or put into the fine print. If you do any research on the pictures do you charge extra? What about if you travel to a shoot?

There are a number of things to consider when pricing up your services and pitching your clients. Some are more helpful and useful than others. Some you just have to learn from experience. Its a safe assumption to go into the situation knowing that it will probably go over budget and time.