As a beginner or seasoned freelancer, correctly pricing your freelancing work is often challenging. You may need to choose between charging a fixed or hourly price. Other times you may find a client that wants to negotiate for your service.
The cost of your graphic design projects should be realistic and fair to your clients. Opting for a flat rate means you and your client understand the general starting cost of a project. That guarantees you a particular size of income, and if the project scope remains the same, your client will not have to deal with overspending.
Consequently, below are the main steps to help you determine the flat rate you charge for your graphic design projects.
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Determine how much your clients should pay you hourly
Before setting a flat rate, determine the amount your customers need to pay you per hour. You can do that by factoring in the rate the market offers. You can collect data from various salary websites such as LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and Indeed.
Other factors to consider are:
● Figuring out how much you want to earn every month, depending on previous full-time work.
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● You determine the annual or monthly business expenses on health insurance, hardware, software, rent, cell phone bills, marketing and office supplies.
● Determine your total billable time. You can calculate your hourly rate by multiplying your earnings by the total payable hours. You must know the duration required for researching, developing a design, communicating with your customer and others like an illustrator or a printer, making necessary changes and completing a graphic design project.
Always revise the expenses you incur, as they may change with time.
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Determine your rate
Multiply the total hours it will take to complete the graphic design project by the hourly rate. Remember that the amount resulting from your calculations must produce the correct graphic design flat rate pricing. That becomes possible only by adding the hourly rate and other expenses that may arise in completing your project.
You may incur extra costs on printing, illustration and design of the package you are to use.
The idea of having additional expenses and the hourly rate is to enable your customer to understand how you reach your overall fee.
Increase the pricing of your service
Your flat rate for your graphic design projects will need to change periodically. As you work on more graphic design projects and get more clients, you will improve in quoting a reasonable flat rate. You may even find that you have been underquoting.
Before presenting the final cost to your customer, ensure it is slightly more than your previous project. The freelance rate increase should depend on the project type and size. For instance, if the job requires printing, the total flat rate should factor in the number of copies and their cost.
Moreover, you may have to charge a bit more if the client intends to use the work on a website that receives a considerable volume of visitors. Only set the exact quote if you fully understand the client’s expectations.
Also, you may increase your freelance rates slightly when you are in great demand and get projects regularly.
If you are still trying to decide whether to charge per project or hourly, remember that to calculate the total earnings, you have to consider your hourly rate.
Start negotiating
Once you estimate the flat rate you charge your client, you can ask your client for the budget.
For instance, if the client offers $1000, you must consider if you can finish the job within the budget. You may need to negotiate with the client to increase the rate. In such a case, you should ensure you supply convincing information to the client to enable persuasion in your favor.
If the client refuses and offers a budget lower than your expected fee, you may have to reject the job kindly. However, always ensure your pricing for graphic design projects is flexible while still staying competitive. You have to know the current going rates for graphic designing jobs.
Your client deserves an explanation if you are charging more than your competitors. Your flat rate may be relatively higher since you are highly experienced, your services are in demand or you use sophisticated designing software.
