brainshitting - Luis Alves's Website - CSS and XHTML Expert. Portuguese Wordpress Designer. Info, hints and help for webdesigners. Loose toughts and ideas.

This is the main question when a designer starts doing some freelances during his course and after graduating. In fact there is no “menu” for this kind of activity. It depends on the client, it depends on the project and mainly it depends on you.
What is the fee that keeps you motivated for the project? Beware! sometimes charging too low makes you regret and even get mad at yourself for doing so.

Have you ever asked yourself “why did I got into this?” – because this may be the first symptom that you haven’t charged enough! When you charge the fair fee you’ll be wiling to serve your client well and make him return, without any regrets or interior disconfort.

So, the first rule is – charge what you think it’s fair, don’t charge low just because someone does it.

Then, and after applying the first rule, you can ask teachers, ask friends, ask clients! Ask them what is their budget, even if they don’t answer, they get the feeling that you are worried about not crossing a certain limit. If they try to drive you to low cash lane… well, send them the budget with what you think it’s fair later.
Another rule is not to talk about prices in the first meeting. Go home, go to your office, think about it, refer yourself to similar projects, ask around… do your home work. Saying the price under pressure is a technique often used by clients to get you stuck into a number and after that you can only go down… Don’t be affraid, it won’t look unprofessional, on the contrary, it makes you look a person that measures all steps carefully and therefore you look professional.

Partcipate in designers forums, newsgroups, they may help. Look for freelance sites and try to check out how much designers are asking for the projects on the list. Join you local designers union or assotiation, they can help too.

How design magazine periodically publishes an article about how much to charge. By the way, this is an excellent magazine for designers.
And… you can ask me.

Take care!