HOW WILL I KNOW what to CHARGE?
“I really wish I knew how to value my services…”
Short answer? How much will it take for you to get your butt off Instagram and bang out a project? It varies from person to person, so what is your number?
Make it a big number.
Remember, you want to get paid per project, not per hour. So sensitize clients to the fact that you’re not trying to get paid per hour. That you’d much rather work per project and then think of the biggest number that you can, and then break it down into deliverables.
JOIN GET PAID NOW, AND WATCH “THE PROJECT PRICE” MODULE
To paraphrase that module, you want to ideally charge a flat fee for a piece of work.
For instance, many pros who do landing page copywriting will charge up to $600 for a short landing page, and if it’s a longer landing page, they’ll start at $1,500 —because they’ve been in the game for so long that they know what the market value for a piece of content like that is.
The aim is to position yourself as the EXPERT, and sensitise the client to the risk of working with someone “cheaper”
When you’re just starting out, you might want to charge around $550 for a short piece of content and maybe $1,200 for a longer piece. The same sentiments are true for illustrators, animators, web designers, project managers, architects, commercial lawyers, and etc.
First, figure out how long it’s going to take you to do something, or to put a document together for your client, and how much other companies charge —then make yourself happy with an amount, and charge that.
Typically, I try to charge as much as I can, and then I try to complete the work as quickly and as well as possible. If I decide to work at an hourly rate, then my quick turn-around time will not be rewarded. And again, how in the world are you going to justify $1,500 per hour?
There are professional freelancers who say,
“If the client doesn’t necessarily know what they want — but they want to work with you, charge hourly.”
And then they proceed to say that I should charge around $50 to $80 per hour for it, and chalk the loss up to the game. It’s a good tactic because it’ll build a good rapport with the client,
BUT they might never come back to you again,
So personally, I’m not really a huge fan of taking losses on behalf of strangers.
