First, talk to your fellow designers in your area: What do they charge? Then gauge your ability compared to that (looks like you're fresh out of design school) and adjust that figure accordingly.

I'd say $30/hr is a bit low since you are in a big northwestern city like Seattle. While they say you can never raise your prices, you can readjust your rates. You may lose a client or two, but then you'll see you start getting clients who can pay you what you want!

Back to the $30/hour thing. If you imagine that 30-35% disappears immediately as taxes, and then you factor in overhead (your equipment and time spent on training) and you can see when you charge $30 you're really only making about $15-20/hour. Not sufficient. You can make this sitting at a desk answering phones as an executive assistant.

Check salary.com for some numbers. I found a Web Designer I makes between $45-55K in 98114 area code. You can narrow the search for a graphic designer. :)

Make sure you have a good contract (search the forum for a recent thread on this very topic) and that you clearly state any transferral or retention of rights to the artwork in advance. Do not work without a contract.

----
Powerpoint is not a design application

Just checked out your site (very cool!) I'd just say two things: Update your portfolio pieces with real world work asap. Also, your resume text is TINY and hard to read; I'd recommend enlarging and putting company names first rather than your job title.

Looks like you've got a good thing going up there in Seattle. Keep it up!

----
Powerpoint is not a design application

Thanks for your input. I do use a contract, I have never worked with out one. (Although i know freelancers who do :( I know I need to update my site.. it seems like I never have time for myself anymore. i would say 50% of the work on there now is real work, however I have a lot more i need to put up. Do you think I should get rid of EVERYTHING I did in school?

Since this current client (the film studio) has already been quoted 30/hr... do you think $1860 is a fair price for the scope of work?

I am going to re-evaluate my hourly rate upon my next client.

Definitely get rid of the student work unless you put it in a student work section. You'll find as you go along the student work doesn't mean nearly as much as the real world stuff, even as good as yours was.

How many hours did you bid for each part of the job? Kind of hard to tell if you bid the correct number of hours if we don't know the breakdown.

Also, don't get stuck in the designer trap of 'I quoted this number of hours and have to eat the overage'. You can always bill more time as long as the client approves! If they go over and won't pay more, then the job is done.

----
Powerpoint is not a design application

As someone who's outsourced a lot of design work, a sure fire way to make sure I don't hire you back or refer you to anyone in my network is to try to make me foot the bill for your bad quote. I learned my lesson the hard way early on when I had exactly that happen on a $20k project. Now it's strictly payment upon delivery. My $0.02

CREATIVE TYPE|ENGAGING PEOPLE

Agreed, except that if you state your terms upfront you'll have a lot more success adding time if you have to than if you do it without prior communication.

I've heard more than one designer I know complain they worked 2x as much for the estimated work when in reality, jobs are estimates until the job becomes an invoice (ie. it is complete).

This means you must pad your initial quote for 'research' and 'change' time, not just the time it takes to complete the job. Itemize this specifically and communicate it to the client; helps ensure the work you're doing is no longer mysterious but real.

----
Powerpoint is not a design application

but I also live in a small, college town with only 130,000 population. So if you live in Seattle, I would say you're definitely charging too little. If that helps.

Take natobasso's advice and definitely research it on salary.com. You'd be amazed at what you're charging is too little for the Seattle area. Not to mention, isn't Seattle a design-mecca? I know some really good design firms are out of Seattle.

suzanne maestri-walters :: graphic designer :: www.onegirlcreative.com

at first i thought it harsh but its good have a standard charge for things, lets say you have a flat minimum fee for log designs, then time, ie min charge $45, so if you do it in two minutes power to you, but let say it becomes complected, or changes are required the you hour rate will acts as a savior, that way you don't loose out.

its only design when it works!!

I charge $80 an hour, and have for the past 10 years. (Before that, it was $40. Yep. I doubled my fee overnight, and nobody said a thing about it.) I'll be increasing it to $115 in January 2008.

My studio is located in a high-rent town of about 7000 people, surrounded by countryside where you'll find people barely able to stay alive on the food they grow for themselves, and billionaires. I'm doing okay. In my 14 years here, I've seen 6 or 7 design companies come and go. I have only one actual competitor, and I get a lot of my trade from their dissatisfied customers. In Seattle, you have a lot more competition at your level, as well as above (in terms of experience under the belt). Still, I think you're pricing yourself way too low. Why not float a job in some corner of the city where they don't know you, pitch it at $65 or $125 an hour, and see what happens? You might be surprised. That'll tell you how to adjust for more run-of-the-mill work.

I've learned that when quotes start paling in comparison to the amount of work a job is really starting to run, that you absolutely have to pay attention and apply the brakes as soon as you see it's out of balance. My contract states that when the scope of work goes beyond the original quote, no futher work will be done without a signed Change of Work order form to cover it, on the same hourly terms as in the quote. It's actualy harder to discipline myself to to this than it is for clients to accept it.

Mara

Mara, your hourly rate is pretty good! You need to show more work on your website though, it does not reflect a decade of designing. Also I would make everything bigger so you can appreciate details. If you charged me $115 an hour, I would certainly demand to see more portfolio work and bigger previews.

I personally charge $50 and hour and I believe I work pretty fast. Every once in a while, I feel a bit underpaid because I am patient with clients (some of them) and I want to make them happy. I have found that a happy client is more profitable for me in the long run. For certain kind of projects I may increase or reduce my rates, also depending on the company/individual.

So I am kind of flexible and try to adapt to every project without feeling exploited or exploiting.

I think $1860 looks like you want to raise it more but you stoped at 1860. I would charge $1900, for example.

I will keep this in the same thread, since it seems to fall under the same guidelnes from the originator.

I had a potential client call me yesterday and inquire about 3-5 t-shirt designs. It's been a while since I have designed t-shirts (about 2 years) and although I love doing it, I know that it can be quite time consuming.

What is your recommendation on what I should charge? Should I just figure out in my head how long this could take and charge my usual $30/hour?

I guess I am asking for advice. To be honest, I am not used to dealing with clients in person that often. 95% of my client base are out of state and/or overseas.

He and I are meeting Saturday morning to discuss things. Should I present him with my contract right off, or just discuss terms first?

Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks!

suzanne maestri-walters :: graphic designer :: www.onegirlcreative.com

When determining my hourly rate, I have never considered my geography. I agree with some of you that since I do live in a big city, like Seattle, I should adjust accordingly. I think I discounted myself since I did recently graduate, even though I have been working in the industry for over 2 years. After this next client I am going to up my rate for sure. I am thinking of pushing it to $50. In response to Natobasso, I also always ask what my client wants to spend before I give them my rate, but I find the clients never have a clue. Most of them just don't know what design is supposed to cost. Also, a lot of clients push me into giving them a quote upon first hearing the scope of work at out first meeting, but I prefer to wait a couple of days and send them a formal quote so I can make sure I am going to come out on top. Is this OK to do?

I really need the work and the money right now, so a part of me doesn't want to bid too high, to turn this guy off. But I know the business that he owns here in town and it's been around for years and VERY profitable. It's a local skateboard/snowboard shop (and sells rollerblades, etc.). He's been around as long as I have lived here, which has been 17 years.

Not that I want to take advantage of that, of course, I imagine since he is pursuing me and not a local design firm/ad agency, he is cheap. I don't know.

I was thinking of charging $200 for each t-shirt. Does that seem too high?

suzanne maestri-walters :: graphic designer :: www.onegirlcreative.com

There's a good formula for figuring out what you should charge in the GAG manual. You have to tweak the result to suit your region and your position within it, but I find it yields a realistic outcome. I'll post it if I can find it. Anybody interested?

Mara

suzanne maestri-walters :: graphic designer :: www.onegirlcreative.com

Probably shouldn't post GAG info here since you have to buy the book to get it, I imagine that content is protected by copyright...but here's some other options:

http://www.designtalkboard.com/design-articles/charging.php

http://www.freelancers.com/webaffil/priceguide.html

----
Powerpoint is not a design application

I know that. Wasn't going to post it.

Mara

A general rule of thumb is to multiply your agency's salaries (or just your own, if you're a freelancer -- make this what you need to meet all your PERSONAL expenses with something to spare for savings/investment) by 3. For an individual like Suzanne, that would be, let's say $30,000. Add a third of that for BUSINESS overhead (taxes, software upgrades, hardware replacement, supplies of all sorts, postage, FedEx, etc., including a pro rata portion of household expenses for a home office -- that's tax deductible, too, under certain conditions). Add another third for actual PROFIT -- which you might partly reinvest in growing your company, maybe like by hiring a part-time associate, or making a capital investment in new equipment or a stand-alone office where you might get "foot traffic." That's a total of $50,000 per year. No divide into that the number of billable hours you can realistically expect to pull in all year (probably around 20 per week for 48 weeks [give yourself time off for vacations, holidays, sick days or family leave], not counting "administrative time" spent goofing around on CreativeBits and continuing to learn DreamWeaver!), and that's your hourly fee. Give it a try and see how it comes out for you. I come up with about $52/hour. Close?

Mara

That's some good advice Mara. There used to be an article lying around somewhere, but I can't find it. It comes down to how you did it anyway.

Shanda, to give you an idea. I live in a 3rd world country. (Okay, maybe my area is first world an very competitive, and not comparable to the States.) But... I live in Cape Town, South Africa. I charge (in USD) $35 per hour. This is cheap compared to most others and will be probably be raised to around $60 within the next year. Point is... people around me easily charge double that.

Just make sure that if your competitor has a skill level of 90% and you have a skill level of 70% that you don't charge 110% of your competitors price. Be realistic about your abilities at this stage, and prepare to grow. As you grow you'll also be able to push your prices up.

Last comment: Don't be afraid to charge what you're worth. If you believe in yourself and your work you'll believe in your price and in the end, your clients will believe in you.

Find a fan and go for it!

I don't know if this applies to anyone else, but my main competitor is a printing company with an in-house design service. The last time I checked, they charged about $60 per hour for this service. If I could show you some of their work, you'd be amazed they would have the nerve to charge even half that much! Anyway, they are considered high-priced -- they have a lot of overhead to consider, over 30 employees, etc.

In contrast, my creative services are a lot better (to say the least), and although I charge more per hour for them, I can offer much better overall cost because of my access to a range of trusted, high-quality wholesale to-the-trade printers and fabricators. I can mark their wholesale prices up 20% to 100%, include my design fee, and still come in significantly under my competitor -- with a much better product at the end of the game.

Thoe of you who are concerned about pricing yourself out of the market where you operate might want to take this into consideration and make it part of your "pitch."

Mara