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I was hoping I would find some people in the industry that could help me decide what's the best price to charge to design business cards.

What are standard prices for professional business card designs?

From a firm point of view? From a freelancer?

I don't want to overcharge clients but I don't want to ruin the industry by underselling my services.

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Are you considering including printing, delivery etc in your prices? – e100 Feb 17 '11 at 19:22

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I assume you are asking how much you should charge to design a business card. The answer to that is:

your hourly rate * the number of hours it takes you to complete the job

The key is to figure out your hourly rate. That is:

annual revenue $ / # BILLABLE hours you work per year

Your annual revenue is all the money you need to bring in to cover all expenses and leave yourself a profit for your salary.

annual revenue $ = 
desired salary + insurance + equipment + software + office supplies + etc

Your billable hours are the hours you can actually bill a client for doing work. This will NOT be 40 a week. 

annual billable hours = 
(40 - non billable hours) * (52 - vacation days - sick days)

Non billable hours are all the hours you spend running the business rather than actually doing client work. High end firms hope to get 75-90% billable hours out of their billable staff. On your own, expect that to be closer to 50%, as it takes a lot of hours to just keep the business going (accounting, billing, marketing, travel, tech support, training).

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Thanks, I was actually thinking of having an standard price per project. like $300 for individuals, $600 for corporations, $800 for a premium design and so on. The final price would be balanced with the amount of estimated hours of course. But it would be used as an starting point. – CBallenar Feb 16 '11 at 19:37
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Sure...the formula is still the same, though. Figure out your hourly rate * average time for the project = 'standard' project price. – DA01 Feb 16 '11 at 20:06
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+1 This is a fine formula, and the only realistic recipe. You need to figure out an hourly rate with which you can live. You'll be surprised how much you will need to charge just to make $0 (i.e. to cover all expenses)! ... Multiply the hourly rate with an approximate number of working hours you need - that will give you a price that you need to charge in order to survive. You can still look around what others charge, but this way, you will have something to compare against – Pekka 웃 Feb 16 '11 at 23:57

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