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I'm designing A1 posters with a Facebook header and Instagram post version of each poster.

I'm charging hourly for the posters, but should I also be charging for the time it takes to design the Facebook headers and Instagram posts that go with each one? They are the same design as the poster, but obviously I need to change up the layout for each space.

I was going to charge an hour for the social media posts, but now I'm not so sure if most designers would charge for them on top of the actual poster cost or not?

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  • As in any 'art' how you charge is up to you. You may decide that you charged rate for the main work includes a percentage for unavoidable related activities. Ultimately you need to set a rate which you are happy with the results of and which people will pay - and hopefully will be happy to pay. A potential risk of itemising 'extras' is that SOME people MAY see it as gilding the lilly / trying to add on some extra unseen costs / ... . And if people did not want to pay would you be happy to accept less overall? My 'art' is photography - and/but when I charge it's for a all up package.
    – Russell McMahon
    Commented Oct 18, 2019 at 8:58

3 Answers 3

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Yes.

If you work on anything for a client it's billable.

It doesn't matter if it's an entirely new item or a reformatting of an old/existing item. They all take your time and it's your time you charge for.

i.e. The poster may take you 8 hours to design... the social media content may take you an additional 2 hours to reformat the poster art to fit online specifications.... that's 10 hours of billable time.

Or if value-based/per-project pricing.... you create a poster from scratch...
You invoice $1000 for that project.

6 months later they need the same art reworked for social media usage. You invoice $500 for the rework.

(25%, 50%, 75% the original invoice amount are common amounts I'll use for updates/adjustments to previously created artwork - but that's just my stance, not a "rule")

You simply don't charge the same amount for things which take less time. Traditionally a rework takes considerably less effort than initial creation.

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  • Thankyou! It seems clear that I should charge for the time spent converting the posters to social media posts now that I read it.
    – Claire Rose
    Commented Oct 17, 2019 at 1:45
  • Oh wait, where you say "you don't charge the same amount for things that take less time" I was going to charge the same hourly rate for the social media content as for the posters i.e. if they take 2 hours 2x usual hourly rate. Or should this be a lower rate as its less effort?
    – Claire Rose
    Commented Oct 17, 2019 at 1:52
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    @ClaireRose Hourly rate, yes the same.... If a poster takes 8 hours.. and social media stuff takes 2... it's not the "same amount". 8 hours should cost more than 2 hours in an hourly pay structure. If you are invoicing based upon value-based or project-based costs, then they wouldn't be the same amount
    – Scott
    Commented Oct 17, 2019 at 2:05
  • Ok awesome, thanks so much Scott
    – Claire Rose
    Commented Oct 17, 2019 at 2:15
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    Hey @ClaireRose, if this answer has helped you out, would you mind accepting it? It gives the answerer some extra rep and tells the system the question has been satisfactorily answered. Thanks!
    – PieBie ♦
    Commented Oct 17, 2019 at 13:12
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A big, bold and uppercase YES.

The whole purpose of an hourly rate is for it to be applied to everything you produce for the client. You just count the time for every request sent you get, and yes that includes adaptations of existing artwork.

Also..

The hourly rate should also be applied to writing email, phone calls, taking a taxi to join their meeting, pretty much everything you do for a client that agrees to an hourly rate. It may sound ridiculous, but in some cases with large clients you can easily spend a few hours per week on phone calls alone and a few hours moving between your office and their office.

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Without explicitly disagreeing with the YES answers,
sort of conditional Yes. BUT ...

As in any 'art' how you charge is up to you.
You may decide that your charged rate for the main work includes a percentage for unavoidable related activities.

Ultimately you need to set a rate which you are happy with the results of and which people will pay - and hopefully will be happy to pay.

A potential risk of itemising 'extras' is that SOME people MAY see it as gilding the lily / trying to add on some extra unseen costs / ... .

And if people did not want to pay would you be happy to accept less overall? My 'art' is photography - and/but when I charge it's for a all up package. If I photograph a wedding you'll get a practice session, bride's house, groom too if doable, church, garden etc, reception till end. If they want "just 4 hours" there are people who will oblige.

I'm not suggesting that you charge 'less' or do "free stuff' - just that the extras are an explicit part of the main job.

Note that the above is NOT THE right answer - it's just A right answer. Whether it's the right answer for you is up to you.

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    I strongly disagree. If you have an hourly rate and you're going to produce an extra item, that will take time and that time should be paid. The item itself doesn't matter.
    – Luciano
    Commented Oct 18, 2019 at 11:45
  • @Luciano You may not have understood my key point. I started by saying "Conditional Yes" re charging. I assume that you are NOT strongly disagreeing with that. My point is NOT that you should not charge but that the charging is a seamless part of a professional package. I AM saying that you get paid for the work, AND/BUT that you always offer the 'social media' items as of right and that no itemised charge is noted. The buyer then does NOT feel that you have charged for extras that they do not want and/or did not ask for. You ALWAYS get paid for them. You look professional. QED.
    – Russell McMahon
    Commented Oct 18, 2019 at 12:35
  • Yes to charging the client for the whole package, but if you charge per hour these items have a cost no? I'm not saying "describe each item's cost in the bill", but if asked at a later time to produce extra items the cost needs to be added to the total. I can't guess at the beginning of the project that the client changed their mind and asked me to redo something 20 times.
    – Luciano
    Commented Oct 18, 2019 at 13:02
  • This is somewhat what I alluded to (although not very well) in the value-based/project-based pricing comments of my answer. I will, if value-based pricing (which is common here), throw in minor things without additional fees. Ultimately that's up to me to decide. It's not a "practice" I could detail. It's all very client and project dependent. i.e. If a client has paid several thousand dollars for a sales piece design, I'm not going to charge them an extra $50 because they need a #10 envelope after the fact. However, hourly, that extra 15 minutes for the envelope is invoiced.
    – Scott
    Commented Oct 18, 2019 at 15:41

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