How much should I charge?

Question

I have a friend who is a jewelry designer that works for a small jewelry shop and she mentioned to me that her boss is looking for someone to edit some images of the staff, not sure how many exactly, may be about 10?

Basically He want's their images edited to look "sketchy". I think he only wants the images edited and sent back as he will use them for a magazine.

Going on the basis that there are about 10 images to edit of the staff, how much should I charge for such a task?

I've been through University and now work as a full time graphic designer (just over one year) doing in house work so I've never really done freelance work and have no idea what to charge.

I don't want want to mention a price that's too high and I lose out on the work but at the same time I don't want to be under paid for my work.

I know there won't be a set in stone answer for this but a rough price range so I don't get ripped off.

(in pounds sterling)

Answer 1

If you can get a solid understanding of the exact requirements for the job I would suggest stating a fixed fee. You should price this based on what the job is worth to the employer. If its an important element that they need quickly you can price slightly higher than usual.

However, as this is your first freelance job you may feel more comfortable having a bit of practice before setting fixed fees.

Using an hourly rate will give you a clearer understanding of how your time is spent when freelancing. You can then use this when offering set rates in the future.

A good general rule is to take your annual wage at the level you are currently working at (if you believe that you suit this level) and use that as a basis for an hourly rate.

eg: Graphic Designer earning £24,000 per year. Work out how much time off you require (eg.four weeks).

Divide salary by remaining weeks:

24,000/48 weeks = £500 per week

When working freelance you would use half of your time on admin, sales, etc So in a 40 hour week you would have 20 billable hours.

Therefore £500/20= £25 per hour.

Its not perfect but its a good start. To develop this further you should include your expenses such as computer, internet connection, travel etc into the calculations.

Answer 2

In the end everything you do has an hourly rate. The only question is whether you charge the client by the hour or use your calculated hourly rate to set a price for the job. IMHO the latter is better as you will benefit from any improvement in your effectiveness as jobs take less time to complete.

Just make sure that you track your time expenditure on the job - including interaction with the client so that you can know how well you estimated the job b and can fine tune your pricing on future jobs.

Remember that for 'proper' clients price, as long as you are not silly, is far from the most important consideration. You probably don't ever want to work with anyone for whom price is the most important thing.