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I'm curious to know what other graphic designers here quote clients for responsive design.

As I've only done a few and they're all very different, its not enough to really calculate a consistent method, but I'm trying to ensure I'm not over-labouring and undercharging, but also not scaring the clients away with high quotes.

Has anyone found an effective formula for charging for the additional breakpoints? Or how would you charge for the design of say 3 breakpoints (desktop, mobile, tablet)? This is for design only, no development.

I'm not developing the site. I'm designing a PSD for each breakpoint because that's what the client is requesting for their developers who will use them to build the site from. So time is spent creating each PSD. Not sure I want to be giving any of that time away for free! In essence what I'm asking is how much extra time do typically spend designing mobile and tablet breakpoints / PSDs on top of a normal design?

So for example, once you've created the first design, you it might typically take another 1/2-day to design the other two breakpoints per design. I realize this will vary depending on the design but I don't have any brief yet to see the layouts, so thought I'd get an idea for how much time others spend on average. So add 20% extra time per page design for example....

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    In general, I wouldn't charge for each iteration of responsive design. No one wants a partially responsive site. They either want responsiveness or not. And often clients have no clue that that may entail several variations on a design. I charge the the time needed to make the design, not the fact there are 3 iterations.
    – Scott
    Jul 19, 2015 at 22:46
  • The formula for what to charge is the same for everything you work on. You need to charge enough to cover expenses + make a profit. That said, you can't just 'design' a responsive site without development. They go hand-in-hand.
    – DA01
    Jul 20, 2015 at 6:12

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As Scott mentioned in a comment, the key is charging for time spent developing the site, not the number of breakpoints. Part of the reason being you may have a lot of breakpoints for one component that is troublesome but doesn't require a lot of time. Also as Scott mentioned, clients don't know what goes on behind the scenes nor do they really need to. Charging for something that they don't understand doesn't make much sense and time is something everyone understands.

With that being said, for me I only want to build responsive sites because they are standard and the modern thing to do. Only if they are underpaying me will I even consider making a nonresponsive site and even then it'd have to be a complex site. I simply don't want my name associated with something that is not great, let alone under par.

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What to charge for extra deliverables is: Your hourly rate * how long it will take to create the extra deliverables.

In this situation, your deliverables are Photoshop files. That it's a responsive site really has nothing to do with that other than perhaps it will take you less time to do 3 PSDs of the same site than if they were 3 PSDs for separate sites.

It's essentially just your standard formula for pricing work. Figure out how much time it will take you to do it, then charge for that time.

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