Help - freelance rates

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Designer88

New Member
Hello,

I’m wondering if anyone can help, we’ve recently set up a Design Consultancy and have been doing a large amount of work for a client. We should have sorted out a contract before doing the work however we did not.

We have produced a range of kit designs for a sports company that have now gone to manufacture. We have spent in total over 60 hours on this work. The client is suggesting that he pays us £150 for all the design work and he will also own the rights to the designs. We feel that this is unfair and we are being short changed.

What do you advise, how much should we be charging (should we charge an hourly rate?) and should we be giving away the design rights?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you!
 
Designer88 said:
We have spent in total over 60 hours on this work. The client is suggesting that he pays us £150 for all the design work and he will also own the rights to the designs. We feel that this is unfair and we are being short changed.
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I'm finding it hard to answer this without using foul language here but I'll try. (No disrespect by the way ;) )

That works out that you've been working for £2.50 per hour before the question of the rights.

It's pretty usual to charge around £50 per hour or a day rate of £250-£300 just as a freelancer and not a company.
If this sounds a little high then my tattooist charges more than that and the last company I worked at charged £90 per hour for my very basic services like art-working.

The rights is a bit of a 'piece of string' thing as you need to work out how valuable these are to the client and how they are going to use your designs (usage) and go from there.

It's always VERY hard to try and work out fees retrospectively but you and the client are light years apart at the moment but you do own the rights still and it's not a very inelegant move for them to go into production without them having them of an agreement of their usage.

If things got difficult between you and them then the very least you could do is stop them using them.
 
What Scotty says. I seriously thought you'd missed off a nought from that £150. That would be a decent starting point
if you're just starting out.
 
Did you not have some sort of contract in place BEFORE starting the work....
 
At the moment he is using the designs under license. Which means he owes you royalties every time he prints/sells a product. You own the copyright. If he wants the copyright he needs to pay for it to be transferred. This is on top of the design fee.
 
Thank you all for your help! How much would you suggest we charge for the design rights? Just a ball park figure, we designed an entire range of Equpiment and Kit. The company is a small sports company.
 
Designer88 said:
Thank you all for your help! How much would you suggest we charge for the design rights? Just a ball park figure, we designed an entire range of Equpiment and Kit. The company is a small sports company.
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How much are the designs worth to the company? Maybe if they paid you a decent amount for the design work you can let them use the designs for free but you retain the copyright. Nobody can really answer this question but you. For example, if you hand over all rights then you can't use the designs on your portfolio.

Take the rest of the bank holiday weekend to read up all about IP and copyright: https://www.gov.uk/intellectual-property-an-overview

This will prepare you and your business for these sort of discussions in future. Too many companies think that because they commission a designer to create something for them it automatically now belongs to them. The opposite is true. You the designer own everything in perpetuity unless you reassign copyright.
 
Designer88 said:
I’m wondering if anyone can help, we’ve recently set up a Design Consultancy and have been doing a large amount of work for a client. We should have sorted out a contract before doing the work however we did not.
Click to expand...

I don't want to come across as patronising but why did you not even agree a rate or a price before doing the work and letting the product go off to manufacture? I'm genuinely asking what the thought process or logic was? You need to know the client's budget before you decide if it's even worth your time to take on the work?

Everyone makes mistakes at first, but it's a pretty basic thing in any business to work out a cost for a service or product before you sell it. You shouldn't be embarrassed about discussing money with another business owner, and you should be wary of potential clients who don't like to discuss a budget, it's normally not a good sign. There's no point talking with a potential client for an hour only to find out that their budget is too low. You're just wasting everybody's time and energy so it's better to cut to the chase.

I'll be blunt. You've fucked up, though you're probably aware of that already. It's a messy situation. They're offering £150 (half a day's rate for a freelancer), which worries me. It suggests they're either trying it on, or just have no idea what design should cost and will get a shock when you start asking for 20 times that amount, plus a fee on top to release the rights.

How many people make up this 'consultancy'? That will be a deciding factor in how much you charge. £50 an hour won't stretch far if there's been 10 people working on the project. Without naming names, can you tell us more about who the client is? Are they a large retailer (possibly one that also has a chain of gyms)? I'm asking because it's important to understand the size and value of the business.

As a freelancer I charge £30–35 per hour depending on the job and the client, so 60 hours on a job like this would be around £2000 for that rate, or possibly less if we'd agreed a fixed cost beforehand. To hand over the rights I'd be asking at least that amount again, ideally twice as much or even more, since it gives the client the legal right to produce and sell as many copies as they want, indefinitely, without paying you a penny.

Ultimately you have to either take a financial hit and learn a massive, expensive mistake, or potentially sour the professional relationship by asking for thousands of pounds that the client potentially isn't expecting, or willing, to pay. But whatever you do, don't accept anywhere near £150 for the work AND the transfer of the rights.
 
Hi yeah, we are aware that we made an error with not sorting the payment. We are two University students and so initially we were just doing a little bit of work for the client and they were supplying free kit etc, however as we were producing more work, we wanted more. The client is a very small business only set up a year or so ago, they sell hockey equipment, but have only just begun sales and are very very small, they also as you say really have no knowledge of the cost of design work etc, we are using this as a learning curve, we gained valuable experience, but we just want to gain a bit more money then they’re asking. Hope this answers your question.
 
It's actually all too easy to sucked into this kind of position as things develop and you find yourself having done quite a bit of work without talking fees and then you feel uncomfortable bringing it up, especially when you're new to it all.

As I see it you have three choices.

1.
Put it down to experience and take the token payment.
Get tattoos with something like "SHOW ME THE F@CKING MONEY!" in a place where you can easily see them every morning.
Point them out to each other just to make sure you both see then and do a high five.

2.
Get all legal with them.
Ask for what you think it's worth.
It things get messy, get a solicitor and issue them with a 'seize and desist' letter and pursue as you see fit.
This could be expensive but everything they make or sell is potentially money in your pocket + damages.

3.
Try to be all civil and work out a middle ground.
Show them this tread or point them in the direction of some articles about usage and intellectual property.

Oh...3.1 or 4 (or whatever)
Watch this too.

 
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