New to freelancing, dont know what to charge

ajscott83

Junior Member
Hello, i'm new to this freelancing business, and i have recently just picked up work, only problem is i dont know what to charge as a reasonable price.

The brief is to design an A2 poster, here's the brief so far: We’re on the look out for a poster design for a campaign that’s happening in September. One of our executives goes out every year and does a charity cycle for our national charity partner (which this year is Alzheimer’s Research UK) and this year he’s doing it in France.

We’re looking for an eye catching A2 poster that will help get people in to the fundraising spirit. It needs to be fairly corporate but there’s definitely room for creativity.


What would be a reasonable fee to charge for a one off A2 poster? I need to get back to them ASAP

Cheers
 
How many hours work do you think it will take you? That's always a good way to calculate it.
 
It’s a tricky question. Firstly, if your just starting out you have to consider that if your just starting out then it’s better to quote optimistically (time wise) as any money is profit if the alternative is sitting on your arse playing Call of Duty ;)

If you’re offering design services professionally then you probably have a reasonable idea about how long things take to do, so as Chris said, having an hourly rate is a good place to begin. If I was given the brief I would ask if the poster required original graphic or stock images and quote between 2-4 hours accordingly (£50-£100).

Hope this helps.
 
thanks, I guess i could complete the poster in a day anyway, seeing as i have no other work on. Its all going to be original artwork, no stock photos.

I think i'll charge £25 per hour see what they have to say to that

cheers
 
Think about what it is worth to the client and create a balance between your hourly rate/how long it will take you and that.
 
Why don't you charge work/projectwise? instead of charging hour basis.

ajscott83 said:
thanks, I guess i could complete the poster in a day anyway, seeing as i have no other work on. Its all going to be original artwork, no stock photos.

I think i'll charge £25 per hour see what they have to say to that

cheers
 
Yeah maybe just quote for the job rather than an hourly rate. I think my first print job was some flyers that I spent ages working on. They probably took like 30 hours to design and I only charged about £75. So that would be £2.50 per hour. I was aware I was taking a long time to design them but I wanted to make something good for my portfolio. Also it took a long time because of my lack of experience. If I had charged £25 per hour then that would mean I would be asking for £750!

One thing to note is that your poster is for charity, so it might be an option to donate your time for free if you're feeling generous....
 
It's interesting that they need to send the guy on a holiday before he can ride a bike for charity..!

As a new freelancer myself, I would definitely recommend product based charging. If there's one thing that I need to improve on it's the ability to work quickly and not faff around changing a million things that don't really need to be changed - or make the correct decision the first time round. I wouldn't like to imagine the bill if I charged hourly and whilst it's still hours that you've put in to creating their work I think it works out much better value for charging a standard price as it allows you to work at your own pace without putting yourself through the painful process of deciding on a price vs how many hours you have worked.

As for charity work perhaps half the price or give it for free in return for putting your logo on the poster somewhere. Whatever you decide I would recommend approaching it in a way that gives them options, instead of saying "Hi, it's going to cost you £75" or "Hi, I won't charge you but I'm putting my logo in the top right of the poster".
 
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