How much should I charge for designing business adverts?

joecool

New Member
Hi, I'm new to the forum and I hope you can help me out.

I recently designed an advert for a friend's business, which will be published in a local business directory. Some companies submit their own ad to be included in the directory, while others tell the owner what they want in the ad and she pays a designer to create the ad.

The owner of the directory liked the ad I designed and asked me how much I charge for doing adverts. The ads can either be 1/4 page, 1/2 page or full page. A 1/4 page ad is 63mm x 86mm. A 1/2 page ad is 129mm x 86mm and a full page ad is 129mm x 178mm.

I'm not sure how much to ask for. I know it costs a company £35 to place a 1/4 page ad, £70 to place a half page ad and £140 to place a full page ad. That is how the owner makes money. The directory itself is free, so there is no fee for taking a copy.

With those figures in mind I was thinking of saying £20 for a 1/4 page ad, £35 for a 1/2 page ad and £65 for a full page ad. What do you think of those prices? Reasonable, too cheap, or too expensive?

Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. If there are any magazine or publication owners on here, I'd also like to hear your thoughts.

Regards,

Joe.
 
If you charge that low, you are going to lose potential profits and also you are making your designs seem almost worthless. I would really bump up that price. Just think - if they get 5 sales from your add then they may double their money on what they have just paid you, so make sure you charge reasonable prices that don't devalue your design work.
 
Thanks for the reply.

The thing is, it's not the company who pays you, it's the manager of the business directory.

Let's say company x want to place an ad in the directory. They phone up the manager and say we would like to place an ad and we'd like it to say x, y and z. If it's a 1/4 page ad they pay the directory manager £35. The manager then pays a designer to package the requested text into a nice looking ad.

There is no commission based on how many sales come from the ad. The company pay the business directory manager £35 and that's it.

Therefore the most the manager receives from a 1/4 page ad is £35. She will obviously be looking to make a profit on the £35 so I can't charge £35 or more. I think the most I can charge her is £20 or £25.

If the company placing the ad hired me that would be different, but the money is coming from the directory manager.

Does anyone have experience of a similar situation?
 
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