You probably should have agreed on some sort of price before you designed the logo and their businesscard? :)

I have not spoken to them about pricing since she works with my husband and I think they think they may have a discount...if you know what i mean. I din’t know how to talk about pricing with them. Now she asked me how much they have to pay and I have no idea how to price myself. we were making changes in her website as well but That part I have decided since was a programmer’s cost. Thanks for you comment Quincunx.

Yikes. That sounds like a situation where you’re doing a job for someone primarily as a favor and any payment you receive will be more of a token gesture. If you didn’t discuss pricing, then I don’t see why they wouldn’t have assumed it was mostly a favor.

If you think they’re willing to pay “realistic” rates, figure out how many hours you worked and multiply it by $35 / 45 / 55... If they’re a friend of the family and would feel shocked and a little taken advantage of for paying more than $300 for something as “simple” as a logo, send them an invoice for $200 and chalk it up to a learning experience.

Going forward, The Pricing and Ethical Guidlines Handbook is always a good starting place to get ballpark estimates.

Though a lot of people feel you should never lower your rates, when I was just starting out it seemed unreasonable to charge someone for every hour I worked on a project - since I was just learning it seemed like I might put 20 hours into something that a more experienced designer could churn out in 10 or less. I think that, early on, when you’re trying to build a portfolio, it’s ok to put $5000 of work into a design that you’re only getting paid $1000 for. At the end of the project you’ve got something representative of the type of work you’d LIKE to be doing, and something you can show of to clients who can actually pay what you want to earn.

Don’t make a habit of it... it’s not sustainable or good business, but once or twice isn’t bad (IMO).

Hi EC

Hmmm seems like you might be in a bit of a fix not asking them before. Now your problem is gonna be that you’ve spent a certain amount of time where you might price yourself to let’s say 100$ an hour (don’t really know what the level of the hourly rate is in the US) and the client only sees the small item (logo and businesscard) and not all the work behind it. Whatever you tell them is probably gonna sound expensive to them while if you would inform them before the job started they might have checked around and found that your price was actually quite cheap.

How many hours did you spend?
Did you finance the printing up front or did they pay for that directly?

On a general level I would price a logo and bc job in the vicinity of 3.000$ - 10.000$ depending on the expectations from the client, how bad I wanted the job from a creative point of view and the financial situation of the client.
Prices in Norway are aprox 150$ an hour with a semi-large design firm and about 75$ if you are a freelancer.

Logo development can run much higher than what’s stated above but then there might be a lot of strategic development involved to define target groups, what best will appeal to this group etc. etc. We normally work in this way and our latest Identity job is around 100.000$ which only includes development up to approved logo. Implementation comes as a seperate project with it’s own budget after that.

Check which hourly rate you should charge with Aiga. They would probably know the level in your neck of the woods.

Hope I cleared up some of your questions.?
I hope I cleared up some questions

I think logos are some of the hardest most time consuming thing I do. Don’t underestimate your time spent especially if it’s a good mark that you can stand by. Don’t forget the the value of a logo either. A good mark should last 5-10 years? If they use it that long think about the price divided out over time. They’ll probably want to plaster it everywhere too. So in my opinion it’s the best bang you can get for your buck when paying for a design. A flyer may be used once or twice, but a logo will be used for a long time.

Pricing is a rather simple equation:

(Annual Salary you want + All expenses) / # BILLABLE hours you can or want to work in a year = your hourly rate.

(Your hourly rate * # hours it takes to make the logo) + expenses + ’added value markup’= what you charge the client.

You NEED to figure your hourly rate to even find a baseline to see if you are making an actual living at doing this. A lot of new designers completely fail to fully figure in their hourly rate. Design firms don’t charge $100 an hour so they can get rich, but rather to eek out a living. ;0)

Bottom line is to be sure to figure out all the above to know what your absolutely bottom-line price can be. For me, it was in the $65/hr range...anything less than that wouldn’t be worth my time. I then charge more than that to hit my ’worth my time’ rate.

And note that the $65 rate I figured has no bearing on what you should charge. We likely live in different parts of the globe with different economies and different clients and different personal preferences and different skill sets, etc.

And one last tip...don’t underestimate your expenses and don’t overestimate your billable hours. Few freelancers are likely going to be billable more than 20-25 hours in a week. A (sane, IMHO...though there are plenty of insane ones) full time employee for a large design firm won’t be billable more than 30-34 hours a week.

EC, I see you’ve already received plenty of good advice here...

One thing I would add is, besides naming your figure up front, never, ever, begin work on something before you’ve received 1/3 of your fee, especially when dealing with a new client you know nothing about... You have no idea how many horrible situations you will avoid by doing this... and it helps to weed out clients who don’t really value design or your work, or who don’t take a business transaction seriously. This shows them you mean business, and lets you start working without fear of getting completely burned. Also: have a kill fee figured out beforehand as well, in case a client cancels a job halfway through.

Can I recommend a few books I own or have read?

Talent Is Not Enough, by Shel Perkins

Starting Your Career as a Freelance Illustrator or Graphic Designer, by Michael Fleishman

The Designers’ Commonsense Business Book, by Barbara Ganim

There are more “business of design” books recommended here:

http://www.graphicdesignforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=28133

Good luck!

Few freelancers are likely going to be billable more than 20-25 hours in a week. A (sane, IMHO...though there are plenty of insane ones) full time employee for a large design firm won’t be billable more than 30-34 hours a week.

Aw come on now, don’t be so prudish with your hours. Lawyers are expected to bill 60+ hours a week, so can you!

James

I never stop working!

Yea, but lawyers can bill for breathing and going to the bathroom. ;o)

Fantastic insight guys, as a freelance / intern student myself, I’ve always wondered how much to charge for work (although they dont discuss pricing with me)

£30 an hour sounds nice compared to the 5 I get serving Guinness in the local pub!

— Er, I only clicked once.. maybe I shouldnt have had that sixth beer —

— Double Post —

> £30 an hour sounds nice compared to the 5 I get serving Guinness in the local pub

Yeah, but they paid you for every hour you worked at the pub, and you didn’t have expenses or equipment to buy. I like to think that a freelance rate is about triple what a salary would be for the same person. So your £30 is more like £10.

Did the original person get their question answered?

Aside from all the numbers people are throwing out, I would say that if you are feeling uncomfortable about where things are going, just be honest. Ask if you can put the project on hold till you work out some kind of agreement on payment.

You can do things differently next time. But for now, if you keep giving it for free, they may be expecting it for free. You might
become resentful. Or they may be planning to pay you but without you knowing, you may not approach the work with the best mental state.

Say that you should have addressed a fee up front but didn’t. You can admit that dealing with aquaintances is a bit awkward. But that now that the project has been going on for quite a bit, you’d like to establish some parameters. (It’s better for everyone by the way).

Establish what the final deliverable is (logos in various formats, etc), how many rounds of revisions are included in the base fee, and of course the fee.

If they don’t want to pay, at least you have your answer.

I might disagree with the person who suggested you lose quite a bit early on. I would say that a lower hourly rate is what you get for being new. The client shouldn’t pay as much for someone who doesn’t have much experience troubleshooting, or with solving sophisticated problems, etc. But I think you should charge for your time spent (unless there is a specific learning curve like a software program or something). As you gain more experience, your hourly rate goes up.

I know someone who said no good logo can be done in fewer than 40 hours. Not sure I would say that exactly. Depends on if you are doing a thorough company analysis, audience study, etc. But if you figure at least a time+materials rate and maybe add on a percentage (the value-added fee the person spoke of which covers the fact that they are using this over and over for years), that should do it.

Good luck.

great topic, I work for a London agency and am charged out at £80 an hour. My boss always top loads the quotes for a job as he reckons that after 12 years in the industry its the only way to make money from design, so for example there would be 4 days for a logo design then only 1 hour for its application to each piece of media, eg. business cards, compliment slips etc...

This way the client is less likely to back out in the later stages as they have already put the majority of the money in. Also if they do get cold feet in the later stage, you do not loose out as much.

Personally with my own brand identity freelance projects I charge out at 3 days work @ 9hours a day for a selection of logos which is stage 1. (5-7 different logos)

Stage 2: Shows the application of 2 of the logos throughout their literature in different colours and 1 revision. 1 days work @ 9hours a day charged.

Is this a good way to do it, am I loosing out? I am only charging £15 an hour for my most recent job as its a sweet project and I am still an undergrad on placement.