Charging the Right Price

Back when I was in college, Drew introduced me to his uncle who needed someone to help prepare template designs. These template designs were to help propose a project to the Danga Bay developers. And believe me, when I think about it (I don’t have a copy anymore) I’m laughing at myself thinking how terrible a website designer I was at the time.

During that time, there wasn’t such an existence as web standards or it was just being introduced by Jeffrey Zeldman. That was also when his book was released, Designing with Web Standards. At that time in college, being nothing but a student who just wanted to graduate and enjoy life, website designing was nothing but a hobby with an occasional side income.

Being a fresh designer who hasn’t turned his passion into a career yet, I was confused and lost on how much should I charge Drew’s uncle. Hence, the uncle instead offered me RM100 per template and I needed to prepare 3 different ones. If he offered me that now, I’d say, “That’s LUDICROUS!”

So how do you find the right price for your design work?

I read an article some time back and the author mentioned that when you go freelance, you need to remember you’re ‘the’ company. You are the accountant (until you hire one), the receptionist, the project manager, the designer, the developer and finally, The Boss.

Having more duties than ever working as a freelancer, we need to allocate a fee to all the positions you handle in your company. However, when you put aside the funds for each job, it doesn’t mean you could go overboard by charging something like this:

• Accountant – RM2000
• Receptionist – RM1500
• Project Manger – RM2000
• Designer – RM2000
• Developer – RM2000
• Boss – RM5000

Total payment to design a template: RM 14,500

Do you think this template design that I did back in February 2004 on the left is even worth a quarter of a quarter and another quarter or half the RM 14,500 we wanted to quote our client? (click image for larger version)

You’d be considered a lunatic designer or what might be a specialist (not only surgeons can hold these titles), if you quoted a client this much for a single template design especially if it were that hideous. So, “Earth to Apollo, please return to home.”

It’s not saying that price isn’t achievable but it is just not achievable by just selling a template design. Being the Project Manager, your duties also cover persuading the client why your design will sell. So to get the right price, you not only have to think about money, you also need to maintain a close relationship with your client and be sure of yourself that this design will work.

And I don’t mean telling BS so they’ll buy it. (these people deserve to be shot)

So how do we calculate an Earthly quotation for the client?

Though the RM 14,500 still is very tempting, we need to lower our expectations in the beginning of being a freelancer unless you’re that specialist. So what do I do? I only calculate the workload needed to be done for the client. In other words, I’m actually charging an hourly fee though I quote the client the average price for a template design. And can you believe it, I only stumbled across this information yesterday! ROFL! So let’s see how I calculated:

• RM * per hour
• Client Analysis – 8 hours
• Design Template – 5-6 hours

Just place a number there and you roughly will be able to gauge the price you should quote your client for a template design. Being a freelancer, the number you place in * is VERY important because of the ‘cheapo’ clients you might encounter along your career path. And honestly, I think I’m already under-charging my clients because I’ve not inlcuded the fee for proposal preparation (if needed), consultation (if any) and some other hidden items (which I’m still looking out for).

The next price agenda I’m pondering over right now, how do we charge clients for website development?

I’ve always read, heard, and seen people quoting clients per page in LowYat (LY) forums. Some offer RM 50-100+ per page while there are those who could go below the belt by offering RM 30 per page. Have you ever thought that charging that way you might be losing or cheating your clients?

Well, let’s say you’ve got to implement a complex script into a page and you spent 6 hours on it. If you used the * per hour to do the maths, you might just find out you’re not using your time and effort fully. As for cheating, let’s say the client just requires you to copy and paste their copy into the website or just load a single image into a page and you charge them RM50..just for that?

I understand that there’s a huge loophole charging an hourly fee, especially in Malaysia when some people try to earn an extra buck by playing truant and calculating that too. Well, one of the solutions I’ve heard going around is requiring the freelancer to document their work process. This might not be foolproof so I suppose it’s required for the client to be a little tech-savvy to be on the safe side.

Another solution, try having a friend in the web design/development sector and seek for advice. I’ve been trying to provide useful answers to those who approached me in the LY forums. :)

So from now on, make sure you are charging the right price and please, no DON’Ts.