It would seem instinctively wrong to quote a local charity the same fee as you would a blue-chip high street bank for the same job. A good client list should consist of both small businesses and organisations, where shortfalls in budgets are compensated for by a hefty dose of creative freedom afforded the designer, and larger, more established clients, where typically the work is more corporate in look and feel and designers will have more to rail against, but who usually have more money to spend than their smaller high street brethren.īearing this in mind, whilst stopping short of advocating rampant, opportunistic greed I see nothing wrong with keeping your working rates supple to allow for the different types of businesses/organisations who might approach you and ask you to quote for a job. There are large and small businesses, rich and poor, and everything in between. Given this, to keep a set of rates for standard graphic design services and another for more specialised abilities is a good idea. Competences in these areas, because so baffling to the majority of people, tend to mean that clients will pay a higher fee for them. In addition to solid typography and layout skills and a decent knowledge of printing processes, (which should all be mandatory), perhaps you’re also a bit of a Flash wizard, Aftereffects Jedi or Processing ninja. If you happen to count certain specialised skills then you may want to think about a range of rates for the different services you offer. When deciding what and how you are going to charge people, there are several factors to consider. Some individuals choose to charge their clients by the half hour but in general and for the purposes of this blog I’ll stick to the two rates mentioned above.

Hourly and daily rates are the most common both used and asked after. Your rates are what you charge clients for your time and services. We’ll get onto pricing entire jobs below but for now we’ll tackle rates, which you’ll need to have in place before you can quote for jobs anyway. All freelance designers need to establish their rates and be prepared to provide them when prompted. Let’s begin with the simple part which, if you haven’t already, you’ll need to have in place: Your working rates, both hourly/daily and project rates. Creating lasting client relationships, one quote at a time I have learned the hard way to never respond in the affirmative until you ask the right questions. Through working with a variety of clients, my best advice for contracting your services is do not jump in the water before you know how deep it is! By this I mean it is absolutely imperative before even agreeing to work on a piece that you know the entirety of the project.

Graphic design quotation template