Have you ever had a situation where when ordering a design, you agreed on a budget and discussed your wishes with the contractor, but despite this, the studio or freelancer did some nonsense for your money? You wanted something bright and catchy, but the designer developed a minimalist layout. You thought the site would be red and blue, but it turned out orange. In such situations, everyone is unhappy: the designer has to make hundreds of edits, for which you significantly overpay, and the result is still not satisfactory. But you have to accept the work, because the deadlines are tight.
How Freelance Designers Estimate Their Costs
Let’s take a hypothetical client Ivan Petrovich and the same hypothetical designer Vasya. Vasya is a freelancer, has been working for a short time and has not yet figured out how exactly to set prices for his services. Ivan Petrovich asks for a banner design for a flower delivery service, and his wishes are “that it should be beautiful and fit into the overall style.” The client provides the text that should be placed on the picture and the website address to understand the style. Vasya sits down and starts counting. He has at least three ways to form a price.
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They name a number “off the top of their head”
If the designer is completely inexperienced, he makes up a figure out of his head. Having roughly estimated the cost of similar services from competitors, he names his own price.The client agrees and receives a layout by the deadline. In three versions. And then emerge. To find out in advance what is included in the figure named by the designer, what tasks he will solve. Conventionally speaking, for 100 rubles the designer will draw a banner to his taste, for 200 rubles – three banner options to choose from, and for 1,000 rubles – will analyze the company, competitors and, based on the research. Will develop a unique banner that will meet the needs of the audience and attract the most attention. Ask how many edits the designer is ready to make and for how much money.
Estimate labor costs in hours
Vasya, having learned from bitter experience, prepares for Ivan Petrovich’s next request in advance. On forums, the designer learns that the cost of work can be calculated in hours. Having received the task, he opens Excel and sits down to calculate. You need to earn 60,000 rubles per month to feed yourself and your cat at least. There are, on average, 22 working days per month, which means you need to earn 60,000 / 22 = 2,800 rubles per day. Vasya is ready to work 10 hours a day, an hour of his work will cost 2,800 / 10 = 280 rubles. Let’s ignore for now that he hasn’t taken into account downtime and time spent searching for orders, let’s focus on interaction with the client.
They charge money for a project or part of it
Having worked for 280 rubles per hour, Vasya decides to try another method and calculate the cost of each project as a whole. When Ivan Petrovich content management: tools strategy and best practices contacts him for the third time for, the designer, who has already gained experience and come up with a pricing policy, suggests that the client split the work into several stages and names the cost for each. He takes into account all the risks and surcharges, calculates the urgency and possible delays. He names realistic deadlines, announces the final amount and takes an advance payment, but again there are.
How do agencies evaluate a designer’s work?
Everything is clear about freelancers, but how do agencies evaluate designer work and work with clients? I asked Logomashin and the Texterra design department. The first thing I was interested in was how the cost of a designer’s work is assessed? In hours, in projects, depending on the level of his work? The second was how the cost is agreed with the client?
At Logomashin, designers’ salaries are fixed. The work is fairly uniform, the stages are the same type, so there is no point in starting alb directory from the tasks. Now, if we had diverse orders – for example, today to make a super-complex website. And tomorrow to develop an icon for an application, and each work was done by a separate designer, then yes. Probably, we would be tied to the volume of work.
How to calculate labor costs and cost of work using formulas
Some designers and agencies, in pursuit of an optimal income for life. Use special formulas to calculate the cost of their services. There are many examples on forums, including fantastic ones, with calculations for five sheets. Of all of them, I chose two that are more or less acceptable for understanding and easy to use. They say that this formula allows avoiding overpricing and delays. However, it remains unclear to me how the base rate and complexity of the work are determined in this case.