Freelancing: How to talk yourself into charging more
I was nodding my head in agreement… All the way until the “How much would I charge?” part. Here’s something to consider for other freelancers reading this:<p>1. We all know what a pain it is to bill hourly. The way-off estimates, the tracking, the reporting… Why not bill on a daily/weekly/monthly rate? I know what you’re thinking: “But how will my client know how much work I’m doing?!” In the past year that I’ve been doing this, the ONLY people to ever ask me that were other freelancers, NOT clients/prospects. Clients–the good ones, at least–don’t CARE how many hours you’re spending to do X and Y, as long as you’re doing a damn good job at X and Y and adding significant value to their company.<p>2. Why tie your rates to your cost of living? (And number of vacation days, and tax rate, and other arbitrary multipliers/divisors…) Your rate should reflect the value you bring to a company. (Yes, figuring the value of your work for a company could be tricky, but that’s another matter…) Using living expenses to calculate your rates makes as much sense as pricing milk by the size of the cow that produced it. Charging based on value will almost always get you more than charging based on your thrifty living expenses. (And if it doesn’t, then either you’re underestimating your work’s value or your clients are way too small.)