As a freelance designer, how do you charge your clients? Say you quoted them $50 an hour and estimate 20-30 hours. Do you ask for a deposit first, with the rest upon completion of the project? And what if you are unable to come up with something that the client likes? (Still gotta working on building up the confidence….)

Don’t be afraid to take on a job, even if you don’t make as much money as you think you should at first. The experience you will gain will force to to think creatively, work with copywriters, deal with printers and the media.

Then as you feel more secure in your new business, you will, and should, start to raise your prices. The best gauge however is the success of the client. Is your work sending them to the bank?

Thank You!

“It is important that you convey to your clients that their brand identity is an investment in their company. It is not a one-time project, but something that will walk the path with them for many years.”

Well said, Sam. Great advice.

As designers, and generally passionate expressive people, we all want to help others. That is an important aspect of life. That’s why there are times when we see an exceptional entrepreneur, with an amazing product, we may “give away” our work at reduced prices. That’s just who we are. But on the whole, no experienced, good designer should be doing logos for less than $750.

thank you

I never charge less than $2000, and generally charge $4000 and up. This is intense work. I usually spend at least 40 hours to develop a series of looks for a client to choose from. Once the final design is chosen, another 20 hours can go into the final work which is presented in color and black and white.

Stationary and corporate identity guidelines then follow and these are charged separately.

When I started out, all those many years ago, I charged $500. Obviously, my years and experience have put me in a higher bracket, but we all start out low and work our way up.

i’ve been designing for personal use for 5 years now and i love doing it. i was recently approached by a local car dealer to create a new logo and business card for his company. i design very creative business cards and i sell them to people very well, although i believe i undercharge. i charge 250$ per side for a very unique style business card (as opposed to 150$ per side for a plane white business card with the logo in the corner and the persons information). i feel i should be charging more for the creative cards because they’re like what no one has ever seen before. would i be overcharging?

second question, and this one is more useful to this blog. This same client wants me to create a logo for 100$, personally, for 100$ i’ll draw on a napkin and give that to him because i know how complicated and long it is to design the perfect logo for a company (and i’m not willing to do it for 100$). But i need to know, as a salesman, how to make your client understand how valuable a logo really is…i want him to know why he’s paying 750$ for a logo. can you help me find the right words to sell a logo to somebody who thinks it’s simply a 2 color design that should take no more than 2 hours to make?

thank you so much! i love this website!