“Because I’m WORTH it!”
Monday, January 19th, 2009
L’Oreal have been trying to convince me that I’m worthy of… well, I’m never quite sure what… but worth, has definitely been a question on the mind of webdesigners and graphic designers recently. I’ve been listening to lots of podcasts and reading lots of articles on how much to charge (it depends, but probably more than you think), how to charge (by project apparently), when to charge (upfront 30-50% seems to be the recommended) and what not to (never unless it’s for a charity, but try and convince my friends and family on this one!).
How good do you have to be to be ‘worth it’, is the thing I’m wondering. After recently looking into the daily rate for a webdesigner, (and finding out that, of course, I am again severely undercharging), I’m getting to the point where I’m not sure I even LIKE the idea of client work anymore. (That’s a whole new can of beans that I think has been caused by hanging out with too many developers and seeing all the cool things I can help build WITHOUT someone else calling the shots.)
I think this chronic mis-calculation by some webdesigners to undercharge is terrible. Not to name names, but I know an EXTREMELY talented webdesigner who got featured on smashing magazine as well as every other major gallery, and still charges peanuts. If you’re getting fan mail, you probably should be making more than £20 an hour to do design. Why? Because you’re good, and you’re definitely worth it. There are so many designers out there charging an absolute fortune for rubbish, that it’s time the humbly talented to buck up and take over.
So stop bending under cheapskates that want to pay you peanuts! Charge to make a profit, because they really are getting a good deal (a friend in Canada says she’s more than tripled her rate in the past two years, and said that she still finds out other contractors and agencies are charging 4 times as much as her for work she has to re-do).
So throw off your insecurities, you talented designers! Rant over.
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Hey good points Kat! We (a 2 person partnership) put our rates up about a year ago, which I didn’t feel too bad about since we hadn’t done so in a couple of years and one of my clients even told me they thought we were underselling ourselves a bit! I also justified it by thinking we wouldn’t put them up again for another couple years, but already in this last year I’ve realised we should probably be charging more. What to do in this situation? Just charge new clients a higher rate and keep old clients on the old rate for a bit longer? And another danger of these times – avoiding increasing rates because of the financial crisis. I know I shouldn’t let that influence my choices, but when the contracts are thin on the ground and there is so much competition, it is far too easy to try and sell youself short.
Don’t do it!
[Kat, I like the redesign btw!]
same thing goes for us developers. im a front-end girl, and spent years undercharging myself by about 30%! i finally got my rate up to where it should be, but now im in new zealand and the “how much do i charge” game has begun anew. at least i have my canadian rate to gauge against!