Being a Freelancer comes with specific struggles. One of those is not knowing how to price yourself, or which are the ways to price yourself so you can be paid accordingly while delivering the finished product.
You should know that this is coming from a point of a freelancer. Also, by reading this article, I assume that you already have a Portfolio, Freelancing Career, or at least a Part-Time Job. So this article is not suitable for people who didn’t even start with a freelancing career. As there are many steps to take before pricing yourself.
Also, if you wish to watch this article in a video format, make sure to click the link down below.
How to Price Yourself as a Freelancer → https://youtu.be/kXxZd4bEQUg
Hourly Rate
As a first option, we will have an hourly rate. Being priced hourly is a double-edged sword. Why? Well, let’s see.
If you find a client to work as a full-time freelancer and it is expected from you to be present 8 hours per day, 5 days a week, then being priced hourly is absolutely great.
In this example, let’s say that you agreed to 20$/h. So 40 hours per week would be 800$, which is 3.200$ per month or 38.400$ per year without vacation.
This example is good, but not many freelancers have full-time jobs as freelancers. First of all, it is hard to find that kind of job. And the clients who are searching for Freelancers will mostly search for someone to work part-time or project-based. So, by that, we can see that full-time employment is not so often in the freelancing world.
Now, let’s talk about the bad side of it. Let’s say that you sign a contract where is expected from you to deliver a Landing Page Website. So again, your hourly rate is 20$/h and you thought that you will need around 20 hours for such a project. So you will be paid around 400$.
But, you finished the project in 14 hours and now, you are paid 280$. Obviously, not what you expected. Also, what if you go for 30 hours of work. The client can easily say that they didn’t plan to pay that much as 600$ could be too much for a client. This can also lead to a bad review on your platform or a website where you found that client initially.
Fixed Price
Being fixed price is good, but it can also lead to demotivation. Let me give you an example.
You sign a contract with a client to develop an app for 1.000$ and you plan to work around 40 hours for that app as you think that 40 hours is enough to work on that app and also to be paid that amount.
You suddenly were good and you finished up the app in 25 hours instead. As you used the fixed price model, you are still paid 1.000$ and now you also have additional 15 hours to find your next client.
Great, but how this can lead to demotivation? Let’s say that there were few crucial bugs in the app, so suddenly you had to work 50 hours in total. With the fixed model, you are still paid 1.000$ and you had to work 10 hours longer to finish the project.
Also, not many of us are able to stand our ground and handle clients accordingly. So, some clients can openly tell you to do some additional changes and with those, you will do all that extra work and be paid the only the price that you agreed on, so those 1.000$ in this example.
Pricing in Tiers
Being priced in tiers is good and it will mostly lead to negotiations, where you will be able to get a better deal for additional work.
Let’s say that you are offering 3 tiers to your customers:
Tier 1 — Develop a Website in the Price Range of 200$
Tier 2 — Develop a Website in the Price Range of 500$
Tier 3 — Develop a Website in the Price Range of 1.000$
The client for example can contact you for Tier 1, saying that there is only one page to develop for example. You can try and change that offer now, by adding yours.
For example, you can ask clients to add some additional pages to a website, doing some animations, adding JavaScript code, making a website fully responsive, and so on. With this type of negotiation, you can easily build your price from Tier 1 to Tier 2.
Client with Budget
Many clients will openly tell you their budget. And yes, sometimes they could lie, just to better price, but mostly they will be straightforward and honest with it.
And this here is just up to you. If the client is offering a smaller budget for a bigger project, I would not accept it personally, but if you are someone who is just starting your career as a Freelancer and you need some reviews, or you changed platform as a Freelancer and you need reviews again, this is where you can get those and be satisfied.
One more thing here, you can also alter that budget for clients that are ready to take a step forward, even for clients who lied about their budget.
If those clients truly wish to develop something and they mentioned a small budget. BE CONFIDENT. Show examples and reasons why the project would cost more. As they truly wish to develop it, they will pay you more as long as you have the necessary skills.
We Don't Have a Big Budget
As I mentioned clients like this, let’s talk about those as well. There are clients who will openly tell you that they don’t have a big budget, well, not a suitable budget for a project.
They could lie, or tell truth, but either way, it will point only to one thing. They truly don’t wish to pay for your services. Just be prepared for something like this.
If you continue to work with such clients, there is quite a big chance that they will ask you to work for free. Or to just make some smaller changes without payment.
This can often happen and it can stay like that for a longer period. Talking from my perspective, I would openly refuse any offers from those clients.
Those clients can often either you as well, but I would usually point to every single small thing that should be done on a project so the project could be successfully finished and with those, they will realize that their budget is not suitable for such a project or you as a Freelancer.
BE CONFIDENT
With this article, you should know more about pricing and How to Price Yourself as a Freelancer. We went through several pricing models and also examples for all of those.
Now, if you wish to watch the video format of this article, make sure to click the link down below.
How to Price Yourself as a Freelancer → https://youtu.be/kXxZd4bEQUg
Also, make sure to subscribe to my YouTube Channel, as there you will find many Web Development Tutorials and Similar Discussions.
Omerko YouTube Channel → https://www.youtube.com/c/Omerko/
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