How to Price Your Design Services 💰
Is it just us, or is pricing your services really tricky? There’s truly no right or wrong answer on how to set your rates, so how do you know if what you are charging is aligned with where it “should” be.
In this article, we want to give you some tips on how to price your design services by taking all the guesswork away. Use our suggestions to figure out the best way to get yourself paid!
🧐 Research your industry & typical market rates
It’s important to know what others in your industry are charging. This will give you a baseline to begin determining if you’re pricing too high or too low. But remember, this is just a starting point to keep in mind.
Industry standards take a ton into account. Things like expertise, packages, location, and value all affect what you should consider charging your clients. What we like to do is a quick search online about industry standard rates based on the service you’re providing!
🙅🏻♀️ Stop hiding your own rates
In keeping with transparency, we’re always a fan of being somewhat open about your rates online. Not only does this help potential clients get a sense of your costs, but it helps the industry as a whole to self-regulate.
🥰 Know your worth
This, in our opinion, is one of the biggest hurdles to pricing yourself correctly. Money is a mindset. You have to know that what you do is valuable for your clients and more importantly than knowing, you need to believe it.
You should know what your time is worth and how much you want to be making to support yourself. So often we undervalue ourselves. Let’s make it a point to stop doing that right now, kay?
⏳ Determine whether you’ll charge hourly vs. using project-based pricing methods
Will you be charging per hour for your work, or giving a flat project-based fee? Before committing, be sure that you know how much time you anticipate putting into the project so that you aren’t under (or over) charging.
What we love to do over at Function (our design studio) is determine an hourly baseline and then build out project-based pricing around that. We know, roughly, how many hours will go into each project (give or take, thanks to years of time tracking). We also know how many people will be involved in that project and account for everyone’s time when quoting a project. So in this sense, we actually combine hourly and project-based pricing!
📈 Set your prices based on the value you’ll provide a specific client
What will the work do for the client? What value will it add to their business? Knowing this can help you determine an accurate price for the project.
A rebranding project might provide a small business owner or solopreneur with a wonderful boost in their revenue. Totally worth it. And you’re sure to be working directly with one person the entire time, keeping timelines, communications and project management to a minimum.
…But a branding project for a company the size of say, Tesla could skyrocket their revenue through investing and sales. You’d also be required to work with many stakeholders, new processes and complicated approval processes. This project would likely take at least triple the amount of time and you’ll probably need many more people on the project.
Would you price the solopreneur rebranding project at the same rate you’d price a Tesla rebrand? We’d definitely suggest a big, NO.
👩💻 Research the return on investment
If client builds a new website, what kind of return could that provide? Do some research and dig into the metrics and statistics of the project you’re about the quote. What does the client have to lose by not investing in their website redesign?How much money does that equal?
We love providing tangible examples for our clients. Let’s say that their current site has a 0.3% conversion rate. That means for every 1000 people who visit their site, 3 of them purchase something or take action, like book a consultation.
This is a pretty low conversion rate, so maybe it’s happening because people are unclear about what this business does, or the usability of the site makes it too hard to get to the checkout/consultation form. Nonetheless, let’s say the value of 3 new people in this business each month is $300.00.
If you go through a redesign with a solid strategy behind it, let’s say that conversion rate now increases to 0.6% (double - which is a totally reasonable expectation). This means that with the same amount of website traffic coming to the website, you’re now making $600.00 per month! Yay!
Understand how your work impacts the bottom line. It’s important.
💰 Consider your business expenses, team members, ongoing costs...etc.
You’re going to want to make sure that all of your expenses for the project are covered.
Will you need to bring in team members to help? Make sure that cost is covered.
Will you have to travel anywhere during the project? Factor that in.
Will you need any additional software or tools to complete things more efficiently? Add it up.
Make sure that you aren’t underselling what it will cost to complete the project.
💛 Use The Brand Planner exercise to calculate your rates!
Over at our design studio, Function Creative Co., we’ve created a brilliant Brand Planner guide that helps entrepreneurs like you discover your crystal clear brand personality, ideal customers and clients, and get focused on your business's path to success. AND there’s a whole section inside dedicated to calculating your rates.
Learn more about the planner here.
😄 Stay open minded
Actively listen and follow up with clear and structured questions to keep the project on track. It’s important that we consider all aspects of a project as a designer, and so be sure that you also keep an open mind when collecting feedback from clients.
Critical feedback can be difficult to hear but is a necessary step to ensuring a very successful project and client experience. And what do we know happens when clients have the easiest time working with you? Say it with me: MORE CLIENT REFERRALS! 🎉
🌟 Bonus - use an online pricing calculator
This is a tool that we often use and it can help you calculate your rates with five simple questions. Thanks, nuSchool.
WillowSpace is all about getting you paid well and paid on-time!
Send invoices and get paid right through WillowSpace while you’re keeping everything organized and running smoothly. WillowSpace support multi-currencies so you can bill in different currencies for different clients, and has auto-reminders and auto-late-fees built right in. We just know you’re gonna love it. Try it for free - no credit card required!
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