Those of you who follow my content, have read my pricing book, or taken my course, will be familiar with my pricing methodology. In very brief summary, I recommend pricing your creative work based on three variables:
- Production Cost (i.e. How much does it cost you to produce the work?)
- Market Value (i.e. What do other people charge for this type of work?)
- Client Budget (i.e. How much is the client willing to spend on this engagement?)
A careful analysis of these three variables will help you choose the right price for each project. (I’d like to emphasize that variable one does not mean you bill by the hour. In fact, I discourage hourly billing other than a few specific scenarios which I plan to address in the future. But we do need to know how much the work will cost us to produce to understand our floor in negotiation.) Now for the tip…
How do you know if you’ve chosen the right price for your creative project?
To answer this question, we can just reverse the three variables into three questions. Each questions corresponds to the three pricing variables you should analyze when pricing your work.
- Am I comfortable with the amount of profit I have factored into my price?
- Is my price in harmony with what other creative professionals like me are charging for this type of work?
- Is my price in a range that my client will approve?
If your response is positive for each of these three questions, you can proceed forward with confidence in your chosen price. If you don’t feel confident in one or more of those questions, you should reassess your chosen price and modify it until you are comfortable and ready to submit your price to your client.
