hey there everyone.
As a hobby I do some basic design for my friends and local riding club. Lately, tho, I've been asked by people to do things for their personal commercial interests. For the most part I've declined as I'm not comfortable charging for it. But as the volume of requests has increased, so has my interest in doing it for cash, on a limited basis.
That said, I'm not a trained artist and have no idea how much to charge for something like that.
Does anyone have example of what going rates might be for say a 4x6 flyer, business cards, full page, things like that?
Thanks
Honestly, charge whatever you can get away with. You can either go the hourly route, or the per piece route. For reference, I was redrawing basic floorplans for a brochure for a family friend. I charged $25/hour for that since it was pretty basic. For his company logo I doubled the rate to $50/hour. That ended up being a good idea because he kept on making revisions, then ended up completely changing his mind on the look, and started over. In the end he was happy with everything, which probably means I didn't charge enough for my services. Logo design can get really expensive if you go the professional route. But I would say $25/hour is fair, if not extremely cheap. I'd actually raise the price for something like a business card seeing that it is something they will use for a long time. Obviously my prices might be a little low, but that was because it was for a family friend, not a stranger.
And don't forget to count the time you sit there staring at your computer screen. That time counts.
http://www.costhelper.com/cost/small-business/graphic-designer.html (http://www.costhelper.com/cost/small-business/graphic-designer.html)
Figure out what your time is worth per hour, and quote them based on how long you thing it'll take to do the project. Some things can be knocked out in an hour. Others, like a business card where they want to see 5 different layouts will talk a lot more.
Give them an estimate, and keep them tuned in as to your progress and if you're looking at overages. Of course, if the overage is because you can't get it done... well you might have to eat it. But if they keep changing things beyond the scope of your quote - well, they should get taxed.
Usually estimates from my work will outline X number of comp directions - then Y number of revisions to the selected comp and estimates are based on those revisions, and the general scope of the project.
I did some small stuff and charged $35/hr. That isn't even close to what they will get charged if they went to a pro office. I always felt bad and charged way less than the actual time put in as well. DON'T DO THAT!
Don't forget, you will get to give some of it back to Uncle Sam if you do enough of it, so figure that in as well ;)
mitt
thanks everyone.
some things to consider, thank you.
here's an example of something I did which led to a job offer (well, an offer to do some work).
(http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/1538/f2010bbqflyer.png)
not super amazing or anything, but it was a total rush job, and well.. i'm a total hack.