I literally just sent this to a client. :) I always do project-based billing. For all of the reasons Chris points out in this video. I just had a client ask me today (after providing them an estimate for a design project) "how long will it take you? If it takes you less will you charge me less?" I stuck to my guns and reiterated: "I am sorry, I do not do hourly billing, I do project-based billing." They asked again. I then sent a nice response and said that this video explains why in a more concise way than I ever could. They wrote back, signed my estimate, and now I am starting the project!
I’m from India and a graphic artist and my rule has always been simple: 1. Good Work 2. Fast Work 3. Cheap Work The customer can have any TWO of the above, on the understanding that they will not get the remaining option. Fast + Cheap = Not Good Cheap + Good = Not Fast Good + Fast = Not Cheap
The message in the video is - that you are WORTH it because you are doing GOOD work. Period.. Cheap and Fast are terms you should not use. (if youre good)
This is like 3rd time I am watching this. Still golden. Chris gave me new perspective on how I run my business. He has amazing mentoring skills. I envy people who can work with him on daily basis.
There is nothing amazing about what he just said. More hours should be paid more but no one in the real world comes to you and gives you 3 months for a job that takes a week or 5 minutes. Clients research the market and compare offers and proposed deadlines. This guy in the video makes money selling illogic under logic to naive people who understand nothing of how market and prices work.
I’ve been a plumber for over 13 years and when I clean drains sometimes the customers aren’t happy with how fast I got the job done compared to the price charged, despite the fact that I run a camera before and after and run the largest cutter through the drain and ensure that all blockages are removed and flow is restored. I feel like I’m those situations, I am being punished for my experience and expertise when it comes to how quickly I assess situations and know exactly what tools are needed for the job and how to use them efficiently and optimally. Fortunately I work for a really awesome husband and wife who have explained something very similar like this to customers and helped them understand.
totally.. there's also the cost you put into getting your specialist equipment, but i totally had that too in consultancy work i did years ago..i had spent years building up the knowledge SO i could give a fast good solution in business/project troubleshooting/blue sky thinking then when i gave them the cool solution they'd not want to pay the agreed amount.. annoyingly they would USE the advice I'd given during the consultations but not want to pay me after I'd solved the problem contracts are no use either as court process is too long and expensive.. anyone got any ideas on ways to make sure we get paid for consulting???
It wouldn't be a good idea for a repetitive task either and I say this because if I'm getting $17 dollars to do a task and after a couple months I'm 5x faster at it I'm now giving the employer 5x more work for the same hourly rate. So no hourly rate doesn't work in any job. Know your worth. The world has made up a modern day slave system that people's minds can not even wrap around.
@@ED-kv9pq I agree, wage slavery is not a meme but a real term. So what you are saying is not an exaggeration, paying just enough to buy food and housing is comparable to slavery.
@@ED-kv9pq there is salary but you dont want that because sure it helps you out when you get less hours but when you get more instead of overtime you still make the same so hourly is better in some jobs that may require you to work overtime if you work 5x faster ask for a raise a little bit above what you think you are worth and negotiate down if they wont give it its time to start looking for another job
I am currently attending college to finish out my degree in graphic design and just wanted to say that this video truly captivated me, I have watched the full video but brought this up in class as well. I recently had my first client for a website design and setup. I charged an hourly rate but after watching this video I truly see the value in charging a flat rate.
I revisit this video as much as possible. This video has helped to create clarity in my messaging when these sort of discussions arise with potential client-partners.
Love this short version of the a Futur classic. This kind of content is pure gold to people looking to update the way they price their projects and working lives.
This type of meeting depends on what you bring to the table and what’s in your portfolio. Working fast and delivery amazing product worth a lot more to me. However, now it comes down to comparing all the designer I found that can also work fast and provide amazing work for less. Then the question become what makes you better than the other guy. This is where experience and portfolio comes into play.
This was a defining lesson for a lot of freelancers. I have a potential client who once, ask me to create a logo with "just letters" and FAST. I hopped on a call and I told him what font and kerning to use. and Voila! Didn't even charge him and he never harassed me again
Well that 2:30 video has helped me immensely on how to price a job. 4weeks of design and implementation will save a company hundreds of thousands of dollars. It’s out of scope of initial work and it’s a complex issue. What’s it worth? My hours or my experience? Hours it’s about 10k experience it has to be worth a minimum of 60k and even then I know it’s insanely cheap
When you lock your keys in your car, you call the lockout guy, he shows up in 30 minutes, unlocks your car in 30 seconds, and hands you a bill anywhere between $50 and $250, especially if it's 3AM in the morning. It may seem frustrating and even absurd to pay this price for what seems like 30 seconds of labor. But we have to ask ourselves two questions here: One, were we really actually hoping he would struggle to take longer or were we wanting quick service so we can be on our way? Two, what would we truly have done if the problem were left solely to ourselves? Break a window?
My father a AC technician, his clients ask him about his hourly rate, but my father never worked on that. He hated that thing, he charge according to the condition of job, since my father is senior and more experienced and his work is reliable, he charge more than the average market rates
Saw this clip on the stories and went and quickly searched for it cause it relates a lot. Im a painter who r ecently started working for myself. I feel like im punished for my production, experience level when these comtractors want to pay by the hour not value of the job. Its like people feel happier when paying someone to take longer to do a task.
I want to see more contents like this please, amazing video. I want to see more about freelancing and the business of design. Eventhough you have. I want more.
I have to memorise this...or get the "thinking" and "logic" clear in my mind, so it roles off my tongue, the next time this happens...lol Great video, once again!!
I was hourly paid in a factory environment, repairing things. If I was paid by repair... I would have been on triple the wages of everyone else. I left un-booked jobs for the next shift all the time. (when the next shift was on nights.) So they could sleep during the night. I once left a list of jobs to book that covered the morning shift as well... The other two counterparts complained that I should never leave that much un-booked time again. It meant that they had a shift where they had to avoid doing anything and look busy, which is harder than just doing something. Your work shift always passes quicker when you have lots to do. When you have loads of time... Time passes slow. When you have no time.. its already gone.. ;)
Hi folks. Totally new to graphic design. My question is why can't I quote a price in light of an educated guess of how long it might take to do, say, a logo. I will charge you more for edits, based on a diminished per hour charge, but there will be a cap. This would protect you from being screwed out of nonbillable hours working on the project, but motivate the client to get the logo just right through you, but also motivate the client to stop constantly revisioning of the project.
Agreed .. except for the example on "a couple of interns" .. because it's more relevant to the outcome that any experience or talent or creative thinking can produce .. just to be fair
Okay I feel like this is one of the best pieces of advice you gave and i thank you for giving us this advice, but what if they say they can get it quicker and cheaper elsewhere then what you can do.
It's like having black boxes doing the work. You give them money (the same amount) and they output a logo (say equivalently satisfactory). Would you prefer a black box taking longer or taking shorter? Of course the fast one.
Hey Chrish! from a client's perspective, When I can easily get hundreds of varieties of a logo from a logo contest website like 99designs by paying $300 to $500, Then why should I hire a freelancer to get 10 to 15 variations by paying $1k to $5k? As I am a freelancer I have to face this question very often.
Thats what happened when my colleague went on a maternity leave and i was also doing her work i worked super efficient and did both jobs in 9-5 but i was told by management that if it takes time then claim overtime otherwise it was conveyed that we are paying you for 8 hrs per day and work got done in 8 hrs so no extra pay
Love everything about this, except for one thing - "clearly understand what it is that you do" Is this important for the logo? To clearly show the intention? Looking at the apple logo, it really doesn't say much about computers.
It’s the Picasso parable. A person sees Picasso at a restaurant and proceeds to praise the artist. Then asks him to draw a sketch on a napkin and they would pay whatever he says it’s worth. He drew a quick gesture drawing of a bull in 1 minute. The person loved it. He said that will be $10,000. The person gasped and said why is it so expensive? it only took you 1 minute! Picasso replied wrong, that drawing took me 60 years plus 1 minute.
i have this problem with ceramics i make.. they are really cool Sushi and Tea Ceremony type one off unique pieces that i could never recreate and people ask me "how long did it take you to make it" when i tell them the prices i feel are FAIR to me.. it took me YEARS to build up the sense of awareness of design and to be able to create these pieces but they think if it's over £30 it's too much for a small serving dish but really it's a work of art and should be hundreds.. thousands in some of the pieces i make.. but it's so rare for people to see why. but they'd pay £3000 for a holiday to get to where I'm based (then they tell me they are broke and start acting like I'm bad to want good money for my work)
There are two types of clients one who knows what they want from a style and design perspective and want to know how much it cost to achieve that. They require hourly rates. Clients who have no idea what they really want implemente a cost reduction strategy to limit their exposure understanding that they are unsure. Then there are other artists who just want to brag.
In short the reason why commission to be a hard value not based upon time it's because commissioning someone for work is not far removed from buying a product on the Shelf, with the main difference being you're there for the entire development process and the end price you pay is based off of the complexity, efficiency and speed of that process.
When I take a step back and try to think from businessman's perspective... it must be that he expects to have to wait and have to wear his suits and go to meetings and discuss the progress of a logo and coordinate with a bunch of stakeholders and whatnot. Doing the whole businessman thing. When you take all those parts away due to you being so fast, they don't know what to do! Haha Almost like, subconsciously, that's truly what they think they're paying for. But in reality: High speed + High quality = High cost. It's the name of the game.
Man-hours make sense for a known outcome derived from a repetative process such as in production lines etc. The same approach can't be applied to calculate the value for creative work where the outcome is not known in advance other than the objective. It is frustating to get this point across especially with Clients who are afraid to present the same reasoning to their superiors. They tend to push the value of work aside and insists on man-hours instead since this is easier to justify and would most likely have a "cheaper" outcome....
I price for each work for each ig post or print or website layout.. price for h is not reasonable if you are pro.. i do beter something in 30min then someone will do 1 day with many updates..
TIME IS MONEY for business owners. Why? because they have to execute their business idea/product first/faster than competitors. I hope this help you understand why time is so valuable.
I tried getting a logo done last year I give the company my name my ideas what it represents and what its supposed to be.. they came back at me with a crappy logo that looked like they put together that day even tho they had been “working on it” for a week. I was upset with them and very disappointed felt like they did not even tried so I literally drew a logo my self told them the colors I wanted and then I was satisfied I felt like it was a waste of time and money the first time because I was paying them to get something together for me something unique and only I had and they delivered junk to me and I had to get my ideas going and brain storm what I wanted in my own because they couldn’t come up with an idea of a logo for my company oh and I also had to pay more because they had to make my idea happen on a PDF form and all other files.
Dear Chris, I know what I will implement from you on daily basis - symmetrical logic analysis. Take thesis and make logical conclusions in opposite directions.
Wow I have a cleaning business and people seem to want to pay more by the hour. But they want less hours for the quality of the cleaning so I have to charge more for less hours sometimes. It’s weird. Or I charge them less by the hour and they tip me more? 🤔. Can someone tell me what’s best in my situation?
Chris, question. I’ve been captivated by the models you teach. However does this only apply to the design/creation, marketing and AD space? Could the value based pricing instead of hourly still be applied to something like a business that is a “school” or professional education. Like say a sports camp for kids, 1 on 1 coaching, professional firearms training with citizens, to law enforcement & military peers, security consulting for schools/businesses etc: really different modes than say creation, designing, marketing etc: Any tips would be great!
This is exactly how it's done. I worked on animated commercials and I was in charge of all the 3D process. The offer was basically "I need X in Y time and it needs to meet these expectations." After that the question was "Can you match the goal, the time and the quality target and if so, how much do you charge for the final delivery?" Done, no questions about payment per hour etc. Asking hourly rate has to be one of the most awkward and ridiculous things in the industry. People still do it by the way, the vast majority. Almost no artist I know tracks their hours correctly and that method encourages "messy" work and even lies by both the one requesting the services and the artist.
Hey Chris, what do you think about doing a design school, that degree really helps me charging how much i want for a logo or that's just a piece of paper?
Upwork has a section for video introduction. Clients can watch the RU-vid introductory video to learn more about you and the services you provide. I’m a website designer and I’ve had back and forth arguments with clients due to my hourly rate so I’m thinking of posting the video there so they can watch and get the value of it for I don’t understand why one freelancer’s hourly rate should be higher than another due to location differences even though they are both equally skilled.
Um confused, then what do I have to say to my client? I just got onboarded to a new project and he keep asking me my rates so now what do I have to say to him?
