Comments on: Discussion: Do you publicly advertise your pricing?

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 05 May 2010 10:02:30 +0000

Excellent job..
dizi izle

By: local3142

local3142 — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 07:41:25 +0000

It's handy for prospective clients to get a 'ballpark' figure of what you charge for basics.

Listing one or two previously completed jobs and what they cost achieves this.

A well crafted proposal document that outlines the project, schedule of fees and explains a startup fee, sets the right tone for client communication.

By: sosfactory

sosfactory — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 00:35:47 +0000

Hey Jeff, very interesting article.

I have been struggling with this since I started and I think all depends on the model of business you have. Displaying prices affect your image but save you lot of time so finding a balance is the key, this is a dinamic balance because it changes with time.

In the beginnings when I dint have a big clientele neither experience I displayed my prices because I was working for cheap and didnt expect hooking big profile clients until I had a good portfolio.

Now I have a stable load of medium and small profile clients and a good portfolio in my humble opinion :), in this case I think having an interval of prices is a good idea. In one hand I get rid of very low budget clients saving lot of time emailing people I dont really want to work with, in other it doesnt affect clients with a reasonably budget.

In the future when I hopefully work for high end clients I wont display my prices, I expect spending some of my icome in hiring an assistant to give my clientele the most customized attention.

Summarizing: I grow together with my clientele, bigger and higher profile is my clientele more I will care about my image.

Cheers

By: Will Phillips

Will Phillips — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:42:00 +0000

I don't display my rates publicly (partially because I'm relatively new to life as a working professional), but when it comes to my quotes, I generally will give potential clients an estimate of how long a project will take in hours, break down the milestones, and give them a price based on my estimated hours times my hourly.

I've found that the more I educate potential clients on all that needs to go into a good website/logo+branding/political ninja assassination (errr, scratch that) and that's why there is the hours needed and cause for the higher prices than the guy who charges $500 for a site in FrontPage with nested tables, they are much more apt to go along.

And past that, I don't remember where I picked this tip up, but it's been great - I set a minimum rate / number of hours that I will work (usually a half day, as I do this independently apart from an 8-5 job and that works for an evening) to save me from all the hassle of setting up a job, contracts, meetings, and the like for something that only takes me a few hours.

By: David Hastings

David Hastings — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:33:50 +0000

Yeah, that's right Jeff. Ours is a creative industry and you definitely don't want to devalue that and come across like the McD's of design.

By: David Hastings

David Hastings — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:33:50 +0000

Yeah, that's right Jeff. Ours is a creative industry and you definitely don't want to devalue that and come across like the McD's of design.

By: jeff_finley

jeff_finley — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:44:11 +0000

You pretty much hit the nail on the head there David, that's how we feel. We have had lots of good response when we displayed prepackaged website solutions for a fixed price. People just requested it by name and we sold a lot of those. But we went without it since 2006 because we didn't want to look like a fast food joint with value meals up on our site. I think there is a balance to be had though. How to remain professional, classy, and sophisticated yet be able to show that you offer a value.

By: David Hastings

David Hastings — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 04:28:12 +0000

I've been on the "don't show" side for years. It's all custom work and all that. However, I have started displaying some prices. Why?
Because when it comes to websites for example, I think it's perfectly reasonable to design to a certain dollar figure. I've read others say the design should not be viewed as a commodity but as a service like architects or engineers. I don't think that these, in relation to design, are mutually exclusive. If a client comes to me for a website, the solutions offered come down to the budget available. So, the prices I do display are for clearly defined solutions. I do, however, make it clear will the price are for information purposes only and we will formalize the price once all the particulars of the project have been confirmed.
Having some preset prices is no different than dealing with budget limitations. I'm not going to say no, I can't design you a website because you only have $1000; I will simply provide a solution within that budget.
I should say that most projects I do end up have a largely customized prices anyway, due to the aforementioned project particulars and clients don't have a problem with that being the case because they can see how their project differs from the pre-priced packages.

All this being said, given a preference, would I CHOOSE to display prices. Nope. That's the precious artist in me. I've just found more successful to do so. That's the business person in me.

By: Neempop

Neempop — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 01:09:43 +0000

When people ask for a price list and I tell them “Each design is unique, and so is the price” =0)

By: Francisco Galárraga

Francisco Galárraga — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:43:18 +0000

I'm also all about not showing your prices. I think it denigrates design, and makes our job seem like a store commodity, that you can return if you don't like or get tired of it, or haggle if you want. We designers/illustrators should think ourselves as service providers (like an engineer or architect would do).