My So-Called Freelance Life - Michelle Goodman [45]
Before you go to the client, make sure this bottom line sits well with you. If $2,700 doesn’t look like enough given all the project variables (tight deadlines, ultra-confusing subject matter), raise it to a rate you can live with. A friend of mine who ran a web hosting firm for eight years used to add a Headache Tax of 50 percent to any project he knew was going to be especially difficult (of course that’s not the language he used with his clients). Since he wasn’t willing to do the job for less, he didn’t worry about the client balking at the price. And since the projects were more cumbersome, the clients usually went for it.
Taxi Meter vs. Limousine Rates
There’s a lot of debate in the freelance community about whether it’s best to quote a client an hourly rate or a flat project fee, the two most common ways we freelancers invoice. Thing is, one billing model does not fit all. I billed by the hour, day, week, month, word, page, and project before becoming the per-project gal I am today.
But let’s talk about you. If you’re a lawyer—notorious for taxi-meter rates—or someone who sells her services by appointment—cosmetologist, reflexologist, baby-sleep consultant—you’ll likely charge by the hour. (“For $150 an hour, I come to your home and show you how to get your infant to fall asleep without treating you to forty-five minutes of blood-curdling screams.” And if they protest: “All my clients pay this rate.”)
Things get more nebulous, however, when you start to plan, code, draw, index, enact, promote, produce, or record something. Charge by the hour, and you risk being penalized for your experience, especially on small jobs you could do in your sleep. For instance, if a publicist can finish in ten hours what used to take her twenty hours to do three years ago, she shouldn’t have to earn half as much now. If anything, she should bring home more bacon today given her growing PR savvy and media contacts.
And suppose that same plucky publicist has determined it’s not worth her while to take the job for less than $2,500, even though it may only take her 10 hours to complete. Although her client may not bat an eye if she tells him “That’ll cost you $2,500,” there’s a decent chance he’ll gak on his decaf upon hearing “My rate is $250 an hour.” To a client—whose compensation point of reference is the standard employee equation of $250 an hour x 40 hours a week = $10,000 a week = major rip-off—the flat limousine rate will sound far more reasonable.
On the flip side, some projects last too dang long or have too volatile a schedule to risk quoting a flat fee. Underbid a three-month gig and you could lose thousands. But charge by the hour and you’ll get paid for every second you work. Besides, when you dedicate multiple forty-hour weeks to one client (greatly reducing your need for weekly pavement pounding and nonbillable work), even a modest rate of $50 an hour can be a windfall.
Seattle animator and interactive developer Rachel Bachman, who predominantly works on four- to eight-week projects with what she calls “crazy monkey deadlines,” prefers billing by the hour. If you worked for her unpredictable software industry clients, you would too: “They leave my part of the job until the very, very end of a project cycle, and pretty much everyone else misses their deadlines and I end up in a tight, tight time frame—with some launch or conference set in stone that can’t be missed,” she explains.
In other words, since you have no idea whether you’re coming or going, dear client, show me the hourly money.
If your client is skittish about paying you by the hour, give them an estimate of how many hours you expect the