One of the most difficult aspects to freelancing is deciding how much to charge your clients. There are a number of factors that you must consider when pricing your work. It is literally a balancing act. If you charge too little, people think your product is rubbish. On the other hand if your price is too high you run the risk of scaring off good potential clients. Here are a couple pointers that may help.
What is the client’s budget?
There is nothing wrong with charging a client based on their budget or their financial position. You shouldn’t feel obligated to charge a small business man the same as you would a large corporation. Building relationships is an important aspect of being a good entrepreneur. Over time you may soon realize that the small business man has given you more work and leads than the large corporation. However, be mindful of some who will try to milk you by beating your price down to a pulp. This may be a sign of a bad client (see previous post).
What is the going rate?
With so many developers charging ridiculously low fees and winning work one should adjust accordingly to stay viable. Of course you should price commensurate with your standard and quality of work but in order to survive you must take stock of what is happening to the market around you.
Have a pricing guide.
Have you ever seen these on a website “Call for pricing.” Or “Complete our form for a free estimate.”? I don’t know about you but from the time I see that I think “I can’t afford this” or “let me check around”. In fact I could count on one hand the number of times I have actually written to get a quote. Most of the times I surf around until I find a website with at least some base pricing that I could work with.