Comments on: Freelance: Setting Minimum Prices & Charging for Experience

By: The 2009 Personal Finance “How to” Roundup | AllFinancialMatters

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:27:07 +0000

[...] 3. How To Set Minimum Freelance Prices [...]

By: mrsmicah

mrsmicah — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 00:57:15 +0000

@Miranda it really does get easier to make sensible estimates of the work involved, anyway. I’m better than I was 12 months ago, but I still find pricing a job in itself.

@ABCs, yes! hire Mrs. Micah! You’ve extracted the main point of the article.

Actually, you make an excellent point. It’s worthwhile to learn how to do things that you’ll be doing frequently. But if it’s a rare need and would take you a long time to learn to do right, then by all means hire someone. I’ve sometimes been surprised that people I regard as skilled bloggers (great marketers, great with affiliates & advertising) will contact me to do things I assumed they could do. But while they specialized in some things that they do all the time, they couldn’t care less about knowing how to move a Wordpress installation to their new host.

@Frugal Urbanite, I run into the client problem a lot too. Some of my clients are doing just fine in terms of site earnings or can afford it otherwise. But many are hobby bloggers or mommy bloggers who just don’t have a big budget.

@Kelly sometimes I want to cry when I look back at my records and see how little I charged for some things. But it’s something you keep moving toward. It’s certainly a learning experience in valuing one’s own work!

By: Kelly from Almost Frugal

Kelly from Almost Frugal — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:20:21 +0000

I really have a hard time with this- I'm constantly underselling myself when it comes to charging for work! As I do more and more work for hire, I need to really work on this area. Kelly from Almost Frugal’s last blog post: Q&A: How’s Your Job and Other Questions

By: Frugal Urbanite

Frugal Urbanite — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:26:49 +0000

I am forever underselling myself. Part of it's because I'm afraid to ask too much and part of it's because of my clientele. I know their budget is small, so I have a tendency to lowball in a bid to get the job. Frugal Urbanite’s last blog post: Quick Chicken and Pasta - Recipe Week

By: ABCs of Investing

ABCs of Investing — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:35:24 +0000

It’s very interesting to hear about this topic from a freelancer.

I think another point of view is from the perspective of a client. Clients have to consider how much time it would take them to figure out and do the task they could hire a freelancer for. Sure paying someone $50 for 45 minutes work seems expensive but the reality is that if you don’t have the skills – it might take you 10 hours to learn how to do that task.

As a one-off situation I’d gladly pay $50 to avoid 10 hours (of my time) of work. You would gladly take $50 for 45 minutes work. It’s an easy win-win.

Of course if I did spend that 10 hours learning how to do a certain task, then I would probably learn a whole pile of other info which might lead to me being more self-sufficient when it comes to these 45 minutes jobs.

It boils down to how I want to spend my time, what I’m interested in and how often I need those tasks done. If I’m continually tinkering with my theme then it’s probably worthwhile for me to learn to do it myself. If I just want to switch hosts, switch to self-hosted or get a new theme (and not do it again for 3 years) then I should really considering hiring Mrs. Micah.

By: Miranda

Miranda — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:35:18 +0000

Great piece on freelance pricing. It really is difficult to decide how to set prices. As a writer, I usually find out what the client wants in terms of words, keywords and research they expect. I also find out whether or not a rush job is needed (a rush job costs more). Thankfully, I have been doing it long enough that I am pretty accurate with a per-project estimate up front. Although I sometimes think that I still undervalue myself... Miranda’s last blog post: Timothy Geithner Can’t Sell His House