almost 6 years ago from Jake Fleming, Lead Designer @ Labelbox
I'm trying to gather some general data about freelance designers' hourly rates.
Industry, Skill Level, Education, Years Experience, and current hourly rate.
If you charge by project instead, that would also be good to understand. How do you arrive at your quote? Do you add in a % of pad in case the project goes longer than expected?
Any information would be great. I appreciate it!
I've recently written an article about my earnings and my rates in 2014, might be worth a read: http://ivomynttinen.com/blog/freelance-business-report-2014/
I'm not practicing anymore – however, before I stopped freelancing I was charging per hour (It is the only model that really worked for me, I tried by "value" and flat project rate as well), but various rates for the different types of clients.
Note: I'm a UI designer / developer hybrid, about 4 years of (professional) experience.
What is 'Day-1 Long-term Clients'?
Clients I was working with since the first day of my freelance career, on a regular basis (usually XX hours/month).
I'm not practicing anymore
Why'd you stop? What are you doing now?
I'm still building things, but not as a freelancer. One of my previous clients made me an offer that I couldn't turn down.
Anyone else read the first bullet as:
1-Day ... : $ 65,000
Damn, making as much in a day as I did in a whole year.
Some people use a comma instead of the period for numbers. So he charges "$65.00" per hour. Threw me too!
usa: 12,345.67 everwhere else: 12.234,67
canada: 12,345.67 everwhere else: 12.234,67
Ivo, can you share little bit more about why "value" and flat project price did not work for you?
Because the structure of the projects I was typically working on did not allow me to make any realistic guess on the value (in cash) of what I was doing.
Take this as an example: I was working as the only designer (but still as independent contractor) at a startup (now one of the biggest players in that industry) which serves about 2 billion mobile ads per month. When they asked me to help them out on the design front, that company was a 6 persons team with good (but not enormous) funding. I was hired to design and build the front-end of a platform for advertisers/publishers to manage their ads and all that analyzing/metrics/payment stuff that comes with that. Roughly 100 people would ever see this interface, and the business would probably still run as well as it does today if they would just have used Bootstrap. Good design was a nice to have, but nothing a customer would really care about. Still, they wanted to have a good looking and usable platform because the staff of that company would spend a lot of time on that platform (managing campaigns for their advertisers).
What should I charge now, if I would charge by value? $2 million because I design & build the hearth of a product that now makes $100m+ a year (hint: they would have hired someone else)? $100.000 because this is the "estimated" value of time saved due to a better UX? These numbers are totally made up... which leads me to:
Flat project pricing
I was working on that project for a time frame of 2 years, sometimes working a full month exclusively on that project, sometimes just spending 5 hours/month fixing minor bugs.
It would be impossible to come up with a flat rate (yes, even if you would split this in smaller projects). The purpose if the whole platform changed over time, we shifted from one technology to the other, we made 2 major redesigns.
Flat pricing is great if you design a simple website for a local bakery. You know what could probably go wrong, you can minimize risk and maximize profit. It's useless for highly dynamic products that evolve all the time.
Thank you for the detailed reply! I'm going to read the article now.
Welp, time to raise my rates.
You need to review your bids regularly, primarily due to changes in the development market. As many studies show, the region in which you work is also important.
I usually charge by the value of the project. A great article on this just came out at Crew. That's basically they way I handle my budgets and rates: blog.pickcrew.com/value-based-pricing
^ that.
I'm also mostly a value based pricing guy.
My minimums used to start at 10k.
Now they start at 25k plus.
Would like to get that number to 50k this year.
I have done some onsite work in various countries.
Flat, use it or lose it daily rate when I'm there at $2k/ day plus business class airfare, food and accomodations is what I negotiated for a project in Dubai.
Specialty is UX/ UI, data visualization in the verticals of banking, biotech and government backend systems.
Self taught, majored in international business, Chinese and tend to talk to customers more like a business guy.
Been at it now for over 15 years.
Thanks for the reply, Jon. You're in a league of your own! Mind sharing the details of how you arrived at your rates? Would love some insight!
Hey thanks bud, no worries.
Mostly just a combination of trial and error over the years.
That said, mainly, when I ditched hourly pricing ages ago, I thought of one thing - I thought of myself as the customer and the fears on the other side.
No matter how hard you try, no matter how prompt you are, no matter what software you use - I believe hourly pricing eventually leads to suspicion of abuse in most freelance/ studio scenarios.
Most of the time, the customer can't see you working and burning those hours and eventually, the freelancer might use odd rationales for tacking on hours, etc..
For that reason, I believe value pricing is more strategic, you earn more in the long run and forces you and the customer to be more focused in the very beginning.
Also, think of another thing with hour pricing.
If you are pitching someone high level, let's say at a research lab, guess what - when you say even $250/ hour - what do they do?
They compare their wages to yours. It creates tension.
If you come in with value pricing, I believe it gives your offering more of a "company feel" and negates the unknown, and those types of comparisons of what your prospects make and you make.
Finally, not totally bashing hourly - just saying it might flawed, but - when you hourly price - you are essentially comparing yourself to an employee versus a specialist.
Nothing wrong with that - but it probably drives your perceived value down.
In order to properly value price, you need to focus on one thing in the early stages.
Deep scoping.
The more you deeply scope, the more clarity and the more alignment with the customer in the very beginning, the less the project is going to go beyond your original cost estimates.
I don't leave anything to chance.
I dig deep into the financials of the business, business model and of course the essence and deliverables of the product itself.
It costs time.
Back in the day, you used to be able to charge for that stuff. Not so much these days.
In terms of actually calculating cost.
Yes, there is definitely a time component that is core to cost estimating. However, that is not the only variable.
There's mental overhead, complexity, expected outcome, and others depending on the project.
For some projects, such as a current one I am working on, directing leading the UX/ UI for a new retail bank backed by a venture firm.
That is for the online banking system, mobile applications, marketing site, and assistance with interactive design for the physical locations.
For that contract, I break things down into smaller pieces with a cost estimate assigned to each piece and a total value of the contract.
Customer pays a 20% deposit on the total value of the contract, followed by a 50% deposit on the first piece/ batch of deliverables.
You need some deposit/ money tension to keep the project moving.
To arrive at the cost of those deliverables, I have them broken down into enough manageable pieces - not too small, not too big - to maintain client expectations, deliver on time and get paid.
Finally, on this point - since we are talking about banking.
You have to bill/ evaluate cost also in relationship to the mental overhead of the vertical.
Some verticals just have more mental overhead. That's the way it is
My multiples go up when I'm designing say a UX/ UI for evaluating DNA. Something I have done.
It's just more mentally intense - and some work like biomedical and banking, consume more of your thoughts than say - designing a photoapp.
You should account for and bill for those instances. So, even if technically you are "working" the same number of hours.
The mental strain should be accounted for.
Ohh and one more thing.
Another thing you can do.
Say, you have a lot of bandwidth, no other projects and you land a new project.
You can offer a "focus fee" - that says you will basically work heads down, focused on their project - and not take any other projects on until their project is complete.
I usually charge double for that - for the total cost of the proposal and have had customers go for it in the past.
Enough - that if I get the opportunity, I offer it, but pretty busy these days.
Hope that helps.
I work with startups in San Francisco (Bay Area).
No formal education.
8 years experience.
Product Manager + UX / UI Design + Javascript + iOS Dev.
Hourly rate: $200 Daily rate: $1500 Weekly rate: $6000
I've been doing the weekly thing for almost 2 years and haven't looked back. Work exclusively with startups as a full-time contractor.
Please sir, would you be my mentor?
Most rates here seem low. This one seems right for the Bay Area.
I love your site! It's so snappy. Is any Ajax under the hood? JS frameworks etc? Or is it just a really fast page refresh.
Thanks Mitch! I use Node on the backend and Backbone on the frontend. Also Impulse for the page transitions. Node only loads the shell, then Backbone first loads the homepage (during the brief loading animation). Once that's ready, it's displayed. Then, Backbone preloads the other pages on the site so that they are available right away when you click on one of the navigation icons.
Thanks Brian, thats awesome, very impressed indeed! I really need to start getting into that more advanced side of web development. Do you have any public repos demonstrating your current process/ technologies by chance? I would love to learn more.
Nothing public, but shoot me your github and I'll invite you to my repo to check out.
That would be fantastic! Thanks Brian. I'm at github.com/liquidvisual
Thanks Brian!
There is a balance we often don't hear about. There are many projects like branding or a landing page that can easily be boxed into a value/price. Then there are the countless phone calls/emails/texts/links that happen with clients as well. You can't put everything into fixed price model.
I try to price based on effort or value. In a logo/branding project I set a fee. $2k for a branding package.
On the other side I have many clients that like to just talk about issues, or get some consulting time. $100/hr
I am generous with my billing usually rounding down on time. Its enough to satisfy my time and attention. There are clients I could squeeze for more, and those I could let up on.
In the end, I always consider "Is this time worth the money at the end?". Sometimes when the client is a pain the answer is no.
Thanks for the reply! May I ask how you arrive at the flat rate for the branding package? Is it based on an hourly estimate? If so would you mind sharing those details?
The fixed rate is based on what I feel it is worth. It enough to motivate me to do it.
I breakdown all possible tasks and deliverables into hours, then clients cut down to what fits with their budget.
Thanks for the reply JJ!
Some of the numbers in here are what I'm aiming for in the next few years. I've only been doing client work around 3 months and learning UI/UX design etc for the previous 6.
Right now my rate is $22.50/hr and I'm ok with that. Hopefully in the future I can get similar rates to what you guys charge when I have more experience and a higher level of skill.
Assuming you're work on dribble is truly yours, you should definitely bump that up. Are you still a student or full time freelancer?
I'm a full-time freelancer but don't have enough work to be truly classed as full-time, if I'm lucky I'll work 10-15hrs a week on paid projects.
Yes the work is definitely all mine, I've been immersing myself for about the past 7 months learning everything I can. Previously I was earning next nothing from my importing business so I made a clean break to start a possible new career.
I have no idea what I'm worth, I recently got a new client and pitched at $22.50/hr and he accepted. What do you think my rate should be? I see a lot of people saying to bill on value but how do you even quantify such a thing?
Double it an see what happens. I bet you have will no issues getting 40-50/hr. Coming in at $22.50 will devalue your work and your time. You will get taken advantage of.
$40-$50/hr would be absolutely amazing but I can't charge that to my current clients as that would surely scare them off. What I need to do is find some better places to find new and high quality clients. So far I've found some via Reddit and some web design forums.
Also I'll get serious about creating proper portfolio website of my own rather than relying on Dribbble so much to show my designs.
Your clients are as good as high are your rates ;) Raise them and you'll get better clients.
you're definitely cheating yourself out of a lot of money. stop doing that.
Hey Marcus! Thanks for the reply. You're exactly the type of person I want to hear from. The new guy on the scene. Keep it up! And I agree you should try bumping up your rate for the next client and see what happens!
Thanks Marcus! You're exactly the type of person I want to hear from. The new guy on the scene. Keep up the good work and also I agree that you should try bumping up your rate for the next client and see what happens!
Thanks for creating this discussion it has made aware of the fact I am underselling myself in terms of rates. This is the scariest part of freelancing in my opinion, the dreaded higher rate pitch :S
Pitching at a higher rate can be stressful, but if you're a good designer your clients will not bat an eyelash at your higher rate. I've experienced this exact feeling.
Each time I would pitch to a new client I would raise my rate a bit to see what would happen. I went from charging around $30/hr to $100/hr. If I were you I wouldn't jump straight to the highest number you have in your head, but maybe ease into it to see what your clients are willing to pay you. It's a great feeling when you realize they actually value your work as much as you think they should.
Thanks for the insight, I think I'll probably go up in $5 increments and see how that goes. My personal milestone is to get to $50/hr, I'd be pretty damn happy with that for a good while ;)
$250 - $350/hr for consulting (branding/biz-dev)
Thanks, Daniel! Mind sharing how you arrived at these numbers?
I'm not specifically a designer/developer and contribute a lot more than what I'm expected to. In my early projects I would never hit the target that I wanted to reach as a minimum spending budget from the company I was hired by, so now that's the $ for the hourly rate. Generally speaking, I'll be working at a company for 3-6 days per month, giving a presentation to their executive team or consulting in the media/advertising/branding spectrum.
Amazed to see that high price designers there. I never went above $40. Probably I'm getting clients from over-saturated market like oDesk / Elance.
It's been US$125 for a few years. Probably moving to $150 in Q2.
Thanks, Nathan! Mind sharing how you arrived at this rate?
Sure. My rule of thumb is not unlike how retailers arrive at their standard prices for goods: it's 4x the cost of production. Example:
Let's say you make and sell a leather belt. Your costs -- materials, labor, taxes, whatever -- is $5. So you price it at $20. That a) allows you to sell it to wholesalers for $10, who can then mark it up to whatever they want and b) allows you to discount it ("25% off today only!") so you can control inventory if you need to move units.
You're not always going to sell enough product so having a 4x multiplier helps you create a cushion for the margin you need. This rule of thumb is for professional services, too, like dentists: my friend (who is a dentist) told me her wholesale cost to do a crown is $30, so she charges $120. Pretty standard stuff.
So I looked at my "cost of production": what do I need to make to run my business at break even? This is all the costs associated with running your business: equipment, Basecamp, internet, office space, taxes, labor, etc. Break it all down to an hourly rate (monthly cost / 160), and add it up! For labor -- think of your "salary" as a line item cost for the business -- what it costs the business to produce the service. As far as that rate goes, apply the same formula, but for you personally:
Start with your fixed costs: housing, food, internet, student loans, whatever. So if your rent is $800 / month, you need $5 / billable hour to cover that. Add it all up till you get your labor line item, then add that to the other numbers above to get The Number: what you need for the business to operate at break even. Then multiply it by 4. That's your hourly rate.
I had calculated I need $35 / hour to break even, so I charge $125 (rounding a little down). Of course, there's some fudge here -- obviously the labor line item (what you pay yourself) is variable but it helps to be conservative. And while $125 hourly may sound like an excessive amount -- other industries are happy with 25% or even 15% margin -- on top of goods sold (grocery stores are like 2%, it's cut-throat), it ends up not too crazy.
Consider that realistically you're going to lose money on half of your projects, so that 4x multiplier evens out to a 2x multiplier -- meaning you're taking home $35 / hour in profit on top of the cost of running your business, less taxes, so closer to $22 / hour (in the US). Which doesn't sound like that much now, does it? $22 / hour full-time ~= $45,000 per annum. But that's "free" money; since the other $35 / hour of the cost of running your business included all your personal expenses as the labor line item. So in this scenario, $45k would be net profit / discretionary annual income.
Of course, maybe you're really good, and every project you take on is profitable. In that case, if you never lost money on a project, you could charge 2x your Number and undercut everybody. But that's rare for professionals. As you get better at your work, you can charge more for the same time or charge less for less time and increase the volume of work / revenue. Either way nets you more money.
In the end, the benefit to this approach is that it's not magic: your fixed costs are your fixed costs, and you have to cover them. That includes the "labor" line item that represents what you pay yourself. You can make that number whatever you want, raising and lowering based on market conditions and what you perceive your value is -- and what you'd like to get paid. By being sensible about that -- tweaking it in the 35-50% margin range, you'll make a good living.
Hope that helps!
Wow Nathan thanks so much for the awesome details! I'm sure a lot of people on this thread will find them useful including me!
I have about 6 years experience and typically work between the mid-west (Chicago/Detroit) and the east coast (Boston/NYC), all freelance assignments and typically for "boring" corporate clients. I charge based on total project fees for my own smaller clients, and daily/weekly/monthly rates when working for agencies or in-house for teams at bigger companies. My rates are as follows:
In-house, Daily Rate: $1200
In-house, Weekly Rate: $4800
In-house, Monthly Rate: $17500
Minimum Project Fee: $25,000 (I subcontract out development from that sum, typical project is around $45,000 and for a medium-sized business doing at least 1mil+ in revenue)
The rate is discounted based on length of assignment up to 30% off from the daily rate (there's value to me in not having to worry about the business stuff for that extended period of time). I do not bother with hourly rates as I've found it leads to micro-management of tasks, clients questioning overtime hours that THEY required me to work, etc.
My advice: AVOID SUBCONTRACTING FIRMS LIKE THE PLAGUE. They will skim up to 40-80% off of what the company is paying for you. Firms like Aquent/Creative Circle/Creative Movers/etc charge companies hourly rates upwards of $130/hr for mid-level talent and then blanket Linkedin with inbox messages looking for anybody who's willing to take $25/hr and can use Photoshop. Then they take the difference as their "finder's fee." You could be making that $130/hr yourself if you would just contact the companies directly. I know because I made that mistake when I was first starting out, now I flat-out refuse to sub-contract.
Wow Creative Circle is the worst, especially out here in LA. You're only ever going to see $30-35 per hour on projects. I've heard nothing but bad remarks from clients about them.
Thanks for the detailed response, Mike!
Depends on the client (single person, small company, big company), the style of work (design, developing, branding) and how long I've had the client. So it varies between 40 EUR and 80 EUR at the moment. I'm a fresh baked BA and in the 4th month of freelancing. No jobs at companies before that.
Thanks Daniel!
This is an interesting thread, I'm always curious to see what my rate is like compared with others.
I currently charge $80CAD but I'm going to be raising to $100CAD soon.
Thanks, Mike! Mind sharing a little more about your years experience, education, etc? Trying to get some data on experience vs. rate.
7 years of experience, self taught
Move to value based pricing. An hour of work does not equal an hour of value.
Thanks for the reply, Mark. Just trying to find out how freelancers are arriving at their rate, whether that's hourly or some other method.
The price and qualification heavily depends on the region where you’re hiring them if we talk about offshore developers. Here is the rate guide by different regions: https://www.cleveroad.com/blog/offshore-software-development-rates
Wow! I got a lot of info about freelance hourly rate. Thank you guys for sharing Best, https://www.innotechsol.co
UK York-based developer here.I have been in the industry since 2005 when I graduated University. Working as a freelancer for much of my career so far I think I gained a very broad skillset and can offer a complete product to any client. This is quite a rare commodity that keeps bringing in the work. High versatility means your client doesn't need to go elsewhere, they only need you. This keeps their costs down even if you charge more!
If working on a small job hourly, then I charge £50 p/h. If working on a short-term small-ish job it will be £40-45. If it is a large project I will charge as a whole but try to stick to the lower limit above -£40 p/h, and base the cost on that.
You can check out more info on my Web Design services to get an idea of experience level and skill set etc. That might help put it in to perspective.
FYI I believe that I generally undercharge a little...
There is a good It company, http://www.intellias.com/ in them many interesting posts can be found on this subject.
There is a good It company, in them many interesting posts can be found on this subject.
Not sure about hourly rates of freelancers, but if you're interested in employed developers salaries, here is a nice research with data from all over the world Software Development Costs Guide
Industry: Web Design/Development Education: 2 years graphical design Years Experience: 2,5 years professional Hourly Rate: Between 100-130$
Quit my old job and started as a freelancer half a year ago. I feel it is one of the best decisions I have made. I am not getting rich, but I can work 30% and have the freedom to travel the world at the age of 20. Its pretty awesome!
Thanks for the reply, Filip! That's amazing!
Hello
You may find some information here
http://giantgator.com/hourly_rates/
Data is based on currently open projects on freelance marketplaces like odesk or peopleperhour.
Where to find clients who pays like 60$/hour?
Do work for actual successful businesses with real employees, not hucksters trying to become start-up millionaires by investing a couple grand on Odesk.
Demonstrate you can create value for the company exceeding the $60/hr cost and they will pay much more than $60/hour. Remember, nobody owes you anything. If a client won't pay you that much, don't work with them, that's a client you don't want. Don't give the lame "but I have to make a living" response. Bullshit. it's not their job to pay your rent. You tell them "I charge $60/hr because I deliver $60/hr of value to my clients." Negotiate from a position of power.
65 an hour but I then send out a proposal (with cumulative hours) and then have that approved. As long as the client doesn't get out of the scope, that never changes.
So I average (when I look at real hours worked to project hours) about $105/hr. That goes up or down based on how well I communicate something usually.
Make sure you are really informing your client through each stage and are sure they are happy before moving forward. That way there is less backtracking, revisions etc. (where you lose most money, but where you build that in).
Thanks John! Mind sharing a little bit more about how many years experience you have? Education etc?
No college experience but have been designing since for the past 10 years. I am 31 now. Work keeps coming in and no-one has balked at my rates. I only got into UX/UI design in the past 4 years. It pays way better and I was able to build my portfolio up incredibly fast after landing an entry level job at an agency (was making 48k/year). Now I have made 52k just in the first quarter working for myself. Connections, connections, connections. I know people that ask for 150/hr but only make 40k-50k a year because they can't land jobs. Because of my communications skills with my clients I charge anywhere from 55 (agencies) to 75/hr (individuals) and end up making over 100/hr because we do a flat fee project based on hours and I work my tail off. I only work about 35 hours/week but my hours are scattered (only downside to working for yourself).
Congrats on the success John and thanks for the useful info!
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