How much should a freelancer charge

This is a straight mystery for a couple of the people who are about to start their journey in the realm of freelancing. There is a fear of getting no response rate in case of high charges and also, the low rate can negatively affect the freelancer. That is why there is a long debate on whether you should go for freelancing or keep doing the full time office based job. We have done a direct comparison between freelancing vs full time job aswell. To ease this issue of charging a client, some factors should be kept in mind as discussed in the proceeding article.

Fixed Freelancer Rate or Hourly Pricing

Before going off with the actual charging parameters, it is to decide that whether the freelancer should either ask for a fixed amount of money to be paid or go off with the hourly charges for the time duration of the project completion. Some skills come out to be more profitable when dealt with the charges on hourly basis while some are good for the fixed prices; still others are equally good for both discussed options.

Fixed Rate

Fixed rate deals with the fixed price for project that the client wants. This kind of rates usually depends on the complexity of the work and the time it takes to complete the work.  Usually, it is thought that the fixed payments allow the freelancer to earn more by working less time but it just depends upon the experience and luck.

Freelance Hourly Rates

The hourly pricing resembles with the office jobs in which you get a fixed and guaranteed sum of money for the service you provide. The people who are really strict with the working timings, often opt the hourly payments. Mostly, the money needed for the whole year is analyzed and the total number of workable hours in a week are defined. Based on this analysis with some flexibility of time, the amount is decided. Mostly it is opted by the people who do designing, editing and other tasks which require a lot of time in proofreading.

Need of a standard

Firstly, you need to make a standard and the choices of the standard are to be made with respect to both the buyer and the seller. The money to be decided should be not way too high that normally the buyers are not able to pay for it nor it be too low that the seller may not be able to earn the living. An optimal standard is to be set considering the task, time and the buyer’s budget.

Space for Discounts

It is general practice that the buyer often tries to negotiate and lower down the rates of the given task. To avoid the depreciation in this scenario, there is a special trick. The freelancer needs to already add the amount in your rate list so that when the buyer asks for any kind of discount, freelancers are easy to offer it. Still, if the client doesn’t ask for it the freelancer may either keep it or complementary provide the discount.

Beware of Scope Creepers

There are some people in the world of freelancing who deviate from the fixed contract and in the price of the assigned work they ask for more work and gain more benefits. Such people are known as the Scope Creepers and the freelancer should be aware of them so that they can play safe side.

Keep Contract

Before starting the project, especially in direct freelancing, the details of all services to be provided along with the price should be recorded and signed by both of the parties i.e. the seller and the buyer. Owing to many reasons, the copy of the contract should be kept safe so that whenever the buyer try o deviate from the contract, you’ll have the proofs.

Pre-addition of Extras

If there are any general paid tasks like domain sharing, web hosting, software licensing, stock photos and specially the taxes, the freelancer should add the amount in the charges of the associated services.

Keep on Increasing with Experience

During the beginning of the freelancing journey, the prices are generally kept low, and as with the experience the trust among the clients is gained. It is okay to keep the rates high once you have made your clients.

Charge for your Values

The most important thing in freelancing is to charge the buyer according to the skills and the hard work you put in. Make your authenticity and innovation a label and demand the money accordingly without over-rating or underrating the skill set.

Don’t Exaggerate your skills

One thing that a freelancer should bear in mind is that he should not lie to himself and don’t offer the client to provide such services that he is not capable of. The freelancer should not over-exaggerate the skills and afterwards not being able to complete the task. Not only the money but also the repute of the freelancer is affected.

Don’t Under-Rate the skills

As the over-exaggeration is a dangerous thing, so is the under ratting. The freelancer may miss the chances of improving if he does not trust the learned skills.

Professional Help

The discussion about the monetary issue in charging the client, the freelancer can take help from the professional people who are already in this field for some considerable time. The freelancers can seek the professional help via two methods i.e. Direct Help and Indirect Help.

Indirect Help

The indirect can be achieved by not directly asking someone about the charges but instead, some platforms are used to get the required data.

Via Online Platforms

There are some of the online freelancing platforms where the people can have a detailed research on the profile of the other freelancers. The maximum and minimum charges and the corresponding services are recorded and then the rates are arranged somewhere between the maximum and minimum packages depending upon the experience and the skill set you provide. This method needs time and critical analysis.

Using tools

Along with the other websites there are some of the social media websites on which the people, both the job seeker and the job providers, share their experience. These platforms include Glassdoor and other freelancing websites forums. Reading the experience of both the clients and the service providers, the fresh freelancers can get the charges related information. But it too is a long procedure requiring a lot of time.

Direct Help

In direct help, the freelancer directly asks for the help from the professional people working directly or using any freelancing platform. Depending upon the type of contact, the direct help can be of two types.

Freelancing Networking Group

There are many freelancing communities and groups on social media. The active freelancing groups on the social media platforms may be joined and the freelancer post the query and ask for the right kind of amount to be charged. The different freelancing-related members will share their opinion for the required group of work. In this way a freelancer may get a lot of experienced help with the least possible effort.

Smart Approach

Some of the professionals are too busy to reply in groups or even personally. Using the smart approach, the freelancer may pretend to be a client and contact the top-rated professional freelancer already in the field, asking for the freelancing rate to be charged for the required order. In this way the general rate for a custom work can be determined.