Price quotes can be an uncomfortable part of freelance life.  Price to high?  You lose the gig.  Price too low?  You get the job at a grossly undervalued price, especially when your work may be worth a lot more.  It’s hard to come up with a ‘fair market value’ for your work, especially if you aren’t sure exactly where to start.  Below is a checklist to help you figure out your ‘going rate’.

A:

1. Prior experience? ……………………………………… _Y _N
2. Was it a popular website?……………………………_Y _N
3. Will the job get done quickly?………………………_Y_N
4. Will the job be time consuming?…………………_Y_N
5. How much experience do you have?……………______

B:

1. How long with it take you?………………………………………_____
2. Will you have to pay for anything out of pocket?……____
3. How much will you outsource?…………………………………_____

If you have an hourly rate, make sure that it will cover all the costs above (in part B).  Experience is a great thing to have, and typically you can charge more for that experience, especially if you worked for a popular website.

A piece of general advice I have found helpful, is that you shouldn’t worry too much about losing the gig, unless you are charging some kind of far too high price, you are operating a business.  You wouldn’t go to an electronics store and argue with the owner over how much a television is worth and try to get it for $10 or a picture of you using it, now would you.  As a freelancer, there are a surprisingly high amount of people that may expect you will work for basically free (or a photo for your portfolio).

While the above is far from an end all-be all of figuring out how much to charge, it can help you figure out a good start point.  If you have any more questions someone should ask themselves on how much to charge for their services, feel free to post it in the comments and I’ll add it to the above.