Having said that I still have a per hour figure in my head when working out proposals. We price copywriting and content creation jobs at about £45 an hour in N. Ireland – which would work out about €55 / $85 these days. I would expect a good designer to be above that figure and would likely attach a euro premium as well.

A figure of €65-75 would be reasonable – with a non-refundable holding fee / deposit for jobs commencing further down the line.

BTW, looking forward to hearing you at PodCamp Ireland on Saturday.

Just found your site and blog, and wanted to say thank you to you and everyone who has posted on this topic – I’m a translator, but found the information amazingly valuable! Thank you for such an open, informative exchange. -sarah

It feels like you’re underpricing yourself. If you’re good, I think you should price yourself accordingly. Harder to do than say I’m sure. Do you go through other agencies or always direct to clients? If you are open to working freelance through ad + marketing agencies, I’d be happy to refer you to a few people that know more about this than I do.

I’ve adjusted my rates slightly, got on board with an accountant who makes me happy, and am sorting out a phone plan :)

If [Client] requests that the Services are to be performed on a fixed price basis, [Supplier]‘s quotation may include contingency and/or fixed price premiums to reflect the risk being borne by [Supplier] which will be determined by the risk profile of the Services.

In other words: if we take the risk of a fixed price deal, you’ll be paying extra for the privilege of being confident of the final bill total. And the riskier it looks, the more we’ll charge you. This nicely covers where clients are repeatedly late in their deliverables but you don’t have a TandM deal to protect you while you’re sitting around waiting.

Go for Fixed Price when you and the client can absolutely define what it is they’re getting – 100% clearly defined (in writing, cos if it’s not in writing, it’s a rumour) deliverables, each linked to the payment schedule (ie deliverables A, B and C triggers an invoice of €X; deliverables D and E an invoice of €Y etc). And only do it linked to a rigid, no-excuses, change control process. Finally, on an FP basis, you’re taking all the risk, so you need to price accordingly, leaving contingency in the budget (and timescale) against all the inevitable problems.

If it’s an analytical, exploratory kind of project, where defining the needs is part of the work, then you want a T+M pricing model, with an estimated resource model (ie 5 days of analysis, 2 days of HTML, 3 days of usability, each with its own rate). Note that defining requirements that might lead into a Fixed Price bit of work should be chargeable work!

Also go with T+M if you’re not actually hard-responsible for delivering anything – you’re providing services to assist the client’s delivery, and all you’re promising to supply is a warm body to do that (and an invoice!). Invoice on a time-basis (weekly/monthly) for these.

On rates: I’m not going to be helpful with specific numbers, except of course to note that long gigs should be at lower rates than short ones, to reflect that you won’t have to proportionally spend as much non-billable time doing things like chasing the next three projects.

Now, re booking in advance: if you’re that much in demand, you really do need to put your rates up :-)

Seriously though, it sounds like if someone pulls out, you’re not going to find it too hard to replace them. So charge a reservation fee (discounted against the final invoice), pitched at a level that’s going to be bloody annoying for them to go elsewhere, and will cover your time in running around getting the replacement lined up, as opposed to a level that’s punitive and giving you a fair chunk of what you would have had anyway. It’s good for your cashflow anyway :-)

Re interesting projects – if the intent really is to be good for you in non-financial ways (learning, creativity, contributing to society, whatever), then up your normal rate to allow you to take X% of your year on these projects at rates they can afford – pro bono if they’re that worthwhile – without impacting your total annual revenue.

Finally, with tight production deadlines: the only way to stop clients from doing this is to have them share the pain. If you’re sitting on your bum waiting for them, and can’t progress, charge ‘em for the time! If there’s really no room for slippage, surely it’s the client’s problem..?

Unless of course you’re scheduling your clients right up against each other – in which case, build in contingency to your pricing and timescales to allow you time between projects if everything goes swimmingly. Hell, you need a break to come see your godson ;-)

And never do spec work.

As Deborah says – much of this info is in the Public Domain so take some time to try solve the mystery that is Revenue.ie (oh and if you work it out let me know)

Having said that – does it have to be a cork based accountant? In today’s busy online world does it need to be local? There are some benefits to being able to call in to see your accountant, but given the size of your business it might not strictly be necessary (I’m thinking of accountants having to come to you to do audits, stock checks etc.). Most likely everything you need done can be just sent to them for translating into revenue-speak.

If you are stuck for an accountant and are happy to move beyond Cork, drop me a line and I’ll put you in touch with someone.

As for phones, well in a previous company I worked in we used Skype a lot to cut down on our phone bills. We were doing business all over the world – the US, Australia, Dubai etc. so Skype saved us a huge amount of cash once we got everyone in the company up and running on it.

All the best,
Chris