2 questions
I have no clue how to price my services. Normally, I just do a flat design fee and call it done. I'd love some input on how to structure my pricing as I'd like to create a pdf that explains everything and I'm not pulling numbers out of the air.
I feel like I’m losing a lot of money doing it this way.
Any feedback would be amazing
Are there any good videos on dealing with clients, the CRM, and payment for services??
James Geiger
Geiger Designs
james-geiger.com
Hi James, I’m wading through those waters too so know this isn’t expert input. I started out with flat rate pricing too. Then I realized the need for ala carte pricing things as I became more aware. As I realized my customers had more needs than just design, I started pricing for it. Consulting on content and helping them identify areas they wanted to target for sales became a thing. I used sites like Glassdoor to get some numbers for the value of the work and combined that with my skill set to come up with new pricing. Not sure if that’s helpful but I hope it gives you some ideas.
Oh, also ongoing tech support. It can be tricky based on their level of experience. If you find that becomes an issue I’d definitely create an annual support plan.
James, like many freelancers, I learned the hard way how to price my services. The first key thing is not to give too much away for free! I did this in the beginning; now I try to limit myself to a 30-minute free consultation and no preliminary mock-ups without a contract and deposit. I have a system in place that is the result of a few years of record keeping to determine just how long websites, individual types of pages and apps, plus different tasks tend to take. I roll estimated communication time into the task or project. If clients go over the estimate, then I tack on an hourly fee. In my price list, I show sample pricing and services included for a 1-page, 5-page, and 10-page website plus ala carte pricing for maintenance, editing, training, photography, SEO, etc. Start with how much you would like to make per hour and then go from there. For the record, I started with $45-50/hour and as of the end of last year, I geared my pricing in the $65-75/hour range. Good luck!
Extremely helpful!!! Thank you!!!
You charge per hour and not per project?
Both. 
.
Interesting. I started with project pricing only but seeing what others were charging, I realized I was definitely underpricing myself. Now I charge flat fees for completely new websites but hourly for most other work. My hourly is $110/hour but I let my clients know it will usually only be 2-3 hours. Anything longer will end up getting a flat free quote.
So far this has worked alright in the way that any work that has the potential for too many revisions, hourly rates stops that “what if we do this instead…” attempts. Also if I dropped my rate to $60/hour range and said a redesign would be 4 hours instead of 2, I hear whining about “it shouldn’t take that long.”
It’s easier for me to sell a high hourly rate to compensate for the phone calls, emails, prep work and the actual design time needed to get the job completed.
First step. Calculate your total monthly expensives. How big is your monthly nut. Hourly is a bad idea. Chances are I can build an amazing site much quicker than most. So why should I be penalized for being efficient. It wouldn’t be fair for me to milk the client on the other hand. So hourly no no. Heres the sauce. Start off at $1k. Then your next project make it $1,500 then $2k and so on. If your not raising your prices every job you have zero chance of growing. I use content forms and set strict a timeline of 5 days for every build. 99% of the delays come from gathering content from clients. That’s why I schedule their build week a min of 30 days out. This gives them plenty of time to gather the photos, copy, and etc for their week. If they don’t have their content ready by the build week sorry on to the next one. No refundable. It’s not fair to make the next week build delay because not their laziness.
Hi @geigerdesigns this article may come in handy!
I have all the videos you need to watch on my site. Please watch my boy Chris Do from Futur he will change everything for you I promise!!!