Figuring out my rate
Kayoz asked, “I was wondering how you figured out how much to charge for all this corporate writing work, and how you still figure it out for each new job? How do you know how long it’s going to take?”
I figure it out different ways and sometimes I don’t figure it out because I’ve gotten the job through a great, locally owned placement agency here in town. In that case they negotiate for me and it’s generally always lower than my regular rate. But it helps me expand my portfolio, which I need right now and they also make sure I get paid, which is awfully nice. Plus when I was first starting out and registered with them, they sat me down and showed me how to craft my resume and portfolio. I love them! (Register and tell them I sent you — really. Because they hand out gift cards for referrals! Yippee!)
Other ways I figure out:
1. Ask Julia. When I’m working for her, she’ll walk me through my billing. When I’m not working with her, she’s been generous in helping me figure out what to charge and how to invoice for it. I knew nothing about deliverables until she explained all that to me. For example, let’s say I’m making the kids lunch and I’m going to charge them for it. (I really should. Those kids are getting soft.) I’d break it down into tasks:
- Developing the lunch menu
- Making and serving the lunch
- Cleaning up after
I’d divide the fee up (say $15) so I could charge by the steps. And I’d list what they get for each of those three things. So for “Developing the lunch menu” I would tell them that I would create a nutritional evaluation after considering the available resources in the cupboards, including picking up a jar of peanut butter should stock so demand and taking into account what they ate for breakfast and are planning to eat for lunch as well as any allergies, food sensitivities and personal preferences. After all, that’s what planning lunch is, right? The deliverable there would be a printed menu and report explaining why those menu items were chosen. That would be five bucks.
Setting down the deliverables makes me think about the entire task to get a really good idea of how much work it’s going to be including how much I’ll need from them, (which lets me think about how much work THAT might be, too). It also gives the client a chance to think about what they really need from you. So for one client I showed him the deliverables and he said, “I want you to do these steps and then we can talk about the next step and I know I won’t need this other step.” (We did the first two and then I did the third and he liked that so much that I did end up going onto the fourth.) Or they might say, “Oh, come to think of it, we already have the menu so we really just need you to make the lunch and then clean up.”
In your deliverables you can also say what you won’t do. In the case of making lunch I might add, “Client will supply utensils, serving dishes and counter space. Client gets one free edit of sandwiches if they are not sliced as client prefers. If client wants seconds, there will be an additional charge.” See, you state straight out how many edits this includes, how many meetings or phone consults and then if they want more? You can explain that then you will bill at X hourly rate.
I learned all this from Julia. Sadly, not everyone has a Julia (although we all deserve one) but a mentor is a valuable thing to have so keep your eye out.
2. I research online. If you google “what do I charge for a brochure” you’ll find people talking about that stuff. Now I’ll tell you — the prices you see will vary widely. You may not charge what someone else charges or you might not charge for one project as much as you charge on another because maybe they’re going to give you a lot more copy so you’ll be doing less writing and more editing. Or maybe they need help coming up with a brand message and so it’s not just a brochure. That’s why it’s better to figure out what your hourly rate is and then look at the deliverables to figure out what you’ll charge. But I do google to get an idea of how other people approach things in part because then I know what clients are expecting. Although Julia has warned me not to charge what I think people are willing to pay (a negative way to look at it); instead I should charge how much I need to make to make doing the work worth it to me (a positive way to look at it).
Frankly, I’m still learning what to charge and last time I was working with someone as part of a package I charged X amount and the project manager looked at it and told me it wasn’t enough. Then she sat me down and explained why I was undercharging. Projects that are more consulting than writing are just hard for me to figure out. It seems counterintuitive to me because consulting is sharing info and writing is work. But Julia says knowledge is more valuable and she ought to know being all knowledgeable and stuff.
Like I said — I’m no expert in this; I’m still feeling my way and leaning on my mentor an awful lot but hopefully I explained how I’m going about it.
I’m feeling very smart today!
Ha!
Thanks Dawn, it is very interesting to see the process. And to think you can google to find out what other people are charging. I google almost everything, and yet I would never have thought of that (I think).