Consulting Rates?

Design Discussions design employment
1

I was contacted by a company who wants to fly me out and have me as an in-house consultant for two weeks. They will be paying my expenses on top of what I will charge them. The problem is, I can’t decide what to charge! I am afraid that if I ask too much, I may not get future work from them (the company wants a long term relationship) or I will be selling myself short by not asking for enough. I would be acting as a design liaison in helping them establish their design image and to help hire other designers as necessary. This is potentially a life changing opportunity for me and I don’t want to screw it up.

Any suggestions or resources I could reference?

2

check through all the other threads on similar topics. this has been covered many times.

bottom line is, nobody will really be able to judge what you should charge better than you can. we dont know you, your experience, the project, the company, the location, your costs, etc., etc…

best of luck. sounds like an interesting opportunity.

R

3

Just a thought to throw out there…

Would you take your desired annual salary and divide it by 52 weeks, then multiply by the number of weeks work you will be doing?

For example: 65,000/52 = 1250 x 2 weeks = 2500

Or would you do hourly? $30/hr, $50/hr etc.?

I know a lot of it depends on skill set, etc. But is this method out of line for estimating your fees?

4

I agree with both of you. I think the key for me here is to figure out how much the job would pay in a year and divide out like NURB said, but with one change. Because I will be doing this freelance, I also have to figure in taxes and what little overhead I have.

I have read almost every post, in every thread on this site (I don’t sleep well), and there has never been a typical answer. Everyone has talked about it, but they pretty much leave it up to the person asking the question. So, I propose this formula for scrutiny.


First, calculate how long the project will take and what resources it will consume (time, materials, etc).

Second, figure out how much you would make a year (take home) if you were employed doing that job (sketching, 3D modeling, rendering, etc, because, after all these jobs would pay differently as a specialty), add taxes were appropriate, and divide by appropriate numbers for the length of the project.

Third, add in a premium if there are extenuating circumstances (ie, time constraints, exclusivity, contract limitations, etc.) that would prevent you from taking on additional work while working for the client.

Finally, take these numbers and see if they seem realistic. Sometimes a reevaluation is necessary to bring the numbers in line. IF they seem good, send a quote and if the client wants to know how you came to that number, and you feel like sharing, break it down for them.


This may seem like common sense to some, but I had to think about it for a while before I came to this basic formula.

What do you think?

5

That makes sense to me. And at least that would give you some indication of where you need to be to make the money you deserve. It would also give you a good starting place while you become more comfortable with the way your industry works with regard to consulting fees.