Some Basic Pricing Advice

Recently, a fellow member of a Discord server sent me a DM about the Pumpkin Spice Goat I'd illustrated for Derek at Milk Barn Farm. They had a friend, they explained, who wanted to hire them to design some products for a small town institution's gift shop. How is one to go about pricing such a thing? Is it normal to give a friend a discount if they hire you? How much did I charge Derek for that artwork?

With their permission (and Derek's, and Rain's!), I've adapted the conversation for a Patreon post, because I'm guessing some of you are also navigating the muddy waters of How the Hell to Get Paid for Art in These Trying Times and might find it useful. 

Ready? Here we go:

The Special Discount Maneuver

I always charge for art, even with friends. A good piece of advice a pal gave me years and years ago was to always let people know they’re getting a deal. Say your flat fee for a large commission is “usually” $100. (I use scare quotes because you may never have done commissions at this fee! That’s OKAY! You’re using it as the starting point for what you want to be paid.) You let your friend know that you offer a 20% discount for friends and family, meaning the commission would be $80 instead.

The magic of this is that you can adjust that “typical” number to whatever you want in order to get the fee that makes the work worth your time, BUT the client believes you’re doing them a solid. (This is also a great way to trick your brain into charging what you're worth. Even telling someone your basic rate is higher than what you intend to charge them allows you to get comfortable with saying that number, which is a huge percentage of the battle.)

Payment Structures

It’s never a bad idea to just start by asking your client what they're looking for and what their budget is, and then assessing what you can actually get done for that money and making a clear offer with the scope of what you’re gonna do.

For product design specifically, you want to make sure that you’re accounting for the profit the institution may make off of your work. A portrait of a friend’s dog goes to one place: your friend. Merchandise, on the other hand, can be sold by the institution for (possibly) years to come, and stands to make them money, therefore the rate to produce it should be higher.

You could arrange something like a royalty scheme where you get a percentage of sales, but in my experience (esp. with a small local outfit) that’s a nightmare. I'd say charge them a fair fee up front and then let them have all the rights. Make sure to ask if you can retain the right to share work in your portfolio if you wanna do that.

The Hard Numbers

For nitty gritty stuff: my typical hourly rate (which I haven’t actually raised in the last….uh….four years? Maybe? So I’m due to shift it again) is $90. [n.b. when I started doing freelance work in 2013 my hourly rate was $25] But often for freelance work I’ll work with the client to find a flat fee based on their budget, and then let them know how much work I can do for that amount of money.

For Derek specifically: I got paid $500 to do that label design—a price that Derek suggested and I wasn't about to say no to. I think it took me about three hours. NOW. KEEP IN MIND. Derek originally worked in tech before he left SF to become a farmer. His sense of normalcy for compensation is better than most. But I also think that’s a reasonable cost for something that he’s going to have all the rights to and use to sell a product.

If it helps to have another point of comparison, I billed my indie musician friend Rain at that $90/hr rate for an album cover that took me about 2.5 hours (so $225). [n.b. A White Album is coming out really soon and I bet she'd love it if you pre-ordered the album on Bandcamp!] Rain’s an indie musician, and while she might’ve been able to afford more, I wanted to give her a deal (and also the design was pretty minimal).

It's good to remember that clients who can pay more pave the way for those who can't. [n.b. I like thinking about how the same model applies to everyone here on Patreon: you're paying for me to be able to make weird, open-access things like The Right Number and other experiments.]

Guidelines for Flat Rate Pricing

If you do go for a flat rate (per postcard or sticker or whatever they’re having you make), be very clear about how many rounds of revision are built into that price.

Explain up front that you’ll bill them hourly for additional work that goes over the allotted number of revision rounds. This can be a lifesaver if you get stuck in a design-by-committee quagmire. I’d usually include two rounds of revisions MAX per stage (roughs, pencils, inks, colors—or whatever your working process looks like) in a flat rate.

I try to be very clear with clients about what's going to happen. For example: “For this price, I’ll be sending you a rough sketch (or a selection of rough sketches) to choose from. Once we've decided on a design you like, I’ll send you a refined/penciled design to sign off on. Then I’ll deliver inked (or inked and colored) final art. At each stage of the process you'll have the opportunity to provide a round of feedback. I'm happy to make additional changes beyond these included feedback rounds, but please be aware that additional rounds will be billed at my hourly rate of [X]/hour."

(To really deter a finicky client from making endless changes, double your hourly rate 😇)

In Conclusion

Them: This is helping me realize that I’m waaaaaaayyyyy under charging.

Me: YES. CHARGE MORE. GET THAT MOOLAH.

[n.b. And then they made that text into a meme to hang somewhere visible and it was the best. The end.]

So there you have it! Some thoughts on pricing. I hope they're helpful. And if you have specific questions related to this: throw ’em in the comments and I'll gladly take a stab at answering.

Love and moolah,

L