Pricing freelancing projects.
Everything I've learned.
A thread.
- Hourly billing
- Daily billing
- Retainers
- Fixed-pricing
- Value-based pricing
Understand their pros and cons.
Understand your circumstances.
Understand the project.
Choose appropriately.
If you need to use it to get started,
Stop using it as soon as you can.
- Estimating every small task?
- Filling out timesheets?
- Sending tons of invoices?
- Having to justify every time you go "over"?
Avoid hourly billing.
1 day = 8 hours
Or
1 day = 1 day
Always use the latter.
The former robs you of your autonomy.
When billing by the day,
Max out at selling 4 days per week to clients.
Give yourself time to grow your own business.
Nothing else.
It's a rolling engagement for a reason.
Day rate can't come with a guarantee of completion.
- The scarcity of your time (availability)
- What you've done before (credibility)
- The project price itself
If you can't write a proposal without research then you need a pre-project.
Discovery work has value and should come at a price.
Client 1: Day rate
Client 2: Fixed priced project
Client 3: Ongoing retainer
Use the strategy that fits the work best.
Freelancer: "I'm happy to do the work for this price".
Client: "I'm happy to pay this price for the work completing".
1. Get a deposit
2. Get a fixed scope
3. To reduce the price you must reduce the scope
4. Don't use estimated days x day rate = price
5. Add a minimum 20% contingency
6. Price high enough to make a profit after you've paid yourself
You are guaranteeing completion.
Going back to the table for more money at this stage leaves a bad taste.
And a prospect who cares can't understand why,
Your positioning is off.
Price tells it's own story, but it needs back up from credibility.
Be aware of this when making offers.
But you should still research your client when using other strategies.
How valuable will you be to them?
Your client's average lead value = £500
You estimate that your work will get them 100 leads in year 1.
That's £50,00 of value.
You give a price for your work based on a % of that figure.
If you can show the value, you can justify the price.
It's billing hourly for less money.
If it's most risky for the client to work with you the price will be lower
Price mirrors risk.
It'll probably happen during the project.
Add 20%.
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In the spring and summer of 2016, as reported by the Times, activity we traced to GRU was reported to the FBI. This was the standard model of interaction companies used for nation-state attacks against likely US targeted.
In the Spring of 2017, after a deep dive into the Fake News phenomena, the security team wanted to publish an update that covered what we had learned. At this point, we didn’t have any advertising content or the big IRA cluster, but we did know about the GRU model.
This report when through dozens of edits as different equities were represented. I did not have any meetings with Sheryl on the paper, but I can’t speak to whether she was in the loop with my higher-ups.
In the end, the difficult question of attribution was settled by us pointing to the DNI report instead of saying Russia or GRU directly. In my pre-briefs with members of Congress, I made it clear that we believed this action was GRU.
The story doesn\u2019t say you were told not to... it says you did so without approval and they tried to obfuscate what you found. Is that true?
— Sarah Frier (@sarahfrier) November 15, 2018
In the spring and summer of 2016, as reported by the Times, activity we traced to GRU was reported to the FBI. This was the standard model of interaction companies used for nation-state attacks against likely US targeted.
In the Spring of 2017, after a deep dive into the Fake News phenomena, the security team wanted to publish an update that covered what we had learned. At this point, we didn’t have any advertising content or the big IRA cluster, but we did know about the GRU model.
This report when through dozens of edits as different equities were represented. I did not have any meetings with Sheryl on the paper, but I can’t speak to whether she was in the loop with my higher-ups.
In the end, the difficult question of attribution was settled by us pointing to the DNI report instead of saying Russia or GRU directly. In my pre-briefs with members of Congress, I made it clear that we believed this action was GRU.
