One of the questions I get asked the most by clients and other designers alike is about (surprise, surprise) money.
So what is the hourly rate for a graphic designer?
Ahh, there’s the question. If you’re fresh out of college, I would say (and don’t blame me if you can’t pay off your loans) around about £9-12 ($14.50-$20) an hour.
If you’ve got a few (3 to 6) years agency experience under your belt and a nice looking portfolio I would say you should ask for £18-£25 ($30-$40) per hour.
If you’ve been hard at it for years and have a few regular clients under your belt it starts to get more complicated. You may decide to keep to an hourly rate that maybe starts at £30 ($50) an hour or more but it is more likely at this stage that you will be quoting a flat rate for jobs.
Dollar prices correct at time article was posted (see below).
Charging a flat rate for design jobs
This is where the fun really begins.
Usually, I get asked how much I would charge for a brochure, a website, a poster, a flyer, a business card, a presentation, an HTML email, an advertisement, etc. In which case an amount is quoted and will be received regardless of how long the job takes to do or how much cost is incurred.
This is harder to work out than an hourly rate and after doing it for a few years you get very good at asking questions around the brief to spot potential pitfalls before they occur. Here are a few of the questions I ask:
- Is the text to be supplied? Do they have it now? Is it finalized? Do they need any help with it? Sometimes clients will provide very poorly worded or inaccurate text and will be grateful for any improvement offered but, if so, this should be factored into the price.
- How much text is there? This is a very good pointer to how big a job actually is. For example HTML emails can be relatively quick to do if there is little text and imagery, but they can be incredibly complex beasties with loads of text, links, product images and sections. Nail down the scale of the project before quoting.
- Are there any images to be supplied? Do they have excellent quality photography already or should a price for purchasing more be worked out?
- Do they have a logo? If the answer is yes and you’re doing a print job make sure they have the logo in vector format (an Illustrator EPS or AI file). If no, then they will only have the logo as a small web image which will be no good for print reproduction and somebody will have to re-make it. This is a pitfall that is always happening! Also a job with no logo will 9 times out of 10 need one and that means the cost of a new logo should go into the final price.
Here are a few caveats or qualifications that is always good to mention when quoting for a job.
- How many options? I always specify a certain number of options will be supplied for a brochure cover, website homepage or anything that I’m designing. This is the most important stage of the project and getting it right is crucial but it’s important not to let this process drag on indefinitely. If you don’t get it right after a few goes then the project can go stale anyway. So always have a caveat of a finite number of initial options.
- How many revisions/amends? After the last design option has been finalized and you’re ready to create whatever it is you’re doing, it is only fair that the client will want to make little changes to the text and layout. However, it is always good to put a number on these.
- The extent of the job. Specify exactly at what point the job will be finished. So, for example, if it is a print job, it finishes when print ready artwork has been provided to the printer or when the printed product is delivered to the client’s premises; if it is a web job, it finishes when the site is tested and live or when a certain file has been sent to the client. It is always necessary to agree this first with the client.
General points about graphic design prices
Above all, don’t get greedy. The forces of supply and demand are hard to work against. Charge the correct and honest amount. If you’ve been working for a while you should know what the going rate is. After a while you’ll get happy clients returning to you and others contacting you having received glowing recommendations!
If you would like to learn more about what prices to charge clients, how to bill them, how to get them in the first place and how to make money by setting up your own design business download my e-book Running a Web Design Business now!
Getting a quality logo file (i.e. vector not raster) from the client is ideal but can potentially be very tricky. It’s good that you’ve included this in your list, especially the need to factor in re-drawing the logo if EPS or AI format isn’t available.
Hi Tracey, yes, how many times does it happen that the client thinks they’ve had a logo designed and it turns out to be raster only? It’s happened to me many times.
My charging policy is this: I work out how many hours the project will take, and times-it by my hourly rate for most projects. If I do work for charities, organisations and small business, I just reduce my hourly rate, but let these clients know that I am offering a discount.
I also offer a 5% discount to projects paid for in full before the project starts. Just had a client who took me up on this policy, and it’s good to get paid in full before a job, however, it does add to the stress of it a little!
Great post Rob, just Tweeted it out there for you
Thats what i call a great post or in danish: God artikler ven!.
So now i have addet your blog to my feed reader, rob – thanks your great!
Hi, Andrew, me too. I roughly estimate a design job by the time I think it’s going to take. Sometimes I get it wrong! Thanks for the tweet. You really have taken to Twitter better than I have. I just can’t seem to get into a tweeting habit!
Mange tak, Paw. I hope you enjoy the articles you pick up through the feedreader.
In response to the comment about vectorized logos it is very simple to take almost any size image and vectorize it in illustrator simply by using the live trace tool. sometimes the design is slightly altered by for the most part it doesn’t take much more then a couple minutes and isn’t such a headache if you some patients.
Hi Abdul, I write extensively about Illustrator’s Live Trace feature in this website however I would caution against using this tool for a logo. Logo’s need to be spot on so if you are re-creating a logo in vector you should go back to the font that was used in the logo or re-trace it manually. Live Trace, although brilliant in recreating images, will not be exact enough for a small logo from the web. It may be OK for a huge bitmap logo 5000px wide at 300ppi but then what would the point of re-tracing that be? Thank you for the comment.
Live trace is cool, but nothing replaces being able to handle the pen tool and bezier paths correctly. I have found over and over that bezier paths, in Illustrator, Photoshop or even InDesign, and of course Fireworks, has been key in my ability to do high quality work. It’s absolutely fundamental. Artists need pencils and graphic designers need the “pen tool”…
Hello Douglas, I agree being able to use bézier paths well is an absolute mainstay of graphic designer’s arsenal. I use both, live trace and the pen tool and a cool way to learn the pen tool is to try to edit the result of a live trace once it’s expanded. Took me ages! I would say hardly a day goes by without using paths in some way!
rate for a graphic designer $30-$40 per hour??it is right?? wow, that will be high payment…i really love it..aim to be a good GD in one day =)
I am not sure how to charge for working files. Any ideas.
Good question, Christine, I have emailed you and will return to this subject again
Thanks Rob. How much should be charged to supply a client with vector graphics? I charge clients at the end of a design job for an archive CD containing raster images of say 4 hi res logos x 3 (formats:jpg,tif,eps) x 4 (colour-ways:BW, RGB, CMYK, PMS) x my hourly rate to process all 48 items. I’f I was to hand over the vectors how would I charge for them?
Hello Gainor, this is a very tricky question. I have seen many, many ongoing discussions about this area as some people charge extra than just the hourly rate as you are giving up the chance of further work. Personally I would just charge the hourly rate plus expenses. However, it’s usually best to get an understanding of this in writing before the job starts.
Cheers for the article but I fear you’re slightly undercutting our profession. I wouldn’t recommend any budding designers to work for less than £15 per hour. What we do is a skill and by charging clients minimal fees you’re doing yourself and your profession an injustice. Also you’ll find it very hard to maintain your motivation on the 6th of 7th version of a logo design when you’re being paid £9 per hour!
To put it into perspective I work for a London digital agency and my flat rate they charge clients is £100 per hour for my time and when they hire contractual designers this can sometimes double.
P.S Don’t EVER EVER EVER use the live trace tool to replicate a clients logo on a professional job. It’s just not…. professional!
These prices were correct at the time the article were published for freelancers being paid in London. Obviously agency charges are higher.
Ah, my bad – I didn’t look at the date this was written!
Lovely article. Thanks for posting. Very helpful.
My pleasure, MellaBella
Hey Rob-
My question is about promoting yourself . If I have an online URL to my portfolio or a web site, do the pieces I bring to an interview have to be totally different or can they overlap? I’ve been in the industry for 12 years but held 2 very long-term jobs and online portfolio’s weren’t as big at the time of my interviews so as I begin to redo all all of my branding I am struggling a bit with what to put online and which should be stronger, the online vs the in person material. Do you have any thoughts on this? Thanks!
Hello Jennifer and welcome to the site. My experience with the online portfolio is to keep it short and sweet. Pick the items that are most visually appealing. Pick cutouts rather than square or rectangular items. Split them up into a few categories (3 or 4 – not too many). The thing is most people who visit your site will only spend a few seconds on it so quality is more important that quantity.
And I wouldn’t worry at all about presenting the same material at an interview. A designer’s website is judged on a lot more than just on the portfolio, unfortunately. It needs to load quickly and should be easily navigable.
Hope this helps.
Yes this is great, thank you! Great site by the way!
No problem. Thank you, Jennifer.