Today I am going to talk about pricing strategies for freelancers. Now, a lot of freelancers when they are in in the beginning of their carrier, they are really interested in how they are going to charge the project to the client, whether they should use fixed pricing or they should use hourly rate. So, we are going to see all these strategies in this lecture. So let's get on with it. Now the first question fixed versus hourly rate, okay, now, hourly rates are good when you don't know how long the project will take or how many revisions there will be. Okay?

So you if you have a very long history of the client, you know that these, this client is going to revise my design like 20 times or 50 times then don't ever try to get fixed rate with them. Okay. Also in the start of your career. I don't think that you should take an hourly rate or charge hourly rate projects, try to get very small fixed price projects. Okay now fixed price projects are good when you know the nature of the project or you have done that task 100 or million times okay. You can see that in the jobs posted on Fiverr gigs you can see that they are small tasks that the person who is offering them or the freelancer have done them many times, okay, they are really expert at them.

So in maybe one hour they can take two or three or maybe five jobs at the time. So this is how this works. Okay. Also in the fixed price if I have done it many times and I am maintaining for example, I'm maintaining a WordPress website. Okay, now if I charge $100 for maintaining a website and I just complete it every time in one hour, go for fixed price Okay, otherwise if I charge like $20 per hour and I am going to go with hourly rate, I'm going to lose a lot of money because I will computed in just one hour and I will lose $75 takeaway from this section is that always use fixed pies for small jobs, try to take fixed small jobs where we have fixed pies, okay? For larger projects, you can divide your fixed payments into milestones.

Okay, this is good. This is also good for your shorty that your client is not going to run at the end of the project, okay. So if you have a very big project like $2,000 $3,000 maybe $10,000 try to divide it into different milestones like after design phase, I will take $300 or $500 then after development phase, you are going to pay me $500 and at the end of the project when everything will be finalized, I am going to get the rest of the money. Let's see some of the examples of fixed price projects. Okay, now fixed price jobs Whoa, whoa what kind of jobs you are going to offer as a fixed price. Okay.

Now for example, if I have a WordPress developer and I know how much time it takes To increase the security of a WordPress website, or maintenance of a WordPress website, or maybe responsive landing page development, I know that it takes like 15 hours to design and code, then I'm going to offer them a fixed price project okay. Also, there is one more tip that if you have a design and you are going to revise it, and it is going to be revised, so limit the revisions, number of revision mention in your proposal that this design for this design job, I'm comfortable with only two revisions. So this price is up to two revisions then after E for each V and I'm going to charge you $50 Okay, so always try to limit your work scope of work, tell the client that this is the scope of the work and these things I'm going to do in this price.

So the basic takeaway from this section is that job boundaries are well defined or jobs job scope, okay. So define the scope first. It should be well defined otherwise you We'll be you will get into different problems at the end. The second thing is that these kind of fixed price jobs or fixed price projects, they are basically very well known to you, you know, hundred percent all the steps involved in each job, okay? Like we have WordPress maintenance job or security job, I know that I'm going to get that plugin and I'm going I have all the settings saved exported into another file, I'm just going to import that settings and that will be fixed. So I should know all these steps.

And this is a repetitive job. And this is good for fixed price projects, okay? Even it can be applied to large projects where we have different milestones. Okay, let's see some of the examples of hourly rate projects. Okay, if I am going to fix some CSS issues. I am a designer, a web designer or web developer, and I am going to fix some of the coding of a website.

I don't know how much time it is going to be. Maybe it takes one or two hours or maybe 10 hours so it is unidentifiable. So I'm going to charge on hourly rates also if the client says that you I am I needed a logo design with an unlimited revisions that I will revise it as much as I like. So you should go with hourly rate projects, okay. Also there are some clients that are really stubborn, really itchy they will not let you complete your work unless they are really satisfied okay. So you are going to charge them hourly okay.

So, they know that the time is money so they know that they are going to be charged more if they are going to let you revise your design for like 10 hundred times. Also hourly rate can work for the clients that are project managers or programmers previously programmers or designers or design directors or creative directors, they know that how much valuable your skill is okay? So you can give them hourly rate a good average rate or a higher hourly rate they will be willing to pay that. Now the basic takeaways from this slide is that hourly rates are reflected in your freelance for profile so choose them wisely if you are taking an hourly rate project job, you should take it wisely. Don't lower your rate too much. Otherwise you will suffer in the future.

Don't start too low with your hourly rates if even if you have started your freelance carrier don't list your rate like one dollars, you are going to design the whole website in five hours so $5 this is really cheap, this is going to disturb the whole design community and also it is going to hurt your future in your freelance carrier. Now there is another pricing strategy which is flexible fixed pricing. Okay, now here what we are going to do is every body every human being the love bargaining, so you are going to give your client three pricing option options to select from first option will be very bare minimum bare minimum of what they need. second one will be what client needs and third one will be with some extra options or added value. Okay? There is another technique if you if you don't know the estimate and the clients mods are rough estimate, you never give them one exact value.

Always give them price range, okay? So always try to give your client a price range like 500 to $700. Okay, something like that. The takeaways from this section is that most humans try to bargain and they don't like we don't like rigid things who don't like rigid pricing strategies who don't like answers like yes, no. Okay. So try to provide your clients with at least two options to select from.

Don't give them four or five options just two or three max. Okay, let me show you some of the examples of flexible fixed pricing. Okay, now, you can see I have three packages over here logo design with two options. hundred dollars. It is very minimum minimal viable product, okay minimum viable product, this is my minimum bare minimum product which clients really needs and there is no option without him to survive Okay. Now the second option is that he might be developing an app for his company and I am going to give him plus an app icon for 150.

Okay now for just $50 is going to jump to this so this this is what we want the client to select okay? Okay, now third one is with few more options like business cards or maybe with four options something like this. We are going to give the client a bit more upgrade over here dollar 200 he might try to get this one also there is another trick on the maximum deal you are giving three deals so this one the price you steal, you are going to give some discount. So if you pay me now I'm going to give this deal in just 170 dollars, so $30 saving Or maybe 190 dollars or $180 or 10% you can ask them just 10% Okay, so this is a great way of flexible fixed pricing, and it is going to work a lot in your design proposals or your development proposals.

Okay. So this is all about pricing strategies. I have discussed a lot of pricing strategies fixed versus hourly, okay, and then fixed with milestones and fixed pricing with flexible fixed pricing. So, this is all about these pricing strategies. Let's move on to the next lesson.