Ready-reckoner for setting your price as a freelancer..

Pricing is guesswork – but here’s a ready-reckoner… 🙂

Having been self-employed some years ago, and now working on ‘new business’ activities, one of the hardest aspects of new products or service is the pricing level. A “cost plus” approach isn’t ideal when either the cost is simply your time or when there’s an absolute limit to your earning due to a scarce resource (hours in the day).

Most people initially try and cover the mortgage (ie mortgage x2 /working days available), but the problem arises from success: if you’re fortunate enough to be fully billable then you’ll only ever make 2xmortage!

Anil’s suggestion is an enlightening one:
Anil Dash: Pay By The Hour

If you think this is just for laughs, consider the impact on an existing client when you suggest doubling your rate 🙂