How to Determine your Project Rate

And a special calculator to help you decide

If you’ve been here for a minute, we’ve talked about how to determine if you should charge hourly or project (here!) and what your actual hourly rate should be (here!).

And now, it’s time to talk about what to charge for a project.

To make this a little more concrete, I am going to give you an example of how I price brand projects with my agency, One Wild Goose. I’ll help you ask yourself the questions I ask to arrive at a price.

I have created a calculator for paid subscribers that will do this for you - it’s something I wish I had prior to every client call. Even if you’re not paid, you’ll get a lotttt from this article. But if you’re thinking about it, now’s a good time :)

We Start with Preparation Questions

1. What are the components of this project?

When someone asks my agency to make them a brand, that typically breaks out into a few separate pieces:

• The strategy (positioning them, setting the direction for design and copy)

• The design (logo, font, iconography, colors, etc.)

• The copy guide (rules of the road, example copy)

And sometimes, there’s more work than that. But let’s start there.

Similar to me, you should be able to break out your project into components. It helps you price, scope, and most importantly, it helps the client understand what you’re doing.

2. How much time and effort does a project like this take me?

This is less about getting to the final price, and more about not losing money or working for free.

If you don’t know the answer to this, I highly suggest timing yourself doing the work using a timer like Harvest, and maybe charge hourly until you get your feet underneath you.

My time and effort breakdown on a project like this ranges, but in general:

• Straightforward Project (They just want some positioning and support on small things): 8-10 hours ($2,000-$2,500 at $250/hour)

• Some Complexity (A full brand and copy guide) : 15-25 hours ($3,750-$6,250)

• Very Comprehensive (Full brand, copy guide, and website): 30-40 hours($7,500-$10,000)

For the sake of this exercise, let’s say that we’re doing a project with some complexity. The client wants positioning, a logo, and copy work.

That puts my time at $3,750-$6,250.

3. What are my costs (if any) to delivering this project?

In this case, my project has some other costs- I have to pay a designer, and I have to pay a copywriter.

You may not be paying people, but there may be other costs associated with the delivery. Do you need to rent studio space? Pay a focus group? Whatever it is, try to capture that here.

For the assumptions of this project, let’s say I assume I pay my design person $7,500, and my copywriter $4K.

That brings my reservation price (aka the lowest possible price I will take) to $16,250. If I charge anything below that, and I’m losing money and/or working for free.

Note: I don’t factor in things like Slack/Canva into my costs. To me, that’s captured in a markup, and it’s the cost of doing business. That’s not to say you should not factor them in somewhere, but to me it’s too cumbersome to do this every single time - and my clients do not expect to pay for things like this!

4. What’s it worth to my client? What do they expect to pay?

Your client expects to pay something for the work. You don’t necessarily want to come in so high they can’t afford it, unless their total budget is below your reservation price- then you’re going to lose money.

But you also don’t want to come in super below what they expect to pay, either. This is actually good for no one.

You don’t feel good, because you left money on the table.

They don’t feel good because maybe you’re not as good as you say you are.

In this case, for my example client, let’s say I have done brand projects for clients of their size/stage, and I’ve charged anywhere from $20-30K.

If you’ve got a range, I take about 85% of that range as a starting point. Favorable to you, and gives you room to negotiate.

If you don’t know their expectations- and I’ll say more about this next week - be careful being the one throwing out the first number in a conversation. Try to see if you can find out when you talk to them.

5. All of these things work together

Now remember, I said my reservation price for this project was $16,250. I have done projects similar to this for much less, because:

• The work was much smaller in scale

• The client expected to pay less

• My designers/copywriters earned less money (for less work)

All of these decisions are up to you (and the people you hire to help you) to make as you see fit. The decisions you make are interconnected.

That’s why I made this calculator so that you can play around with numbers before you get into a negotiating situation.

Here’s how it spits out what we just talked about:

You can play with this yourself if you’re a paid subscriber at the link below. It will also give you a PDF to have on your screen in the background on your next potential client call.

I can't stress enough how much I wish I had something like this five years ago. I hope it’s helpful to you, too!

See ya next week.

Just a reminder of all the ways you can work with me:

🎯 POSITION OR DIE 1:1: If you have trouble with your positioning and you want to make sure your 30 day sprint starts on solid foundation, get 90 minutes. with me and we’ll get this sorted. out. Keep in mind that Founding Subscribers to this Substack get a Position or Die Session that as part of their year-long subscription for a $50 discount. BOOK HERE.

👩‍💼 BECOME A PAID SUBSCRIBER: I give you all my resources and templates and once-a-month Office Hours for anyone who wants to come. Plus you get three ideas weekly for content that I think of- not AI- based on what I know works for clients.