I was hoping I would find some people in the industry that could help me decide what’s the best price to charge to design (in this case) business cards.
What are standard prices for professional designers?
From a firm point of view? From a freelancer?
I don’t want to overcharge clients but I don’t want to ruin the industry by underselling my services.
Answer
I assume you are asking how much you should charge to design a business card. The answer to that is:
your hourly rate * the number of hours it takes you to complete the job
The key is to figure out your hourly rate. That is:
annual revenue $ / # BILLABLE hours you work per year
Your annual revenue is all the money you need to bring in to cover all expenses and leave yourself a profit for your salary.
annual revenue $ =
desired salary + insurance + equipment + software + office supplies + etc
Your billable hours are the hours you can actually bill a client for doing work. This will NOT be 40 a week.
annual billable hours =
(40 - non billable hours) * (52 - (vacation + sick days))
Non billable hours are all the hours you spend running the business rather than actually doing client work. High end firms hope to get 75-90% billable hours out of their billable staff. On your own, expect that to be closer to 50%, as it takes a lot of hours to just keep the business going (accounting, billing, marketing, travel, tech support, training).
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : CBallenar , Answer Author : DA01