How do you price your work as a freelance web developer?

How do you price your work as a freelance web developer?

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3

I think pricing is the fun part of building a business. Ultimately, it’s the validation of what you do and someone’s willingness to see the value you can provide.

In episode 50, 57, 60 I touch a bit about pricing your services and what to look for from both a starting point and where you want to get to point. In episode 12, I dive a little deeper into the topic where I was asked “how do I talk to a lead about a one-off project and turn them into a recurring services client?”

But I want to share today the exact process I go through in order to put a value on my service so that the price I present is a no-brainer for a lead to jump on board and become a client.

Value pricing is much harder to do, and I think that’s why a lot of you if you are starting out default to hourly. There’s definitely nothing wrong with that either, but at some point you’ll want to stop trading your time for money.

It’s a difficult thing to do because of 3 things:

• you need to understand your clients
• have the confidence to ask tough questions
• pin the value of your services against a dollar amount

All of these things are not easy to come by. Especially #2 — difficult conversations, and that’s what talking about budgets and rates can be for you.

It was for me for a long time. I didn’t like the perceived confrontation. I wasn’t comfortable asking the questions I needed to ask in order to really understand their business.

Until I realized that...