A Freelancer Pricing Poem For National Freelancers Day
Freelancer pricing is a serious matter,
It’s not just a game that you play with your mates,
Though you may think I’m as mad as a hatter,
When I tell you freelancers must know THREE DIFFERENT RATES.
The first is the cost of staying in business,
Your break-even salary plus all business costs,
Divide by the hours that you expect to be working,
If you sell below this, your business is lost.
Next comes the rate that you’d get in job markets,
Those costs, plus your worth as a full employee,
You won’t last for long if you sell below this one —
Morale cannot live on a substandard fee.
But the last is the rate that you really should aim for,
The one that will let you do more than survive,
The fair price returned for the value you offer,
That lets both you, and your customer, thrive.
(with apologies to T.S. Eliot)
A Freelancing Poem? What’s Going On Here?
Don’t worry — normal service will resume shortly. I was just wondering what I could post about National Freelancer’s Day (yesterday) when the advisory ditty above popped into my head, almost fully-formed.
My “disappearing designers” post covers the topic of freelancer pricing in more depth, of course — and it’s heavily inspired by T.S. Eliot’s “The Naming of Cats”. Still, it seemed a shame to waste such a gift — and isn’t half the internet about cats anyway? So I hope you like it, and hope it helps!