Maybe you’re inquiring about freelancers and wondering how much money is fair. It probably won’t surprise you that it…
it depends.
There are many factors:
- the experience of the individual,
- his processes,
- the efficiency of the work,
- the costs involved,
- the area and type of work…
The sum of these and a number of other factors then leads to hourly fees for good freelancers, in my experience, ranging from 500 – 3500 CZK per hour.In this article, however, I won’t go into how to set this wage. However, there have been many excellent articles and books written about how to set this rate.
Many people wouldn’t hire someone who charges more than 350k (let alone 1200k) for an hour of work… because it’s just too expensive.
Is it really?
Anxiety is relative
A well-known investor adage says that no stock is so expensive that it can’t be bought, and so cheap that it can’t be sold.
In the freelance world, I can think of an analogy:
No freelancer is so expensive that you can’t get their services and so cheap that you can’t get someone even cheaper.
It’s important what you focus on. Value or price?
If you decide on price, you have an easy life. You tell yourself what your “ceiling” is, you look at a freelancer directory, e.g. navolnenoze.cz (so you don’t get downright burned, I recommend avoiding obscure FB group type sites – especially if you don’t know how to tell quality) and you pick the cheapest contractor -> if they still fit within your price ceiling.
A lot of people do a similar thing, but I find this approach completely nonsensical.
Why is price a bad criterion?
It’s simple:
A freelancer who asks for £7,000 an hour and earns you £40,000 with their work/advice is cheap. A freelancer who asks for 150 Kč per hour, however the damage repairs he/she does in good faith will cost you 10 000 Kč, is very expensive.
It’s that simple.
So comparing just price is nonsense. You always need to compare value.
With price, it’s like comparing the price of an iPhone to the price of sending a letter. To send a letter costs £35, an iPhone costs £12,000, and if you want to send a message, both of those things will let you do it.
However, you feel that’s not a fair comparison.
At all.
And it’s the same with freelancer pricing. So you should always compare value (which is hard to estimate), not price (which is easy to estimate).
However, the fact that value is hard to estimate also has one huge advantage for you as a client. Freelancers themselves (myself included) often fail to price their knowledge and skills adequately.Specific knowledge is particularly valuable and therefore hard to estimate.
And while an hour of my web development time will sell you in the hundreds of crowns (the same thing I can do and many others can do), if you want me to tell you the most beneficial things I’ve discovered in the world of online marketing and how you can capitalize on them in two hours, one such hour will set you back £30,000.
But it won’t work. Although it should, because I’m sure it has value.
However, this is counterintuitive and breaks the framework of convention. It makes it impossible for me to imagine charging such an amount, and impossible for you to imagine paying such an amount.
The result is that you can get a given hour for a fraction of its true value, even though it may be “expensive” compared to someone else’s hour for some other job (lol).
I have verified this phenomenon many times for myself. And I can say with a calm heart that whenever I hired someone who charged more than 2000 CZK/hour, the consultation paid off handsomely and objectively had a much higher value.
So keep this in mind and don’t overlook sales when they are happening around you.
So the main message of the article is: think about VALUE, not PRICE. They are two completely different things.
However, price is still the primary way people think about work, so let’s look at that:
What do people forget when considering the price of freelance jobs?
There are many factors, but let’s take a quick look at the three (for me) most common:
1: A freelancer only charges you for the time they spend working
Nobody works 8 hours in an 8-hour workday.
Nobody.
However, employees are paid for this time. If I’m in the office for 8 hours, I believe I get as much – or more – work done as a typical worker, however, I’m on the clock for 3-4 hours after the workday.
This is good to take into account.
2. Freelancer does not cost you an associated cost
The computer, the office, the internet, the coffee… these are all small items, but they add up. And while you’d have to pay for all these small expenses for an employee, you don’t have to for a freelancer.
However, the freelancer has to pay them for himself.
3. Freelancer has limited time to work
Negotiating contracts, promotion, marketing, drawing up contracts… these are all things that are necessary to hire a freelancer.
However, no one pays a freelancer for these things, and the work they spend on them must logically translate into hourly rates for the clients they do this work for.
Addition if you are a freelancer yourself
If you are a freelancer yourself and are wondering how much to charge for your work, I can highly recommend three things that have helped me the most:
- Great video by Peter “Badger” Pouchly
- Use the hourly wage calculator on Magda Čevelová’s website.
- Read the book Freelance.
And most importantly, also think through the value you bring to clients, not the price.Word in conclusion
Pricing freelance work is a difficult task, both for clients and for the professionals offering their own work.
However, when taken at the correct, value end, I believe there can easily be win-win situations.
Let me know in the comments what experience you’ve had with freelancers and their valuations?
