Today I was working on a proposal, and realized that the client was asking too much (hence the high quote) and thought he wouldn’t take it. I had a small urge to modify my rates. I thought I had a pretty good idea of how much the client can afford. There are many reasons I didn’t lower them, but the top are the following.

I’m not lowering any quote or rate, because I know how much work this project will take me to finish and how much time it will take me to work on it and bit another projects- that’s opportunity cost and how much my designs and myself are worth.

Then, thinking about the client, I know they are already investing big money ok this project (I’m just a small part of it) so it’s more likely that they’ve already asked for quoted from someone else and they don’t mind investing (check the invest part instead of using paying or spending) good money on solid designs for international brands.

Third, there’s the fact that I’m not the only designer in the area. I have to set a bar. I need to have consistent and fair rates. Consistent because I’m not changing then from client to client. Fair because it’s not fair for other freelancers to have to compete with extremely low rates when the work is demanding (time, resources) and the pay doesn’t even get to the same level.

Designers, copyrighters, marketers… Freelancers in general, need to get their heads around that last bit. Not because we will seem overpaid but because we are often not paid enough from everything we do and go the extra mile anyway.