When you work a W2 job, especially at a large company, your opportunities to negotiate are pretty limited. You can negotiate before you accept the offer but after that, you’re subject to an annual performance cycle.

When you work for yourself, you set the rates, so when my first freelancing client asked me, “What’s your rate?” I froze. I had no idea what to charge.

Since I’d never done this type of work before, should I just price at entry level? But I have 10 years of corporate experience, that should count for something, right? I don’t want them to say no…

If your internal dialogue sounds something like this, you’re not alone! By no means am I an expert, but here are a few things I’ve learned so far in my solopreneurship journey.

Depending on the client and type of work you’re doing, you’ll encounter a few ways to price your services:

In general, hourly makes sense when you’re first starting out if you’re unsure about the scope and timing. You might start with one client on an hourly basis and then once trust is built, negotiate a retainer. Or maybe you deliver a project for one client and decide to make it one of your regular offerings to other clients.

To figure out what to charge, ask yourself two key questions:
1️⃣ What’s the market rate?
2️⃣ What’s my client’s budget?

To determine the market rate, here are a few helpful resources I’ve used in the past:

To determine your client’s budget, you should ask them in the discovery call. If it’s way lower than what you expected, this saves you time having to create a fancy proposal for something they can’t afford.

Once you know the market rate and your client’s budget, you can decide what to propose.

If you go hourly, you might want to think about if the hourly price stays the same for all type of tasks you do or if it changes. For example, I have a “day rate” in the events world that is higher than my hourly rate because I know I’ll be running around and working long hours.

If you have a flat-fee project, you can use your hourly rate to estimate a price. If a content audit takes you 20 hours at $100 per hour, you might price it at $2.5K to add in a little buffer if things take longer than expected.

Pricing is a mix of art and science, so just because they said their budget was X doesn’t mean you can’t propose something a bit higher (as long as it’s rooted in value).

It’s going to feel scary putting a number out there but try not to price yourself too low! It might be tempting but even if you’re just starting out, you have value from your past experiences that you bring to the table.

I’m still struggling with the uncomfy feeling of delivering a price confidently but when you approach pricing as a conversation and show you’ve done your research, it’s bound to be a win-win. 💫

Answer the poll below 👇 and/or email me with more color to your response! I’d love to hear it and support each other.

Tomorrow I’m headed off to Joshua Tree! My dad told me he wanted to do an astrophotography tour awhile back and am excited to finally bring this to life as it’s been on my vision board since last year.

I booked us an Airbnb and Cairo 🐶 will be there too! Follow me on Instagram if you want to see pics 🙂