Pricing Model for Website Design and Creative Professionals
Pricing Model for Website Design – Clever website design pricing models can effectively benefit your brand which pads your sales at the end of the day. Appending a price to your product is like giving out a flyer, it’s fantastic for branding your small business, just be cautious about how that message is delivered and what it says. Starting a new relationship with clients with high end pricing screams ‘we’re hot and we know it’. Fighting with a competitor over a low price says ‘I’m not confident in my abilities‘. Not using a considerable pricing structure will land you in the troubled waters of mediocrity.
Some lessons to remember…
1. Price per service, not hourly. Considered a standard in design pricing, one of the most counter-productive things a designer can do is charge by the hour. What is the point of charging your customers by the hour? You might have had some previous employers or interactions where their pricing model was based on.
- Charging by the hour sets your initial relationship with your client up for failure because the level of expectations between you and your client are completely different. Your client wants to get the most out of you for the least amount of hours while you want to get the most out of your client on a financial level, pretty toxic when you think about it.
- Hourly billing doesn’t have your customer’s best interest in mind or yours too. When your customers come to you for a design they are looking for a targeted result. They need to put money into your abilities and not your bank account and not based on some arbitrary pricing structure.
- When your billing hourly you limit yourself on a creative level. Always try to tie in your up front fee with what the client actually values, their creativity. Most customers have a tendency to diagnose their problems without the assistance of their designer and will make snap decisions leading to;
2. Slowing down your sales process. You should slow down how you deal with your clients and avoid taking on every single client that walks through the door. You need to understand what your client actually needs and approach the sale with a minimalist outlook and allow your client to become excited on their project on their own.
3. Client intake processes. For example, imagine your client intake process is a four-step process. First, determine the purpose behind your clients needs. Ask them questions about their purpose for wanting your services. Ask them how the purpose could change. Second, investigate the expected result. How will you know when youre done? Investigate your clients ability to bring this project to an end. Is this the type of client that will never be satisfied? After applying this process for some time, youll be able to tell if a client is not tracking with you. Scope discussions could be added to this phase of your new client intake process. Third, conduct value discussions. Value discussions should be about identifying what the client truly values and how you will price the things the client values. In this part of your new client intake process, you can address how you want the client to interact with you and find out how the client wants you to interact with them. Do they like to meet face-to-face or is a digital relationship okay? These value discussions will directly influence your price. Finally, create engagement. This is where you determine your price, and offer three price options for the client to choose from, based on scope. I typically offer three options. I will typically include things in my top package that the client didnt ask for because they didnt know they could ask for it. The engagement process is also where you request an agreement to be signed and get your first down payment on the work.
Pricing Model for Website Design