How Much Does It Cost – How to Price Graphic Designs?

The 5 Essential Steps on How to Price Graphics Designs like Logos, Flyers, Banners, etc – For New Graphics Designers

 

Since the world turned upside down in 2020, the digital world and its wife is a Social Media Manager and Graphics designer… The thing is, there are some truly talented graphics artists online. If you are one of them, and you decided to push your talent since covid-19 took over the world, you might be wondering about how to Price Graphics design services. How do you price your services as a designer and stay competitive with the multitude of design tools and apps online?  

 

Before you jump down my throat about all the free templates online and cheap offers, remember graphics design is meant to be a bespoke service, With you, as the designer using your artistic talent and creativity in the space and the information you are given.

It means taking your client’s vision and turning it into a graphic, a work of art. This can take time to perfect so be patient.

And yes, there are free online templates that are okay in their own right like this one most marketers use.

 

That said, many lack the detailed artistic design that a seasoned professional can offer. Also, while the templates might not look great on your gadget, in many cases, once printed some pixelate hugely as they are usually optimized for the web. For instance, when getting that Banner created, be careful what templates you use and the colour profiles…

 

If you are thus looking for a graphics designer, don’t jump on the cheapest you find online, chances are, you are getting generic templates used by hundreds of thousands if not millions of others. No uniqueness there.

Our suggestion is: Write down all your ideas, colours, text, image locations style, and anything else you might want in your graphic. 

 

Any designer worth their weight in gold, will ask for those details, because the more information we have, the better we can understand what you want. A designer with little information may waste yours and their time designing something that is just not the right fit for what you want to do. It has happened to us too. 

 

Now that we are clear on why you should choose a professional to create your Brand Graphics, let’s talk about pricing

 

Heads-up 

 

With every Kalungi Group Article, we share a Free resource to get you going faster.  

This week, we are you our Social Media Strategy Template, complimentary.

Our Social Media Strategy template is going to help you with exactly what you need to do and when you need to do it to increase your brand and business reach on social media, to your desired end goals.

Following the guidance and shaping it around your needs will have you building a thriving business on social media in 60 minutes or less a day.

One of the most important things I’ve learned over the years of building my business is that with no strategy/plan you could be chasing your own tail and wasting your time.

Plus, it’s a massive time suck and brings minimal results… Been there done that no tee needed.

We break it down the steps so you can see how simple our social media strategy is.

The 5 Essential Steps in Pricing your Graphics Design Services.

 

#1. What is the work you are expected to deliver?

It could be a logo, a flyer, a mini brochure, a social media banner, etc. And more so, what is the client’s aim for that graphic? What is the impact to their business they are looking for with the graphic? Is it…

• Marketing
• Brand Exposure
• Advertising/Promotional
• Branding

 

Informational etc. What is in it for them, the return on the investment for them? The ROI for a Flyer for Borsh might be completely different than a logo for a start-up fashion house. So always find out their WHY.

 

 

#2. How big is your client’s business?

Are they a start-up or do they make over £10k a month in their business? The idea here is your graphic will be attracting eyeballs to your client’s business, and thus potentially it will be bringing them even more business. So, you’d be within your rights to price your work based on their income.

 

 

#3. How long will it take you to create the graphic?

Is it a 2-hour job or will it take you weeks?

For example, most logo designers online have a 48-hour Turn around time. What this means is it would take 48 hours to produce your logo concepts as soon as they receive your brief.

Thus, think about the time it takes you to produce the design, this equates to revenue.

 

 

#4. What’s, the going market rate?

Every graphic has an average market rate. Or you could base your price on your client’s deliverables.

Just understand that a freelance Graphics Designer will not charge the same as an agency, your overheads are very different. To get an idea of what freelancers charge, check out Upwork.

 

 

#5. How experienced are you?

With social media and the digital revolution, everyone and their dog presents like they are experts. Which makes it pretty hard for business owners and marketers to choose the right one.

 

Also, it’s common to find that new designers undercharge in a bid to attract more business.

 

That said, if you are a beginner with a pro-portfolio of major client work, then you are within your rights to charge a premium.

 

Your credentials are proof of your ability and with more experience & happy clients under your belt, the higher you can charge for your work. With experience comes more value for your client above and beyond just design work.

 

How to Price Graphics Designs – Case Studies

Case Study #1 – We were approached to develop a brand identity for a medium-size company, with an annual turnover of just over $1,000,000/yr. 

Based on the details of their needs, we sat down and created a proposal for a visual identity system:

Logo, fonts, colors, photo style patterns, icons, for usage only in digital and print. No changes in retail or loads of stakeholders to answer to. 

 

This was going to take about 2-4 weeks to turn around because there would also be a lot fewer revisions. We calculated that the ROI for this company on this project was not necessarily measurable, because there was, going to be a lot less exposure and a lot less of an increase in revenue due to the brand identity we would create.

So, how did we price, and what would a beginner graphics designer charge?

 

With a smaller fairly simple resource pack aka guidelines document, so a small agency or consultancy might charge anywhere from USD $2000 – $10,000.

A junior designer who doesn’t have that much experience might literally jump at the opportunity to do this job. And they may charge $100 – $1000 because they really want the work and experience.

A large Agency may not take on the work due to the size. Or they may pass it on to one of their network of smaller agencies they work with or pass it on to an apprentice while still charging the company premium. 

 

 

Case Study #2 – A large company reaches out to you for a re-branding project. They want to change their logo, brand colours even website to reflect their company growth or maybe adaptation or pivot, following the Covid-19 and lockdown. They average around $10 million in revenue a year.

 

Clearly, this job is a big one for you. It could also get complex because of the wide graphics usage across packaging, print & digital media, retail, etc. There are a lot of different stakeholders, aka high touch, high visibility with lots of opinions on the work. So you’ve got to expect a lot of revisions in such a project.

 

Thus, the time it’s going to take to do this through a large company could be between 3 – 6 months. Meaning, the impact on the business, would be huge. Huge exposure, a change in brand perception from their target audience which in turn will their revenue for the better!

 

Trust me when I say, the guidelines for such a branding project, including the style guide, might be very complex and may take a long time to develop client-approved concepts.

 

Your Pricing?

An experienced Graphics designer and/or a big agency might charge anywhere from USD $25k to $100k for a re-branding project of this size. And for a company of this size.

A small to mid-size agency might charge USD $10,000 – $20,000

While you a beginner graphics designer, if you are networked enough to attract a project of this caliber, might charge a lot less… My guess is USD $200 – $2000 or even five thousand dollars. The thing is you are undercharging and you could be overwhelmed by this job.

 

Understand that, when pricing your work, start to weigh the above 5 aspects I shared and as you build your portfolio, you will start to command bigger projects and higher fees. And your pricing will become steadier and more accurate.

Remember to consider, the size of the client, what they do – their service or product, the impact or ROI for them, how long it will take you, and your experience level.

Add the extras aka what skills you bring to the table and the attitude of the client, and you will soon be commanding the Pricing you deserve for your graphic designs. 

 

 

 

Graphics Designs with K-web Social Designs

At K-web Social as social media management and digital marketing agency, our design products start from concept to inception. From £80+postage, you can have a set of 100 leaflets sent to your door with everything included, no hidden charges for printing. You don’t have to worry about the extra time to design or the costs associated with it. We ensure that all our products have everything you need.

When you order, we get in touch to go through your needs and start working on some concepts asap. It is important that you give us as much detail as possible for this to happen. Also, our designers are not able to re-design from scratch once the project has started, but we do give you lots of opportunities to edit the concepts we present to you. 

 

And now over to you, do you know How to price graphics designs if you are in this space?

Have you got more tips to add to this resource? do have your say in a comment below…

 

And I have heard that good things happen to those who share our content…

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Julie Syl Kalungi

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