Cost to charge for text and art work ?

[Kasey Maxwell]

Sorry if this has been asked before, I'm wondering what A good price to charge a customer would be to adjust graphics and type text and chose fonts (not including engraving), I can see that this client will need me to do this often so I want to be able to set a timer and have a separate fee for this work, i'm thinking by the minute? We already have engraving costs figured out and a one time set up fee wouldn't work since I will be doing this often, his product is hand made plaques with words and graphics on them.


Thanks

[Glen Monaghan]

The simplest answer is whatever makes you happy to do the work. A more realistic answer, if you want to stay in business, would be to figure your "fully burdened rate", which is what you want to be paid per hour plus all your overheads, such as the income tax you have to pay on that hour's pay, apportioned insurance costs, rents, utilities, etc. and then prorate that. Compare to others in your locale if you want to see how competitive you are (doesn't matter what I charge here because that may be either stupid low or ridiculously high for your area even though it's a "going rate" here).

[Kasey Maxwell]

well then I suppose .50 a minute might be suitable, I think he will not argue it :)

[Mike Null]

Kasey

I prefer to use fixed dollar amounts for this kind of thing. If it is a simple layout you can do without frazzling your nerves then $20 to $30 will suffice. If you can see that you'll have a time doing it then farm it out and take a mark up on the artist's fee.

Earlier advice about whatever makes you happy is my rule as well.

[Dan Hintz]

well then I suppose .50 a minute might be suitable, I think he will not argue it :)

Figuring charges down to the minute is counting atoms... at a bare minimum, I'll block stuff into 15-minute intervals and charge appropriately, but usually I'm at 0.5- and 1-hour intervals. When you make such a fine division, customers start to question "Did you really spend 10 or just 8?".

[Scott Shepherd]

Just as a point of reference, the going rate for most design work at any print shop is pushing up to $90 per hour. You can find $60 per hour at some places, so I'd say the average is between $60 and $90 per hour for layout and design work. No need to undercut the market for being half the going rate that is common in the industry.

See how much time it typically takes and charge accordingly. If it's 15 minutes, charge $15.