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For my first three years as an independent designer, I billed by the hour. It felt fair. It was not. The faster I got, the less I earned, and clients spent the project watching a meter instead of the work. Today every project I take on has a fixed price, agreed before the first sketch.
Price the change, not the hours
The value of an identity depends on where it ends up. A mark for a one-off event and a mark that has to hold forty glaze labels on a ceramics shelf can take the same week to draw. They do not carry the same weight for the business. When Marrow Kiln asked for a label system, the drawing was a small part of the job. The real work was a layout that could take any glaze name, from four letters to twenty-two, without a redesign every season.
So I price the scope of what changes for the client. I keep my own estimate of hours as a private sanity check, never as the number on the quote.
Three questions before any number
I don’t send a price after the first call. I send three questions, and the answers set the scope:
- Where will it live? Count the real places: packaging, signage, a website, a van, a uniform. Each one is a test the identity has to pass.
- Who decides? One named person who can say yes. If a board signs off, I need to know now, because a board adds a round.
- What is the real deadline? Not the hoped-for one. The date when something has to be printed, launched, or shown.
Fixed price, written scope
The quote lists the deliverables, the number of directions, the number of refinement rounds, and what is out of scope. Anything outside it becomes a change, priced in writing before the work starts. Clients like this more than they expect to. Nobody enjoys a bill that grew without warning.
The quote also lists what the client provides: copy, photos, product samples, and the date each one is due. In my experience most delays start with a missing photo or a late text, and naming them early is kinder than chasing them later.
I ask for half up front and half before the final files are released. The deposit books the time in my calendar. The second half is due when the work is approved, not when it is first used.
A quote is the first piece of design a client receives from you. Make it as clear as the work you want them to buy.
A monthly option for steady work
Some clients don’t need a project. They need a designer on hand for a season of launches, packaging updates, and campaign material. For them I offer a subscription at €6,400 per month: requests go on a running list, I work through it from the top, and every message gets a reply within 24 hours. It suits teams with a steady flow of smaller jobs. It does not suit a full identity from scratch, which needs the focus and the stages of a fixed-price project.
When the budget does not fit
Sometimes the budget covers half of what the scope needs. I don’t cut the price; I cut the scope. Fewer applications, one direction instead of two, starter files instead of finished pieces. The client chooses what to drop, and the quote says plainly what they will not get. That conversation is easier than delivering a full project with half the care.
What I would tell my younger self
Write the price down before the call ends, even as a range, so you don’t negotiate against yourself overnight. Keep a page of every quote you send and what the work actually took. After twenty projects, that page will teach you more about pricing than any article, this one included.
Written by
Hugo Merrin
Independent brand designer and art director
Hugo designs identities, packaging, and print for small makers from a studio in Lisbon. Eleven years in, every project still starts with a pencil and a printed proof. He writes here about process, pricing, and the craft behind each job.
