Choosing What You Charge For: Time, Days, Projects or Results

Most freelancers agonise over the amount. Fewer stop to ask what the amount is attached to. A price is always a number per something: per hour, per day, per project, per month. Choosing that "something" shapes your income, your stress and your client's behaviour far more than a ten percent tweak to the figure.

Start with the number you refuse to go below

Imagine Dana, a freelance illustrator. She works out what she needs to earn in a month, adds the days she will not be billable (admin, sick days, slow weeks), and divides. The result is her floor: the effective daily income under which a job costs her money once everything is counted.

Every pricing method you use later should be checkable against that floor. If a fixed fee, spread across the days it really takes, lands below it, the job is a bad deal no matter how nice the client is. Write the floor down once. It saves you from deciding under pressure while a client waits for a quote.

Five units, and when each one fits

Per hour

Hours are honest when nobody can say how big the work is: a rescue job, a pile of small edits, support. They also protect you from endless availability, because every hour the client wants has a visible cost.

The catch is that you are rewarded for being slow. The better you get, the less you earn for the same result, and a client who sees a timesheet starts reading it line by line.

Per day or per week

A day rate keeps the conversation about capacity: "I'm yours on Tuesdays and Wednesdays." It suits embedded work, workshops and anything where the client buys your attention more than a finished object. Agree up front what happens in a short week, so a public holiday does not become a dispute.

Per project

A fixed fee is the clearest offer a client can receive. They know the cost, you know the revenue. It also lets you profit from your own speed.

The risk sits with you. Underestimate, and you work for less than your floor. So price in the unglamorous parts: calls, feedback rounds, file handovers and the "one small thing" that arrives on day nine. Then state what is included and how many revisions are covered.

Per result

If your work clearly moves money for the client, such as a sales page for a product with high margins, your price can follow that benefit instead of your effort. A job that saves a company a lot each year is worth more than the hours behind it.

Be careful with the extreme version, where you are paid only if sales happen. Many things beyond your control sit between your work and a sale, so only consider it when you have strong evidence and some influence over the outcome. A safer middle path is a fixed fee plus a bonus tied to a result.

Per month

A retainer trades flexibility for steadiness. The client gets reserved time, you get predictable income and can plan your calendar. It works best for continuing work like maintenance, content or reporting. Define the monthly scope clearly, and decide what happens to unused time.

Let the clarity of the work decide

A simple way to choose is to ask how well you can describe the finished work today.

• Clear and repeatable: fixed fee, possibly from a short menu of packages.
• Clear but large: fixed fee split into milestones, each invoiced when reached.
• Vague or exploratory: a paid discovery phase by the day, then a fixed fee for what you learned.
• Never really ending: a retainer, reviewed every few months.
• Urgent or unpredictable: hourly, at a higher rate than usual.

The paid discovery phase deserves a mention on its own. It turns the most dangerous quote, the one made with too little information, into two safer ones.

Mix them on purpose

Nothing says you must use one method for your whole business. A long-term client can be on a retainer while a new one starts with a small fixed project. What matters is that each client knows which unit they are buying, and that you do not switch halfway through a job because it started to hurt.

Let the invoice repeat the unit

A pricing choice only works if the paperwork matches it. A fixed project should show as milestones, not as invented hours. A retainer should say which month it covers. An hourly job should list the work behind the hours.

Saving your usual services as products with set prices makes this easier. In TickPaid you can keep them as saved products and services, add them to an invoice in a click, and the line items carry the same wording every time. That consistency quietly reinforces the unit you chose.

Test, then adjust

Treat your first choice as a hypothesis. After three or four projects, compare what each one paid per real day of work, including the unpaid calls and emails. Some will land far above your floor and some below. Look for the pattern: is it the type of client, the type of work, or the unit? Change one variable at a time.

You will also lose a few jobs on price. That is not proof you are too expensive. Someone will always charge less, and a few "no" answers are a sign that your price has an edge to it. Too many wins, on the other hand, usually mean you are leaving money on the table.

A short checklist before you quote

1. What is my floor per working day?
2. How well can I describe the finished work?
3. Who carries the risk if it takes longer, me or the client?
4. What is included, and what is billed extra?
5. Does my invoice use the same unit as my quote?

Answer these five and the number usually becomes the easy part.