One of the toughest challenges you have these days is learning to pay yourself what you’re worth and including that in your project fees.
You must set a fee for your design work time and your creative ability as well. Then you have to package all this in a way that’s attractive and clear to your potential client. One of the benchmark methods of fee calculation is the comparison of the design fee to the overall budget.
You know that you can’t bill 2.5 hours of time at $100 an hour ($250.00) to find a $246 wall sconce. It simply doesn’t make sense and your client isn’t going to pay it. The appropriate research time would be about 20 minutes or $33 for the specification.
By the same comparison, a living room with a budget of $40,000 is not a $1200 or 12 hour design fee. That fee is way too low; you would not have the time to complete the design.
The appropriate design fee for a $40,000 room budget is approximately $6,000.
If you divide that fee by $100 per hour (or your internal hourly rate) it’ll give you 60 hours to do the programming, meet with the client, complete the design and specifications and present the design to the client before moving on to purchasing. If you budget your time wisely you will have plenty of time to complete the project and more.
BIG TIP: I’ve found that 15% of the budget is a good place to start with your design fee. This is easy to sell to the client especially when you present it in relationship to the over all budget.
How to create a budget, with step-by-step instructions and examples of how to set your design fees so that you are well paid and your client is happy, and so much more is what I’m teaching at the 2015 Designing for Dollars LIVE at the Sheraton Four Seasons in Greensboro, NC April 16 – 18, 2015.
You’ll get templates, done-for-you scripts and so much more – you don’t want to miss it!
Discover more about 2015 Designing for Dollars LIVE HERE