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Billing Rates for Design

We are trying to determine whether our hourly billing rates are in alignment with the rest of the design world. Your input would be greatly appreciated.

What rates do you all charge for the following:

Design Art Direction Copywriting Production Retouching Account Service

Thanks,

Jonathan Gundlach

We charge a flat rate of $105 for everything. Rush charges are $125 an hour.

Mary Elisa Norment eCommerce Design

We charge $65 an hour for everything and will be upping that to $75 an hour in the next month or so. We are in a rural Walla Walla, Washington though so our operating costs are somewhat lower than in the city.

Lucia Mumm Full Circle! Marketing, Design & Printing

Design Print - $75-$100/hour WebSite - $150/hour Art Direction $150/hour Copywriting $150/hour Production $100/hour Retouching $75-$100/hour Account Service $75 - $250/hour

Please note that we are not a conventional ad agency; we do many types of business-to-business marketing programs, including direct mail, inbound and outbound telemarketing, web-based "e-response" and e-commerce programs, lead generation and database management, rebate programs, "spiff" programs, etc.

Mary Beth Harris Controller Interactive Marketing Group, Inc.

It depends where your design world is. In SF Bay Area we can bill $150/$200 per hour for any of those services as we use a blended rate. (Principal time is billed the same as a designer).

But - the industry is moving towards value pricing just like other professional service industries according to recent readings. We have been value pricing for over 5 years. Count hours only to watch margins.

Roxanne M. Cowan Director of Finance Rutherford Bolen Group

My accountant told me, when we first started using C&P 8.5 yrs ago, to first determine your cost per hour for each resource, formula is hrly + overhead = true cost per hr. Charge at least 3 times more than the cost, if you can. If not, then charge no less than 2 times cost rate per hr. As far as rush charges go. I take my usual pre-determined job template estimate total mark it up 25% and add that back to the estimate for rushing. I hope this helps. Good luck

Felica Sparks Office Manager Benton Newton & Partners Advertising

do you set rates based on "what the industry average is", and or "what the client will pay", or based on all of the above plus factoring-in actual overheads? (like salaries, equipment, etc etc)

peter

I assume these are flat rates?? Does anyone have separate rates based on the level of the person doing the work. (Senior designer vs Junior??)

Kathi Sheehan Coyne Communications

Value Pricing is a combination of "whatever the market will bare" & "whatever the client will pay" & "whatever the value of the piece is in the market it's being presented".

For instance: You are doing a brochure for a blue chip client. You know from experience that you can do this for $10K (costs + mark-up), BUT this brochure is going to be rolled out at new product seminar and will be used for all future marketing for the next 2 years. The value of that piece may now be $30K or better. (Price to client's flinch factor!!)

That's what I describe as value pricing.

Roxanne M. Cowan Director of Finance Rutherford Bolen Group