A menu instead of a range
A client usually walks away not because of the price. They walk away because the offer was imprecise: it wasn't clear what exactly they were buying, or how the expensive option differs from the cheap one.
«From 150 to 400 thousand» sounds like hesitation. The client hears one thing in it: you can't name a number, so you probably haven't worked out the job either.
What to give instead
Give three or four options with parameters that can be counted. Not «basic / extended», but a set someone can check.
- S — a logo, three options to choose from.
- M — plus a visual concept, two options.
- L — plus mockups, up to five.
- XL — plus guidelines, up to fifty slides.
The parameters are countable: options, mockups, slides. Later you can argue about them on the merits, instead of «feels like not much work to me».
The gap between the simplest and the fullest option is at least two or three times. If S and XL differ by twenty percent, there is no choice: there is one price, written out four times for some reason.
How to price each option
A menu isn't three numbers picked out of the air. Every line is built the way any price is: hours times your rate.
1. Estimate the hours for each option separately. Not «what is this worth» but «how long will it take».
2. Multiply by your rate. No rate yet — work it out, otherwise the menu is the same guesswork in triplicate.
3. Check the spread. Less than two times between S and XL means you underpriced the top option or overpriced the bottom one.
Once the project starts, the hours land on it and you see whether the estimate held. After two or three projects the guess stops being a guess: you have your own numbers for every type of work.
When the budget is below every option
Cut the value, not the price. Easy to say, hard to do, and the only thing that works.
Take out what costs hours: one option instead of three, two mockups instead of five, no guidelines. The price falls together with the scope, and you stay on your rate.
If you keep the scope and simply take twenty percent off, you haven't given a discount. You've set yourself a new rate — lower than before, and backdated.
What it does to the numbers
A discount without cutting scope hits exactly one thing: the price of your hour. Same work, less money — the hour got cheaper.
Among the people who worked their rate out with us, the median gap between «what I charge now» and «what I need» is already about a third (37 people who gave both figures). A discount by eye stacks on top of that gap.
Next: the method: what an hour is made of, how to put a proposal together, all the guides.