Pricing their work is probably the hardest of business when you’re a freelancer. Even though some freelancers offer bundle packs, the rest would have to negotiate their prices for all the new business that heads their way. It really depends on the time you’ll spend on the project is the trickiest thing, but it’s even trickier when trying to seal the deal and getting the price you want.

By the hand of God most freelancers are not sellers, but it’s one more thing they have to do as a freelancer. Sure, the more people that want your work the better it’ll be, and the anxiety of bringing in more business goes away. But the fact remains, freelancers position themselves to lose if they don’t do something about it.

In this post, we’ll go over the stuff you can use when you’re experiencing a moment when a potential client thinks twice about the price. I know there’s a minority out there who expect to receive near god-like work at very humble prices, most are willing to pay more and breaking all of your services will help you seal the deal.

Be respectfully flexible

There will come a time when its reasonably ok to accept a slight price drop after talking with your client to keep the business going. On the other hand, you shouldn’t accept a lower pay just because the client barks about the rates, nor would it be a good idea to keep doing the same thing for less.
If you accept the client’s demands for less pay, you’ll be in a tricky situation as you continue to work with them. Instead of letting them take control, meet in the middle to keep everything going within their budget and shorten the amount of time that is asked from you.

Be detailed

Instead of giving your client the usual quote that covers the total price and a couple of bullet points about what they’re getting, take a bit further and detail the entire process piece-by-piece. Don’t give them the total amount right from the start, but with some clarification that explains the value of work for your price, the price that’s doable for the client.

Talk about the overall process of the work as you go through each stage. This would be a perfect time to go over your routines to paint a better picture of what you’ll be doing. If the project involves wireframming, coding, or whatever your game is, be as detailed as possible to know how much of your time you’ll have for the site and naturally agreeing to an order for X amount of dollars.

As we continue, you can batch up the work for designing, scripting, writing, and testing. The goal now is to document everything, with a time spent and dollar amount value. This will help you be a better judge at what’s acceptable and how much you spend on certain things that factor in with the project total.

Talk about the risks

It doesn’t matter if you have several clients or just one, if a client complains about your price you should explain the pitfalls of going with a cheaper competitor. When your clients don’t know the ins and outs of the web design or the industry in general they have assumptions about what they should get in return for the price.

Will that other designer go the extra marathon to meet the criteria of the client and its visitors? Will they create an e-commerce system that’s confusing? Will they continue to offer their help on a daily basis when needed?

Explain your services

Potential clients love to shop around for that one designer. The thing about this is that it doesn’t really help at all. To steer your client in your favor with your offer, be sure you cover everything you’re willing to do. Will your work include icon design? Will you be building themes from the ground up? What about adding adsense, analytics, backups, plugins, and settings?

When you factor in all of the above with your offer it helps the client see the bigger picture, and there is more bang for their buck. Even if your client still shops around and compares it to the rest that didn’t take as far as you, yours will be detailed and straight-to-the-point.

Package deals

I’d say the best way to combat project prices is to offer a tiered service plan that clients can choose based on their budgets. Even if they don’t have enough funds to pay for your standard rates, they can always buy your low level alternative that doesn’t include as much but still keeps them with you.

Allowing your clients to choose from bundled deals might not work 100% of the time, but in 99% of the situations, it’s a smart move. For example, your lowered rates cover only customizing current themes instead of building one from scratch.

Giving people options puts you in the driver’s seat of what they want, and lowers the odds of them not working with you and moving onto a cheaper competitor.