Latest / Freelance Careers with Fexingo: Independent Work, Consulting, and Self-Employment / How to Build a Freelance Pricing Toolkit
Transcript
- Lucas: So there's this freelance graphic designer I've been following — let's call her Jenna. A year ago she was charging $75 an hour for branding work, working fifty-hour weeks, still feeling squeezed. Luna: Sounds familiar. That's a lot of hours for not a lot of breathing room. Lucas: Right. She knew her number wasn't working but she had no system to figure out what to charge instead. So she built what I'd call a pricing toolkit — three numbers every freelancer should know cold. Luna: Three numbers? That's refreshing. Most advice is just 'charge more' with no how. Lucas: Exactly. The first number is your minimum viable rate. That's the absolute lowest hourly or project rate that covers your costs and basic profit. For Jenna, her minimum was $62 an hour — that's her business expenses, taxes, health insurance, a modest savings target, divided by her realistic billable hours. Luna: So she was charging $75, which is above that floor, but not by much. Thirteen bucks of cushion per hour isn't a lot. Lucas: It's not. And that leads to the second number: the market anchor. This is what other freelancers with similar skills and experience in her niche actually charge. Jenna surveyed ten peers — not by asking directly, but by looking at public proposals on Upwork, checking industry surveys from the Graphic Artists Guild, and talking to a couple of friends. Luna: And what did she find? Lucas: The median for mid-level branding work in her market was $110 an hour. So she was thirty-five dollars below the market anchor. That's either a signal she's undervaluing herself, or she's competing on price. She didn't want to compete on price. Luna: So number three is what? Lucas: The premium ceiling. That's the highest rate you can charge before clients start pushing back — and you find it through testing. Jenna decided to raise her rate to $105, right at the market anchor, for all new clients. But for her three best existing clients, she tested a premium rate of $125 for a specific type of project — the really strategic branding work, not just logo tweaks. Luna: How did she frame that without sounding greedy? Lucas: She was smart about it. She said something like, 'For this particular scope, I'm going to need to bring in a copywriter and do deeper audience research, so the rate reflects that added value.' She tied the higher number to a broader service. All three clients said yes. Luna: So she effectively raised her blended rate. That's a 40 percent jump from $75. Lucas: And here's the thing — she didn't lose a single client. In fact, one of the clients said they felt like they were finally getting the 'real Jenna' — someone who took their business seriously enough to price accordingly. Luna: That's such a good reframe. You're not charging more to be greedy — you're charging more because the value you deliver is higher. Lucas: And that's the core of the pricing toolkit. Know your floor, know the market, and know your ceiling by testing. You don't need a consultant to figure this out — it's three numbers, a spreadsheet, and a few conversations. Luna: I love that. And honestly, if this show has helped you think through a move like that — maybe you've used a framework we talked about to raise your own rate, or to negotiate a better contract — that's exactly why we keep doing it. Lucas: Yeah. And a quick honest thing — a handful of listeners already chip in monthly at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, and that's literally what funds making this many episodes. No ads, no sponsors, just people who find it useful. Luna: It keeps the whole thing independent. So if you've gotten value from episodes like this one, that's a way to keep it going. No pressure, just flagging it exists. Lucas: Alright. So back to the toolkit — Jenna also built a simple calculator for herself. She tracks three inputs: her monthly fixed costs, her target monthly income after taxes, and her realistic billable hours. Then she divides the sum of costs plus target income by the billable hours. That's her minimum viable rate. Luna: And she updates it quarterly? Lucas: Quarterly, yes. Because costs change, income targets change, and sometimes you realize you're spending more time on admin than you thought. Jenna found her billable hours were only 25 per week, not 30. That alone pushed her minimum rate up by about 12 dollars. Luna: Which explains why she felt squeezed. She was working 50 hours but only billing half of them. Lucas: Exactly. So the toolkit isn't just about setting a rate — it's about understanding your business math. Once she had that clarity, she felt confident raising her rates. She even started charging a premium for rush projects: time and a half for anything under a week. Luna: That's a classic agency move. Smart. Lucas: And clients didn't flinch because it was transparent. She'd say, 'Standard turnaround is two weeks. If you need it in three days, there's a 50 percent rush fee.' They either paid it or waited. Either way, she wasn't resentful. Luna: I think the biggest takeaway is that pricing is a system, not a guess. And you can build that system in an afternoon. Lucas: Totally. An afternoon and three numbers. If you're a freelancer listening and you don't know your minimum viable rate, that's your homework. Calculate it this week. It's the single most empowering thing you can do. Luna: And then test a premium on one client. Just one. See what happens. Lucas: Yeah. Worst case, they say no and you're back where you started. Best case, you're earning what you're worth. And that's a good place to be.