Latest / Freelance Careers with Fexingo: Independent Work, Consulting, and Self-Employment / How Freelancers Charge Per Project Not Per Hour
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've spent over a hundred episodes talking about pricing, mostly from the angle of raising your rates. But there's a bigger structural shift a lot of freelancers miss — moving from hourly billing to project-based pricing. Luna: Right, because hourly really does cap your income. You only have so many hours in a day. Lucas: Exactly. And it creates a perverse incentive — the slower you work, the more you earn. That's not great for you or your client. So today I want to walk through a real case. A freelance graphic designer, let's call her Maya. She was charging seventy-five dollars an hour for logo and brand identity work. She'd spend about forty hours on a typical project, so her fee was around three thousand dollars. Luna: That's the same number she could charge as a flat fee? But without the clock-watching. Lucas: Exactly. And that's what she did. She switched to a flat three-thousand-dollar fee for a brand identity package. But here's the key — she defined the package tightly. Two logo concepts, one round of revisions, a style guide, and source files. Anything beyond that, additional fee. Luna: So she scoped it carefully. That's the part most freelancers mess up — they quote a flat fee but then the client asks for 'just one more tweak' and suddenly it's fifty hours of work. Lucas: Yeah, scope creep is the biggest risk with project pricing. But Maya built in a buffer. She estimated she'd spend about thirty hours on average, so her effective hourly rate went from seventy-five to about a hundred dollars. But actually, as she got faster, she could finish in twenty-five hours, and then her rate was a hundred and twenty. Luna: So the incentive flips. Now she's rewarded for efficiency, not for dragging things out. Lucas: Exactly. And clients love it. They know the price upfront. No surprise invoices. It's a trust-building move. Maya found that her close rate on proposals went up by about thirty percent after she switched to flat fees. Luna: Interesting. But what about the risk of underpricing? If she underestimates the time, she's the one who eats the cost. Lucas: That's the trade-off. To manage it, she started tracking her time on every project even though she wasn't billing by the hour. After six projects, she had data. She found that complex projects — say a full rebrand with multiple stakeholders — took her closer to forty hours, while simple ones took twenty. So she created two tiers. Simple brand identity: twenty-five hundred. Complex: thirty-five hundred. Luna: That's smart. She used her own data to create a price anchor. So she wasn't guessing anymore. Lucas: Right. And she started including a clause in her contract: one round of revisions included. Additional rounds billed at a hundred and fifty dollars per hour. That way, if the client wanted to iterate endlessly, she still got paid for her time. Luna: That's a good incentive alignment too. It makes the client think twice before asking for the fifteenth tweak to the logo. Lucas: Exactly. So Maya's revenue doubled over the next year. She wasn't working more hours — she was just pricing smarter. And she told me the biggest psychological shift was feeling like a partner, not a vendor. Clients treated her differently when they saw a fixed price for a defined outcome. Luna: So it's not just about the money. It's about repositioning yourself as an expert who delivers a product, not just time. Lucas: Yeah. And there's a second layer here. Once she had her flat-fee packages, she could also offer add-ons. Like, for an extra five hundred dollars, she'd create a social media kit with profile pictures and cover images. That's fifty percent margin on almost no additional time. Luna: That's basically a upsell. And clients who already trust you from the main project are more likely to say yes. Lucas: Exactly. So if you're listening and you're still billing by the hour, the first step is to gather data. Track your time on your next three projects. Then calculate what flat fee would give you at least the same effective hourly rate, but with a buffer for scope creep. Then define your deliverables clearly. Luna: And communicate the value, not the hours. Tell the client: 'You're paying for a brand identity that will be used for years, not for the forty hours I spend.' Lucas: That's the pitch. And it works. Maya said one client literally told her, 'I'd rather pay three thousand dollars and know the price than wonder if the bill will be twenty-five hundred or four thousand.' Luna: Certainty is valuable. So by charging a flat fee, you're selling certainty. Lucas: Right. And that's a premium you can command. Now, I want to be honest — project pricing isn't for every type of freelance work. If you're doing ongoing maintenance or support, a retainer might make more sense. But for any project with a clear start and end, like a website, a logo, a marketing campaign, flat fee is usually better. Luna: What about consulting? Strategy work? That can be pretty open-ended. Lucas: Good question. For consulting, you can still use a hybrid. Structure the engagement as a flat fee for a defined phase — say, a three-month strategy development. With specific deliverables: a market analysis, a growth plan, and a presentation. That way, the client sees value, you manage scope, and everyone's happy. Luna: So the principle is the same. Package the work into a defined outcome. Lucas: Exactly. And if you're worried about leaving money on the table, remember that you can always raise your flat fee over time as you get better and faster. Maya now charges five thousand for the same brand identity package she used to charge three thousand for. And her clients still think it's a bargain. Luna: Because the value she delivers has gone up. Her portfolio is stronger, her process is smoother, and her reputation is better. So the price follows. Lucas: Yeah. And that's the beauty of project pricing. It decouples your income from your hours. You can earn more without working more. And that's the whole goal, right? Luna: If today's episode helped you think about your own pricing, honestly, if it was worth a coffee to you, there's a link — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's how we keep this show ad-free and focused on practical stuff like this. Lucas: Yeah, listener support really makes a difference. So if you've gotten value from the show over these hundred-plus episodes, that's the place. And if not, no worries — we're glad you're here anyway. Luna: Alright, so to wrap up: if you're hourly, try project pricing on your next gig. Start with a small project, scope it tightly, and see how it feels. Lucas: And track your time anyway, so you can adjust your flat fee based on real data. That's the safety net. Maya's story shows it works. Give it a shot.