What do you charge as a Graphic Designer?

If there's one question I'm asked by designers more than any other, it's how to figure out what to charge for a project. We have several ways. We can look it up in the Graphic Artist Guild's Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines (PEG). We can charge the 'going rate'. Or we can make a good guess at what the client is willing to pay and charge that. There are others, but these are the typical methods.

The Guild's PEG is a good source and every designer should have a copy. You might find it a bit too general, though, in some areas. The 'going rate' is called that because if you're not careful with it, you're going out of business. Unless you happen to be clairvoyant, guessing what you think the client will pay is just plain bad business. The idea isn't to figure out what the client will spend. It's figuring out whether you can make any moolah on the project. [Read more]