Should I Price My Services at $495/mo or $995/mo

TL;DR Should I price my graphic design services at $499/month, but take projects that take a maximum of 30 minutes a day, or $995/month, but take projects thay take upto 60 minutes a day.

Without getting to much into detail, was wondering if someone can give me their advice or opinion. I'm in a process of starting a graphic design service, my model is based on a monthly fee. Part of me wants to charge $995/month. With that price point, clients get around 60 minutes of graphic design a day. Thay is roughly $33/day, which is way cheaper then hiring a part time or a full time graphic designer. They will receive quality design at great speeds. Problem being a higher price point (even though full time graphic designers start at $4000/month, and part time at $2000/month). Higher price point means less people are willing to try it and will be very price conscious and will most likely cancel the next month once everything is completed. Or hire me only on months when they really need graphic design.

Other side of it is making the price point at $499/month and only up to 30 minutes a day will be dedicated to each person. Since its only 30 minutes, design requests have to be small, and nothing complicated. Clients might not like it since it'll take longer to complete and will not sign-up for next month. However at $499/month, with only small requests allowed, they might keep me for every month since it doesn't break bank.

So I'm really struggling between $995 and good quality, happy clients but much less people will be interested. Or $499, where more people might be interested, but less time will be dedicated to each person, so no big projects can be done.

Will only be looking at these two models. Not interested in hourly pricing, or giving two price point options.

All advice welcome

Price it hourly so people pay how much they need 30$ / hour is fine

I'd go with the higher price point but be a bit more flexible with when you do the work. It will be tough to find clients that want exactly one hour of work each day, but plenty of clients would need 20 hours of design work a month. You might end up working harder on some days and less on others, but your offering will be more attractive to clients.

Azmovies said:

Price it hourly so people pay how much they need 30$ / hour is fine

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$30/hr isn't as an option like I've mentioned before. It is not worth it for me as I'm getting paid more now at my job. That is why the whole idea is you buy in bulk. If its hourly I'd have to charge $60/hr+ for it to be worth it for me.

Why would someone hire a graphic designer on a monthly retainer based on time instead of just paying per design when needed?

DaisyA said:

I'd go with the higher price point but be a bit more flexible with when you do the work. It will be tough to find clients that want exactly one hour of work each day, but plenty of clients would need 20 hours of design work a month. You might end up working harder on some days and less on others, but your offering will be more attractive to clients.

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So you think "$995 for 30 hours" sounds better then "$995/month" - My biggest issue with giving hours is that if someone gives me a project that will take 7 hours, but they only have 5 hours left, then what? Since I'm not going to charge per hour ill need to tell them "you need to pay me another $995" for me to complete it?

GringoMonkey said:

Why would someone hire a graphic designer on a monthly retainer based on time instead of just paying per design when needed?

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Companies that have daily graphic design tasks. For example one of my clients is a multivitamin company at $995/month, they need labels, brochures, sell sheets for new products, new business cards for new team members and social media graphics. A lot of it is template based because its editing a previous label, or business card. Charging per hour is not worth it because it doesn't require a lot of creativity, but just doing it. Which is why theu prefer a monthly fee. They can request unlimited tasks and requests and they won't get charged more.

Meanwhile, if it was hourly, id have to charge them a minimum of 1 hour even for the smallest of edits.

Hope that makes sense.

Noctur said:

Companies that have daily graphic design tasks. For example one of my clients is a multivitamin company at $995/month, they need labels, brochures, sell sheets for new products, new business cards for new team members and social media graphics. A lot of it is template based because its editing a previous label, or business card. Charging per hour is not worth it because it doesn't require a lot of creativity, but just doing it. Which is why theu prefer a monthly fee. They can request unlimited tasks and requests and they won't get charged more.

Meanwhile, if it was hourly, id have to charge them a minimum of 1 hour even for the smallest of edits.

Hope that makes sense.

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I dont think you thought your reply through...

They cannot actually get unlimited tasks, it is limited to x hours and x hours bears no resembelance to the tasks they need doing.

Like you actually said in another reply after my original question, what if it needs 7 hours instead of the 5 they have left, they have to pay for an extra 30 instead of 2!

Taking your multivitamin client as an example why dont you charge them x per label, brochure, etc, it is far clearer for your clients to understand.

So x for a project rather than x per hour that they have no idea how long it takes you to do.

Then internally you figure 1 label is 1 hour etc and so bill a project accordingly.

I dont know anyone who hires a freelance graphic designer by the hour, they have a budget per project.

Why not price based on budget or list both price options?

start with $499/month after getting a few clients to increase the price. Another thing you could do is give them options to choose between both packages and list benefits of both.

GringoMonkey said:

I dont think you thought your reply through...

They cannot actually get unlimited tasks, it is limited to x hours and x hours bears no resembelance to the tasks they need doing.

Like you actually said in another reply after my original question, what if it needs 7 hours instead of the 5 they have left, they have to pay for an extra 30 instead of 2!

Taking your multivitamin client as an example why dont you charge them x per label, brochure, etc, it is far clearer for your clients to understand.

So x for a project rather than x per hour that they have no idea how long it takes you to do.

Then internally you figure 1 label is 1 hour etc and so bill a project accordingly.

I dont know anyone who hires a freelance graphic designer by the hour, they have a budget per project.

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You got an excellent point! I think will do a bit more homework and see if its worth it. The REAL reason why I went with pay per month is because eventually I want to outsource my requests to Eastern Europe or Philippines where the hourly is lower and the quality is good but not great.

Its hard to explain, but a lot of

GringoMonkey said:

I dont think you thought your reply through...

They cannot actually get unlimited tasks, it is limited to x hours and x hours bears no resembelance to the tasks they need doing.

Like you actually said in another reply after my original question, what if it needs 7 hours instead of the 5 they have left, they have to pay for an extra 30 instead of 2!

Taking your multivitamin client as an example why dont you charge them x per label, brochure, etc, it is far clearer for your clients to understand.

So x for a project rather than x per hour that they have no idea how long it takes you to do.

Then internally you figure 1 label is 1 hour etc and so bill a project accordingly.

I dont know anyone who hires a freelance graphic designer by the hour, they have a budget per project.

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Okay, you have excellent questions, and I will reply back with full respect to you.

Here are my reasons why going per month in my opinion a better option for this case.

1. At $995/month, people are not expecting to win awards, this is targeted towards people who don't have an in-house graphic designer.
2. Charging $30/hour isn't worth it as I'm currently getting paid more in my current job, so I'll need to charge $60/hour to make it worth it.
3. At $60/hr people will expect award winning graphic desogn. My two strengths are corporate design and speed.
4. What if they have 20 minute projects every 2 days? I need to charge per hour, so 2-20 minute projects will cost $120, while a monthly fee would cost much less
5. End of the day, hourly is MUCH harder to charge. Imagine you are a multivitamin company and needs a label design. You email me and tell me "I need a label". Great! It could cost me 5 hours to make, or 15 hours. It depends on if you have the text ready, if you have the images ready, if you know what you want, or you don't. If you want to see mockups or you don't. What if you have a lot ot edits? Or want to change the font? That price will keep going up and up. So when you email me, I will tell you "at $60/hr, the label will cost between $240 and $800" that is a huge difference in price.

I hope that makes sense?

Or what about when you need social media posts that needs just 20 minutes a day? Do i charge an hour a day?

It just seems like there is a lot of back and forth and people will always try to get more hours for less money. Seems like so much headache just typing it out.

While if I tell you "$995 and request whayevee you like with unlimited revisions" seems like such an easy USP.

I understand what you want to do...

Your trying to get fixed income per month through subscription, unfortunately some businesses dont fit that model and graphic design is one of them.

The questions you raise are just what you need to do as part of your business.
Dealing with client briefs / specs is just how your business operates no matter what billing model you follow.

You really dont want to be working with clients who can call you on an ad hoc basis for 1x 20 minute social media post. The admin will be horrendous as it will take you longer to book that than do it! Instead you are better selling blocks of 30 social media posts.

Sell in project blocks that have sufficent value to you that it is worth booking and build in 1 revision. It is the only model that will work, as selling time will not.

Take into consideration you're competing with the rest of the world
I can get a logo for $25 made through 3-4 days, I don't care how long the person took, I just care about the delivery.
Instead you want to charge $150 (if I could pay per day, yet you want the minimum to be $500 and for the design to take even longer or $1000
for that and you already said you'll use cheap people so the quality WILL be comparable to what I can already get for a fraction of the price
Per month doesn't work for graphic design, charge per project and cross your fingers you get lucky and can up charge big clients.

GringoMonkey said:

I understand what you want to do...

Your trying to get fixed income per month through subscription, unfortunately some businesses dont fit that model and graphic design is one of them.

The questions you raise are just what you need to do as part of your business.
Dealing with client briefs / specs is just how your business operates no matter what billing model you follow.

You really dont want to be working with clients who can call you on an ad hoc basis for 1x 20 minute social media post. The admin will be horrendous as it will take you longer to book that than do it! Instead you are better selling blocks of 30 social media posts.

Sell in project blocks that have sufficent value to you that it is worth booking and build in 1 revision. It is the only model that will work, as selling time will not.

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Okay, I'm almost sold, however, my business model is copied fully from the most famous website on this called designpickle.com, last year they cleared $10M in profit, and made it to inc.5000 - Same business model as mine.

If you can somehow counter that (not that you have to, you already wrote more then I expected anyone to write) ill be considering to change that model to what you suggested.

PremiumAds said:

Take into consideration you're competing with the rest of the world
I can get a logo for $25 made through 3-4 days, I don't care how long the person took, I just care about the delivery.
Instead you want to charge $150 (if I could pay per day, yet you want the minimum to be $500 and for the design to take even longer or $1000
for that and you already said you'll use cheap people so the quality WILL be comparable to what I can already get for a fraction of the price
Per month doesn't work for graphic design, charge per project and cross your fingers you get lucky and can up charge big clients.

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As much as I want to agree with you, you are simply wrong here. Worked WITH MANY Design Agencies before. A simple logo can cost as much as $20,000 with the leg work being out sourced to low income countries.

Noctur said:

As much as I want to agree with you, you are simply wrong here. Worked WITH MANY Design Agencies before. A simple logo can cost as much as $20,000 with the leg work being out sourced to low income countries.

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I already mentioned, you can trick companies into paying a lot for something that cost you peanuts if you know to BS enough.
Best of luck with your business model then, while this company's who's model you're copying probable makes .000000000000001% of what the whole market of Graphic Design makes, they also charge much less than what you want to charge for basically owning a person full time, can your business offer unlimited revisions with 15 hours per month?

Most GFX designers I know, charge for the project ahead of time rather than per hour or per month.

Sure there are places you can pay monthly to get small projects completed for you, but the quality won't be the greatest.

It's a lot easier approaching someone, telling them your project, and getting a price. (Whether it's multiple small projects or a large one instead of a quota subscription)

Designpickle is not 1 guy, they have a team, who they will be paying bottom dollar to!

You cannot offer unlimited revisions. You are offering revisions, so long as it does not take more than 30 hours. Not the same, they are paying you for the revisions. Everyone can have unlimited revisions if they keep paying for them!

You cannot offer fast turnaround, as you are only offering 1 hour per day.

So as an individual freelancer you cannot copy that model.

Instead make it easy for you and your customers...

Bundle in project blocks that are worth your time, ie 30x social media posts.
Markup 20% for 1 free revision!
Markup another 20% for management
Offer a 20% discount if they book 3x blocks.
As a freelancer you typically spend 50% of your time looking for clients, you should factor that in as well.

Noctur said:

TL;DR Should I price my graphic design services at $499/month, but take projects that take a maximum of 30 minutes a day, or $995/month, but take projects thay take upto 60 minutes a day.

Without getting to much into detail, was wondering if someone can give me their advice or opinion. I'm in a process of starting a graphic design service, my model is based on a monthly fee. Part of me wants to charge $995/month. With that price point, clients get around 60 minutes of graphic design a day. Thay is roughly $33/day, which is way cheaper then hiring a part time or a full time graphic designer. They will receive quality design at great speeds. Problem being a higher price point (even though full time graphic designers start at $4000/month, and part time at $2000/month). Higher price point means less people are willing to try it and will be very price conscious and will most likely cancel the next month once everything is completed. Or hire me only on months when they really need graphic design.

Other side of it is making the price point at $499/month and only up to 30 minutes a day will be dedicated to each person. Since its only 30 minutes, design requests have to be small, and nothing complicated. Clients might not like it since it'll take longer to complete and will not sign-up for next month. However at $499/month, with only small requests allowed, they might keep me for every month since it doesn't break bank.

So I'm really struggling between $995 and good quality, happy clients but much less people will be interested. Or $499, where more people might be interested, but less time will be dedicated to each person, so no big projects can be done.

Will only be looking at these two models. Not interested in hourly pricing, or giving two price point options.

All advice welcome

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I will go for hourly, efforts should be paid well

I am too lazy now , but there are at least 10 services like this that charge a flat fee to get X amount of designs.

- Different tiers if you want 1 or 2 to be worked on at the same time

I think starting at $300 and they go up to $1k for more features etc.

So what you are thinking is really not unique and the way you word it will feel to be even less valuable to a buyer than these other services.