Working as a freelancer isn’t easy. Despite the hard work, many professionals choose this route in order to escape the daily grind of working for an hourly wage. Why, then, do clients still insist that freelancers charge them by the hour?
You became a freelancer to get away from the mindset that each hour of your time is worth a certain number of dollars. So if you are still billing your clients an hourly wage, you may want to seriously consider shifting to value-based billing.
Robb Eng, a senior marketer and writer for Web Design Ledger, provides some valuable advice for freelance web designers, but his tips hold up for any freelancer who would like to get free from “the trap of trading hours for dollars.”
First, Eng describes some of the problems with billing by the hour – and if you’re already doing it, these should sound familiar to you. For starters, each job requires a number of different skillsets. Some parts of the job require intense concentration and all your years of experience and education. Other parts any amateur could do in their sleep.
Averaging these disparities out into an hourly wage is tricky – and billing different rates for different tasks is far too burdensome.
Besides being confusing and inconvenient, the biggest problem with hourly billing is that it causes the client to focus too much on how fast you can deliver the task, rather than how well.
That’s why it’s so important to shift the paradigm to one of “value-based billing.” As a freelancer, you must show the client the value of your services – in other words, how they will benefit the business. Eng gives an example of a website redesign that could increase profitability by $100,000. When you think about the total value your work will bring to the business, suddenly charging $10,000 or $20,000 looks like only a small fraction of the total value you are providing.
When you asked to be paid relative to the total value you are providing from the business, it changes your role from wage worker to co-collaborator.
Instead of stressing about the bottom line, you are working together with the client to maximize profit for both parties.
To convince hourly billers to switch to value-based billing, you may have to ask some questions. As much as possible, get an idea of the quantifiable goals of the project. How much will the project increase profit, lead generation, or conversions? Try to charge between 10 and 20 percent of the value you’ll be providing for the client.
Next, offer a few different price plans, because people love options. You can charge a flat rate for each service, a monthly or yearly rate for ongoing maintenance, or you can provide several tiers of services at different rates.
Of course, before you get to these steps you’ll need to find out if your client is open to value-based billing. If not, consider walking. If so, be sure to maintain positive relationships. Nothing adds value to a job like a trusting relationship.
