NOTES
I left my in-house job in 2021 and started taking projects on my own. I finished seven in the first year, and lost money on two of them. Looking back, none of the losses had anything to do with the design itself.
Price by deliverable, not by time
At first I quoted by the day, and clients always wanted to know what exactly I had done with that day. I switched to pricing by deliverable: this much for the logo and wordmark, this much for four packaging pieces, with each line spelling out what is and is not included. Clients can follow it, and I no longer have to defend my hours.
Write the number of revisions into the contract
“Until you’re happy” is the most dangerous sentence in freelancing. My contracts now say two rounds of revisions per stage, with anything beyond that billed hourly. I was embarrassed to say it out loud at first. Once I did, most clients seemed relieved, because they didn’t know when a project counts as finished either.
Get paid in three steps
Forty percent up front, thirty percent when the direction is approved, thirty percent on delivery. In my first year I skipped the deposit on one project and it took five months to get paid in full. I haven’t done it since.
Half the job isn’t design
Communication, gathering materials, waiting for feedback and chasing invoices took up about half my time. If you want to go independent, accept that early, and build it into your quote.
Save some time for your own work
“Small Ledger” was a side project I made in my spare time that year. It earned me nothing directly, but after clients saw it they were willing to believe I could ship a complete product, and two interface projects came in because of it.