Freelance Marketing Rate

SarahHoodjer · March 2011

Needing some help/advise.

I am starting a freelance marketing businesses on the side and I need to know what a good hourly rate is to charge. My niche is creating great looking pieces on a dime - therefore I feel I can't price myself too high. I am really good at what I do.

I don't want to be too low, but i also want to start to create a business so when I do have kids, I can stay home part time.

Advice welcome!

FrannyS · March 2011

Here's a couple of articles that might help. It's really geared towards IT consultants but it could have some useful info for you depending on what you want to do.

http://www.consultantjournal.com/blog/setting-consulting-fee-rates

http://www.forbes.com/2006/11/06/bostonconsulting-marsh-mckinsey-ent-fin-cx_mc_1106pricing.html

Julia_JJ · March 2011

I could point you to some resources, but they'd all say what I'm thinking - starting a business and making your selling point be "I'm cheap!" isn't the way to go. You're turning your services into a commodity and racing to the bottom of the market. If you're really good at what you do - why not pay yourself what you're worth?

kbkenn · March 2011

DH does marketing consulting on the side. He charges 1 or 2 ways depending on the client. He has been doing this for awhile, so he has a good sense of how much work it is on his end to do various things.

1. Hourly Rate. He took is salary at his real job/2080 to figure out what he makes per hour. He doubled that for his consulting clients, given his "real job" pays benefits, takes taxes out, etc. That came out to be a reasonable hourly rate.

2. He charges a % of the spend he is managing. He typically charges between 20-25% of the media spend as his management fee. So if someone is spending $10,000/week, that obviously is going to take a lot more work on his part versus someone spending $1,000/week.