While you can try to make the case that pricing is not a black and white area of discussion (i.e. pitching a low offer to get a big contract or offering a repeat customer a discount), any way I look at it, gouging customers is wrong. Then again, maybe that mattress full of dirty money makes it easier for you to sleep at night. From what I’ve read of the comments, you’re in the minority on this one for good reason.

To be honest, I would charge a similar rate as the guy who wants 500 words to drive traffic. I truly don’t feel right charging more for my work based on the circumstances you suggested. I have corporate clients, and they pay the same as the guy next door (or maybe a little more, yeah), because I need to sleep well at night knowing I did the right thing, not the lucrative thing.

Maybe I’ll get over it one day – there’s hope!

$200?

And no, I don’t define my self-worth by a dollar sign, only my work.

Consider yourself forgiven.

Laura threw out some figurative numbers, by the way, as did you. Don’t badger her for it.

She’s also been very respectful of your opinion. I suggest you do the same with her. You’ve made your point (strongly) so let it go.

When Laura said she charged a flat fee (which is actually no one’s business to know, so we should thank her for sharing), she clearly put focus on her time and what she does as being valuable.

She’s deciding how many hours go into a project, what goes into a project, who the product is for, etc. etc. That’s smart business.

Charging a ton of money just because seems, to me, to be the unethical route. If a client is going to make $200,000 of 10 words I write (and how do I know that? Can I see the future? Can you?), I don’t think I’d charge him more than the next guy who may only make $200.

To me, I prefer being fair to all without bias and feeling good about the decisions I make, not screwing people for the most money possible.

But that’s me.

Oh, and if value has to be defined in terms of dollars? Wow. I never realized that James, Laura, Jon, Jeffrey and all the people in the world have price tags stuck to their heads or else we’re worth nothing.

Forgive me if I decide not to join in on that theory with you.

It’s also not a matter of business model. The question here is what to charge for. Time or value. Way too much focus is placed on time as a factor or either fees or value.

If a project takes a long time to complete, and has little value to the client, then the question is why do the work?

If a project has tremendous value to the client, I charge accordingly – irrespctive of the time it takes to complete it. The fee placed on the value is always greater than any fee set based on the time it takes to complete a project.

The last point is measurement. Value has to be defined in terms of dollars and sense. If you can’t measure the value in dollar terms, then there is no value present.

From a marketing perspective – value is how you distinguish your business to the customer (but not necessarily the product).

From an accounting perspective however, the asset that you use to create that value is your time.

Of course, there are all different business models, and I really have no idea what yours is. This particular article is geared more towards a freelancer who works alone as an independent contractor – a model that fits many freelancers.

The equation changes somewhat if you decide to hire people, of course.

Thanks for the thought-provoking discussion.

B. I like it too. My clients like it also.

It’s always a good idea to re-evaluate our priorities. I’m not against doing things that one enjoys, but I don’t think that we should fool ourselves that something has business value when it really doesn’t.

Thanks for your comments.

However, I think you’re misunderstanding the point.

I never charge by the hour, but rather by the job. However, I always track the amount of time it takes me to do a job so that I can tell if it is profitable. And yes, I do make sure that I provide value with the work that I do – that’s a core business principle.

However, if I receive a lump sum of $400 for a project that takes me 40 hours, but has high value to the customer – it’s not actually worth my time to do. I can’t stay in business at that rate – even though the work may have had high value to the customer.

By the way, congrats on being able to charge $25,000 for five minutes of work.

The real product is value. If I have an idea that makes/saves my client $200,000 a year. I’m charging him $25,000, even if it only took me 5 minutes of listening to have the light bulb go on.