48. How much should I charge my clients?

Dean Dena provided us with this amazing amount of information.

Pricing is a hard nut to crack. There is a lot that goes into it.

  • Your location
  • Client location
  • Sales Platform on how you’re selling.
  • Copy: Does client give you copy OR do you have to create it. (Copy = storyboard)
  • Voiceover
  • Cost of voiceover or the time to record it
  • Images: Are high-resolution images provided by the client OR do you have to source them yourself
  • Logo: their logo/images: Clients have zero idea the labor that involved to clean up their crappy logo either they give you the wrong size small or large and small is really a pain point for me, or something else.
  • Let’s include all the back and forth emails and/calls on this design, due to their last minute; “Oh by the way, can you add this? I’m sure it will only take one minute to do”
  • Now the creation starts….editing, adding deleting, editing again and so on!
  • Then waiting for them to sign off on it so you can deliver it to them
  • Then the time for you to deliver it

As one can see, there is a lot (and I mean a lot) that goes into a good quality video design! One truly does not get how much time is involved in the production of a video. So, you need to take into consideration not only the above data, but other things as well.

Pricing = time + profit

So if you want to make say…..$500.00 on a 90 second video, do you truly know what all goes into it and then make a profit?

I know this much, I do not think in terms of per hour, but how much money could my client make if I create for them. Then figure out cost that way.

In conclusion:

If you can create a well crafted video that engages viewers and when the dust settles, your client has a positive ROI, then you should charge what YOUR worth. As the old saying goes, cheap breeds cheap.

In addition to Dean’s comments:

Let’s not forget the extreme lag for the Doodly software slow render times, as well as all the bugs, crashes and items not working as advertised in general. That is all time that goes into making the doodle for the client that must be accounted for somehow. This is not free time.