⚖️ Money · E-book
What Your Work Is Worth
Setting, raising and defending your rates as a freelancer
What Your Work Is Worth
Setting, raising and defending your rates as a freelancer
Your name
A4 · this is a layout preview in the “Noir” design. When you generate, the studio writes every chapter in full, paints the cover and chapter art, and composes a downloadable A4 PDF with your name, bio and store link on it.
Most freelancers do not have a pricing problem. They have a deciding problem: a number gets asked for on a call, something plausible comes out of their mouth, and they live with it for a year. This book replaces that moment with a process you can repeat, explain and change.
What's inside
- 1The Hour Is a Poor UnitLooks at what actually happens when you sell time: experience lowers your income, speed is punished, and the client never wanted hours in the first place. By the end you can name what you are really selling in each of your current engagements.
- 2Your Floor, Worked Out ProperlyBuilds the lowest number you can accept from real inputs: annual costs, unpaid admin, holiday, illness, quiet months and tax. You finish with a floor rate written down and a note of how many billable hours a week you honestly have.
- 3Reading Value From the Other SideTeaches you to ask what the work is worth to the buyer rather than what it costs you to make, using questions you can put in a discovery call without sounding like a salesperson. You will leave with a short list of value questions you can use this week.
- 4Three Models and When Each FitsCompares hourly, fixed-scope and value-based pricing honestly, including the situations where hourly is the safest choice for both sides. You will be able to match each type of work you take to the model that suits it.
- 5Putting the Number on PaperCovers how the price is presented: two or three options rather than one, what sits above and below the figure, and how to describe scope so the number reads as reasonable. You will end with a reusable pricing page for your proposals.
- 6Raising Prices on Existing ClientsHandles the hardest conversation in freelancing: telling people who already pay you that the number is changing, with notice periods, wording and what to do if they say no. You will have a dated plan for each current client.
- 7Discounts, Haggling and Walking AwaySets out when a discount is a legitimate trade and when it is a slow leak, and gives you language for holding a price without hostility. You finish with your own rules for what you will trade and what you will not.
A sample from chapter one
The hour is a poor unit
An hour is a unit of your life, not a unit of the client's result. When you sell hours you are paid more for being slow and less for being practised, so every year of skill quietly reduces your income. The client is not buying time either. They are buying a site that loads, a report that lands on the right desk, a backlog that finally clears.
This does not make hourly rates wrong. They suit open-ended work where nobody can see the far end, and they protect you when a brief keeps moving. What matters is knowing which unit you are selling and choosing it on purpose, rather than defaulting to whichever one your invoice template happened to have in it when you started.
- Log two ordinary weeks in fifteen-minute blocks; the gap between calendar hours and billable hours is where most under-pricing hides.
- Write down annual costs, holiday, sick days and quiet months before you divide anything by anything.
- Ask each prospect what changes for them if the work goes well, then what happens if it never gets done at all.
- Keep two rate cards, one for scoped projects and one for open-ended support, so you never quote the wrong shape of work.
Key takeaways
- Your floor is a calculation, not a feeling, and it should be written down where you can see it during a call.
- The pricing model is a decision about risk, and whoever carries more of it should be paid for carrying it.
- A price you cannot explain in two sentences is a price you will discount under pressure.
The studio writes every chapter from this outline, paints the art and hands you a PDF you can sell the same afternoon.
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