Calculate Design Price Quote

Initial Design Fee: This is the number you calculated for the cost of providing design services to your Client using our design cost calculator, or it could also be any number you calculated yourself by your own experience or based on past work. Enter the inital design fee number first and indicate your initial price quote for design, we will then ask you a series of questions below to determine the final design price quote and all other steps depends on this number which we will use as base. This number should already include your markup. Enter number only, in Euro. If you do not know this number, use the Design Cost Calculator. Type only a number.

For each year, as default add .1 to multiplier. If you just started, indicate zero, but if you are an experienced designer working for a certain amount of years indicate that in the left, if you are doing the task for a long time, you will be doing it in less time, thus you need to ask either more fee per hour, or simply you could augment the overall fee you would be asking based on your experience to ensure that you do not get a penalty for your experience; i.e. if you design really fast due to your experience you could complete the same project in less time such as five (5) hours instead of twenty (20), and if you would ask the same hourly fee, you would get paid four (4) times less for the same work, the problem is that an amateur would get four (4) times more money then you if you work hourly, thus indicate your experience above, if your experience is high, you will get a good bonus. By default, the modifier is one (1), increasing your price one (1) percent for each year of experience and the years of experience by default is indicated as five (5) years.

The size of city in which you do business effects the costs, big cities means more costs for transportation, lodging, and anything else, furthermore the hourly fees will be higher in bigger cities, thus keep in mind that factor as well. If you have already indicated or calculated the cost for hourly fees at Section 1 of the Design Cost Calculator, you can choose Regular City even if you live in a big or small city to not to double calculate this. If you did not account for the city size initially when you were calculating design costs, choose your city size on the left, choose option Small City if your city is considered small in your country and choose Big City if your city is considered big, if your city is in top 3 cities in your country, choose Metropolis, after choosing an option you will notice that the modifier will be updated, you can modify this modifier if you wish. The default option is Regular City.

The country in which your Client resides, or in which you operate can effect both your costs as well as your price quotation for design. Clients in richer countries, also called the first world have higher income, and are more likely to pay higher fees, likewise when the country is poorer, also unfortunately called the third world, the Client budget is also substantially lower. Clients in developed countries usually ask more, they are better with contracts and agreements and they will demand more, while Clients in underdeveloped countries will want to have designs fast. Choose option Very Rich, if the Client is from a top 10 richest countries, choose option Rich if the Client is from between top 11 to 20 richest countries, choose option Normal if the Client is from a country that is neither rich nor poor, choose option Poor if the Client is from top 11 to top 20 poorest countries, and choose option Very Poor if the Client is from a top 10 poorest countries. Default option is Normal. Additionally, note that flat fee could be a better solution for poorer countries based on the fact that unfortunately, companies from poorer countries tend to avoid tax more and are in more risk and thus either you would not get money from royalty fees due to tax evasion by not indication of actual sales from which you are entitled to royalties, or the company would agree for licensing but not pay it due to force majeure or other problems.

The country in which you have your operations, where your office or work is placed, or in which you operate can effect both your costs as well as your price quotation for design. Design Companies and Studios in richer countries, will have to pay much more for hourly fees, when you are having a design company in the developed countries, your costs as a Designer will be higher as you would pay more tax, more social security and you would also pay higher salary for designers due to the higher salary rate. Likewise, Designers working in underdeveloped countries will have less design costs as the cost of living is less. Choose option Very Rich, if you as the Designer from one of top 10 richest countries, choose option Rich if you are from between top 11 to 20 richest countries, choose option Normal if you are from a country that is neither rich nor poor, choose option Poor if you are from top 11 to top 20 poorest countries, and choose option Very Poor if you are from a top 10 poorest countries. Default option is Normal. Furthermore, if when you were calculating the Design Costs, if you already indicated a higher or lower hourly rate, or if you had already considered these costs during your initial fee, simply choose the Normal option to avoid double accounting that could lead to overpricing or underestimation.

If you can sell your existing works to the client for which you have already made the investment, spend the money and paid the cost, you could as well make a discount to ensure you could get something out of this situation. If clients wants to get a very original work that is truly groundbreaking, he should be ready to pay more since you would also need to be ready to work more to ensure that the design significantly differentiates itself from the existing products in the market. Choose option Original if Client wants a completely original, new design, even different from your previous work. Choose option New if Client wants an original, new design, similar to your previous work. Choose option Existing if Client likes to acquire your existing work that was never sold to others. Choose option Resell if Client likes to acquire existing work that was sold to others. The default option is New.

The number of the extra proposals or concept designs the client wants to see, for each proposal more than three (3), indicate this as a number. So, in this section if client wants four (4) proposals, write one (1) calculated (4-3=1) to the first box, as you should already include up to three (3) proposals in your design contract and actually if you used our calculator, we already accounted for them in the Step 1 of Design Cost Calculator. Also, remember to indicate in your price quotation as well as design contract that the client should pay for any extra concepts that are not included in the agreement, by your hourly fee that you indicated originally in your design contract. The default is zero (0) extra concepts, meaning the client would have up to 3 concepts, meaning that the client would have up to three (3) extra concepts and any other additional concept is not included in the price and would be charged extra. The default modifier is thirty-three considering the initial cost account for three (3) concept, thus an additional extra concept would cost thirty three percent (33)% more effort on your behalf.

The number of the extra revisions the client wants to see, for each revisions more than tree (3), we will augment the price, however in your initial contract you should include up to three (3) revisions in most cases, therefore, in this section if client wants five (5) revisions, write two (2) calculated (5-3=2) to the first box, as we already accounted for up to three (3) revisions in the Step 1 of the Design Cost Calculator. Also, remember to indicate in your price quotation and contract that the client should pay for any extra revisions that are not included in the agreement, by your hourly fee that you indicated originally in your design agreement. The default is zero (0) extra revisions, meaning that the client would have up to three (3) revisions and any other revision is not included in the price and would be charged extra. The default modifier is thirty-three considering the initial cost account for three (3) revisions, thus an additional revision step would cost thirty three percent (33)% more effort on your behalf.

If the client is in a hurry, you might need to make your workforce stay overnight or pay over regular hours to complete the work, in which you might be naturally charged more than the regular fee, therefore, if the client requires his work to be rushed, you need to add to base costs the extra hour fees, also consider that you might lose business as you would need to focus on this rushing client and postponing others work. If the client is not rushing you, you could have more time to bargain or find cheaper solutions or take it easy, and thus it would be kind to offer a slight discount. Choose  option Rushed if Client needs this work completed very fast. Choose option Standard if Client is okay with your schedule. Choose option No Rush, if Client explicitly asks for a discount in return of slower than usual delivery. The default option is standard.

Your level of expertise effects how fast the work is completed as well as the overall quality. Since expertise increases speed, it decreases your income when the same hourly fee is applied, therefore at this section we add to your design cost the cost of having expertise. To be honest, if you just started design, your work will be most likely slow, and perhaps would offer less utility than the work of the professional. This means you would be working more than the professional and if you would charge by the hour, you would ask more money than the professional. To offset this phenomenon, you need to discount from base cost if you are a student or amateur, and likewise, if you are a professional, you could add to your base costs. Choose option Beginner if you are a student or a beginner, or if you did not yet graduate or if you have less than 1 year of design experience. Choose option Amateur if you are a fresh design graduate, or if you have less than 3 years of design experience. Choose option Young if you have more than three (3) years of paid design work experience. Choose option Professional if you have more than five (5) years of paid design work experience. Choose option Expert if you have more than ten (10) years of paid design work experience.

The level of fame effects the price because the clients would want to use your information to attract new prospects and buyers to their products and offerings, if you are famous or well-known you have more advertising value, and the client could co-brand the products with your name on it and thus you could add a premium to you pricing, if you are not known or if you are not famous, the client cannot use your name or image as an advertising element, however for a Client using a famous designer name is expected, for example the Client would at least would want to say that they worked with a good designer, known in their industry. Choose option Regular if you are not famous, and not known in your industry with few or zero published works. Choose option Named if you are almost famous and known in industry with perhaps a dozens of published works. Chose option Awarded if you are an award winner or famous designer, well known in industry with hundreds of work mentions. Choose option Famous if you are a multiple award winner, a world famous designer with thousands of features and press mentions. Choose option Celebrity, if you are known by designers as well as non-designers, with public appearances on multiple media every often. The default option is Named.

Not all design tasks are created equal, sometimes the project is very straightforward. In some projects your task is easy, thus you can do it really fast and efficient, you can as well discount these works to have economic leverage or competitive advantage over them, and in some cases the task will be hard, you might need to learn new software, tools or consult to third parties to have the task completed. If the task is easy, you can discount your price and if the task is hard, you should increase it. Choose option Very Easy if you know how to do it very fast. Choose option Easy if you know how to do it fast. Choose option Standard if you know how to do it but it will take time. Choose option Hard, if you know how to do it but it will take extra time. Choose option Very Hard, if you partially know how to do and it will take more extra time. Default option is Standard.

If you are very specialized on the task, you will finish it very fast, but for that reason you need to augment your costs slightly, first because you deliver fast, second because if both an amateur and you with years of professional experience take the job, the amateur would likely to finish in lets say five times more time, meaning the amateur would invoice five time the hourly fee, which penalize the experience and efficiency for fast work, to offset this, you need to augment hourly fee or base price based on your specialization experience. Furthermore, the more specialized you are, the more professional and correct your work will be and thus you could add a premium for your specialization. Choose option None if you have never done a task like this before, Choose option Novice if you have already done a task like this, but only once, Choose option Experienced if you have already done several tasks like that, but not that much. Choose option Master if you mostly do tasks like this, if this is one of your main services or tasks. Choose option Doctor if you only do tasks like this, if this is your core business or only specialization. Default option is Experienced.

If you are working for large clients, you need to ask more money because large clients ask for more work, more meetings, more discussions, more reviews, more professionalism, and they make sure that you follow their contracts, and they are ready to make your life miserable by making you pay for your small errors, for example rich clients will usually not hesitate to call you at their own convenience, even if it is midnight, so the large clients, and rich individuals will be more demanding, and thus you can ask more fees from them calculating in advance that there will be more work to do, more attention to be given. You also need to ask more from Governments and large clients as they usually pay late, thus you need to finance better with these clients. Unless you are into their cause very much, you do not need to make discounts for non-profits as non-profits make profits from donations and membership fees and the people who requests a design fee quotation from you is still getting a full salary, as well as his boss from the donations, so while they get their salaries in full, why would you need to make discounts for them.  Choose option Micro Business, if the Client is a really small company or family company. Choose option SME if the Client is a Small Medium Enterprise, you can check its definition online. Choose option Corporation if the Client is a large enterprise. Choose option Unicorn if the Client is a Billion Dollar Company. Choose option Government if the Client is a municipality, a ministry or government entity. Choose option Non-Profit, if the Client is a registered non-profit organization. Choose option Individual, if the Client is someone but not a company. Choose option Rich Individual, if the Client is a Rich Individual or if the Client is showing off too much. Choose option Very Rich Individual, if the Client is a Very Rich Individual that has a big budget. Default option is SME.

Basically, if the client is eager to pay the extras, you do not need to worry for Section 1, Step 3 – Extras, in any case you would not calculate the extras correctly (most designers calculate half of what the actual costs would be), but remember to include causes for extras in the terms and agreements that the clients would pay for extras. However if the client seems to be highly demanding, but not willing to pay for extras later, remember to ask more fees in advance in order to ensure the project is financially plausible. Choose option WDC for World Design Consortium style standard contract, in this contract type the Client agrees to pay all extra relevant costs related to this project. Including extra hours, communication, travel or any other costs incurred by you for the client up to a point as determined in the contract without any obligations, and afterward after a set budget point, the client agrees to pay extra costs by prior confirmation before costs are incurred. Choose option Limited Extras, if your Client agrees to pay extras up to a limit, after that limit will not pay any extras. Choose option No Extras, if your Client will not cover for your extras, in any case. If this is the case, better not to do any extra work for client and try to get every extra cost before incurring it. Default option is Limited Extras, however having a WDC contract is a clever idea.

Your interest in project is an important factor for design pricing, if you really like the project you can do a small discount but if you would hate yourself after taking the project and take the project just for its money, then you should also calculate the cost of psychological burden this task would have on you and reflect that in your price quotation. We think it is reasonable to ask twice the money if you do not wish to do the project since it would perhaps make sense economically, as the design business must be creative as well as sustainable. Choose option Not Interested if you will take the project for its money benefits. Choose option That’s my Job if you show a standard, professional level of interest. Choose option That’s my Dream if you have a very high level of personal interest. Default option is That’s my Job.

If the task is not going to bring you any benefits other than money and experience, that is actually pretty okay, even good, but if the project does not bring additional experience or publicity, it is perhaps a dull task that does not push your limits, for this dull task you could decide to request more hourly money, also considering the fact that you would complete the task in less time additional fees can be asked for boring tasks that bring nothing other than money. However if a task has economic externalities and additional benefits such as publicity, you might as well make a discount to your client. Choose option Nothing, if you expect nothing except the money, pick this option if you will not even put this work to your portfolio. Choose option Experience if you expect money, and experience and if you will add the work to your portfolio. Choose option Publicity if you expect both money and publicity and if you will add the work to your portfolio. Choose option Greatness if you expect money, great experience, fame and publicity and if you will definitely add the work as a master piece in your portfolio and promote it. Default option is Experience. For example, when you work for large clients, you charge more, but you could also expect greatness for the fact that it could create a lot of publicity and fame.

You can make a discount to those who pay in advance since that would reduce your risk factor by getting the project financed in advance. The discount could depend on amount of upfront payment. In design industry usually the 40% is considered the professionally correct number, while also 50 percent is also a very very popular choice. If the client does not want to pay any deposit, try to avoid them, they are most likely not going to pay any money in any case. The only exception is for very large clients such as big corporations, they usually pay in 30 days, or end of their accounting terms etc. Governments also tend to pay later as well as some repeat customers that you might have. Default option is 50, indicating 50 percent being paid in advance. For this field, enter any number between 0 to 100, and in some very rare cases, the client could actually pay more than 100 percent in advance such as for cases where some extra costs would be anticipated in advance. Type only a number to the first box, usually between 0 to 100 indicating the upfront payment or advance payment percentage. This modifier is multiplied by upfront payment rate and divided by ten to calculate a discount percentage, so that 50 percent upfront rate would provide 5 percent discount and 100 percent upfront would provide 10 percent discount.

Many clients would prefer to pay a single payment and get over with the project, without making any payments in future, but in some cases this does not make sense, and in other cases the client would ask to get a discount in return for paying royalties or the industry could require you to have licensing fees. It is generally not common to have both licensing fees and royalties. In practice, you could cut your cost 50% if the client would agree to pay you royalties, only and only if the client is credible, many clients, especially small ones, in order to avoid tax could decide not to declare their legal sales number from which you might be entitled to get royalties, in this case it is better to request a bulk, flat fee payment instead. However if the client is trustable, it makes sense to make a discount in return of royalties, the discount is up to you. Choose option Flat Fee if the Client will only make a one time, bulk payment. Choose option Royalty if the Client will also pay royalty payments. Choose option License if the Client will also pay licensing fees. Choose option Jackpot if the Client will also pay licensing fees and royalties. Default option is Flat Fee.

Some Clients will require you to sign confidentiality agreements which is common, however others can make you sign some agreements that could really affect your future business, in some cases even lock or prevent you doing any work, beware of Non-Compete and Non-Solicitation agreements, that could have serious negative impact on your business. Choose Non-Disclosure, if the Client asks you to sign a confidentiality agreement and in case you will not be able to add this work to your portfolio or let anyone know about it. Choose Non-Solicitation, if the Client asks you to agree not to solicit the Clients’ customers for your own benefit or for the benefit of a competitor, you cannot for example produce a product similar to your client and sell it to the Clients’ customers or you cannot hire workers of Client etc. Choose Non-Compete, if Client indicates in terms that you will not be able to make similar work for competitors, effectively limiting the scope of your future design services clientele. Choose NC+ND for Non-Compete and Non-Disclosure, Choose NC+NS for Non-Compete and Non-Solicitation, Choose ND+NS for Non-Disclosure and Non-Solicitation and Choose option ND+NS+NC if the Client requires you to sign Non-Disclosure, Non-Solicitation and Non-Compete clauses. Choose option Freedom if you can use the work in your public portfolio, if you can produce similar products or provide similar services for competitors and if you could also potentially sell these services the contacts or clients of the Client. By Default, the option is Freedom.

The number displayed on the left is the modified design fee, it is based on your initial design cost that you calculate using the design fee calculator or that you provided yourself. It takes into consideration many factors to arrive at a price quote that reflects the nature of the agreement, economic conditions, client, the scope of work as well as your experience. It can help you get an idea to whether ask more or less for a job, but rely on your own experience in any case. You do not need to press a button to have this number updated, everytime you make a change in modifiers or selections above, the sum is automatically updated.