Ask HN: How to convince my client to pay more?
I started working on landing page last week on fiverr. The task was to covert landing page design in html css with animation (mostly custom animation), and he told me if everything went well he would have more pages for me. He was a new client, so I charged $85 for this page with unlimited revisions. During the development there were a lot of things which weren't final from his side and I ended up working a lot with a lot of revisions/experiments for a single page. I even done some UX stuff which weren't in the scope of this gig, just to please him and gain his trust.
Fortunately, he likes my work and is very please with me. This page is completed now, and we are moving to other pages. But the problem is, I put a lot of effort in the page and now feel like I am being underpaid for the amount of work which I did.
How should I handle this situation and convince him to pay me more for the upcoming pages?
PS: I am from Pakistan and link to the landing page can be found http://bit.ly/2QrYKqE.
21 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 63.9 ms ] threadThen you offer to do subsequent pages at your working rate. Big smile (even over the phone), big enthusiasm. Your rate and revision policy are what they are going forward, but help the client envision how amazing the end result will be!
They may try to negotiate your new rate. Give yourself a little wiggle room so that you can accommodate a negotiation if necessary. If they flat out refuse, then take it as a learning experience and spend your time finding a new client.
The only thing that you can convince a potential client of is that you won't work for less than your proposed fee. It's hard to walk away from potential work, but more volume of money losing projects doesn't make up for the fact that they are money losing. And a client promising lots of money losing work isn't worth keeping as an active client.
That's not to say never take a money losing project. Big established organizations with ample budgets often have orbital rings of larger and larger projects. The minimum overhead of working with them makes small projects in the outer orbit produce small losses. But small projects are the route to the orbits with bigger projects with obvious profits.
Your new rate reflects a reduction in their risk since they know you can do the job.
To make a profit in any business, you need to charge a fair price. That is, deliver good work and know the value of what you provide. Subsidising other people's businesses is not healthy.
Unlimited is too much. Charge more and put some restrictions on the number of revisions.
Try to read whatever patio11 wrote about this. For example https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/consultin...
Maybe whay helps is to timebox the assignment: I will be available for fixes/etc for... a week, maybe two weeks ? Also, having a ticketing system might help you: it is very too easy to send an email from the phone to ask for new stuff and you need to track time anyway.
Try to separate price from hours worked. If you get better and faster, the same price per project gradually becomes a better hourly wage for you.
Clients don't necessarily know nor care how long it takes you. They care did the task get done.
You need to have some idea how long things take and some tolerance for things taking different amounts of time. Keep your pricing structure focused on tasks or projects.
Charging by the hour when you aren't their employee is always all kinds of headache and neither side is happy. The client ends up feeling overcharged because they can't track your hours and you end up feeling underpaid.
Charge per task. Get good at defining tasks in a way that makes you happy with the pay.
Expect to not always get it right. Be kind to yourself when you don't. View it as a learning opportunity. Do some analysis of what went wrong and what you need to do different.
Cheap clients are bad clients. If you charge more, you will be more respected. You will have more and better clients. And you'll make more money. :-) Price acts as a signal. Think about how you would buy something that you didn't know about, say wine; in the absence of other info, you would equate the higher price with a better product.
If you charge less initially ("until you get your funding, etc") when you charge full price the customer will not feel grateful at the deal you gave them. Instead, they will feel ripped off by your full price. Charge full price or work for free.
First of all, I have only completed 20 low budget tasks on my Fiverr profile. This client is from Netherlands and he is a developer himself. When he first approached me, my gig was priced at $40 for a single page. He gave me all the requirements and asked about the offer, after reviewing the requirements I bid $80 and explained to him why I was doubling the price.
I am guessing he was looking for a low budget freelancer already, and if I pitch too much for new tasks he might run away.
PS: I have 5 years’ experience in frontend. Previously working for a company and recently switched to full time freelancing.