Freelance artist how much

Remember this will be calculated for your Daily rate, so now we know the minimum rate to charge in order to be able to survive over the long run. Now your various rates should look something like this:. You now know what your minimum rate should be and can move forward with conversations with clients with much more confidence! Once again, I won't cover this approach in quite as much depth as by the time you're in a position to quote projects in this way, you'll have a good grip on how to charge for your time.

A top down approach focuses on how much the client is expecting or willing to pay. Take concept artist, Raphael Lacoste, as an example. His work is unmistakable, he has very recognizable style and always produces phenomenal work.

If the producers on a film or game were determined to have him create the concept art, they would have a high "willingness to pay" and so Raphael could charge a higher rate than normal. In the same way, once you gain some experience and reputation you will be begin to understand and find opportunities where you are able to charge a lot more for your time than just an hourly rate.

If a client is set on your art style, then you're able to charge a higher rate! In this circumstance you could consider going for a lump sum. Understanding how much more you're able to charge also comes with experience.

Certain types of projects have higher budgets and your experience will teach you where to be conservative and where to test new heights. As you continue through your years of experience, you need to be increasing your rate, but how do you know when to increase and, by how much?

I remember first-hand the disappointment of not getting a job I quoted on. It's not a fun experience unless you're inundated with work.

However, if you're constantly adjusting your prices - which you should be! There are only a few ways you can know how much you should charge and one is by increasing your rate until you have some clients saying "sorry, but we found someone cheaper".

When you're at this point, you know you're charging the right amount! You don't have any other work on at the moment and you're not going on holidays so, in this circumstance, drop your rate!

This is a basic lesson in Opportunity Cost. This is the lost opportunity - that is, what you forgo - if you take on this job. In the case above, we have nothing else planned, so accepting the work at a lower rate has a very low opportunity cost!

Perhaps the opportunity cost is forgoing a day at the beach, or a bike ride. Let's say you are currently working on a project from Monday to Friday and have no more time for another job but you are contacted by someone for another project. Well this is where you can increase your rate bigtime!

You should be open with the client and explain that you're currently very busy and, as such, your rate is higher than normal. After all, you're going to have to work extra hours and probably the weekend in order to make this work, so why shouldn't you be paid extra? In this way, I remember a time several years ago when I was required to do THREE jobs in one weekend, I ended up earning 4 times my normal daily rate because it was so important for the client to get the work done in that time frame.

When starting out, you have to take on projects you're not sure how to do. You'll never grow fast enough if you don't. You have to challenge yourself. When you're worried just ask yourself:. The answer to this is that you might have to tell the client you can't do the job and pay them back whatever they have paid you. It's not that bad really.

You'll be surprised how many people are happy to help artists who are stuck on a project, and this is a fantastic way of building relationships in the industry. We all have our fortes in art and we all run into roadblocks. Reach out to those around you and ask for help when you're stuck! When dealing with clients, I've found fantastic success in genuine, raw honesty. Their email reply said "no, absolutely charge for your time worked and please continue, these are great!

Freelancing is a tough gig. You're competing with people all around the world who are at different skill levels. There's room for the talented and the smart. How much money does a freelance artist make? What is a freelance artist's salary? I can tell you how much a particular house is worth , I can tell you how much it rained on a particular Tuesday , and I can tell you how much a particular freelance artist made in a particular year if you like.

On top of this, just because one artist earned a certain amount in a certain period means very little for all other freelance artists, and other time periods. This article is written for 2D artists working in the entertainment industry - fantasy and science fiction art work made for films, games, comic books etc. If you aren't targeting this niche, I'm sorry, I dont have the data, but this whole site is geared toward fantasy and sci-fi artists, since that's my expertise. The truth is, as a freelance artist your income will go up and down over time.

What you earn one day will be different the next; one week, one month, one year, different to the next. It fluctuates a lot, and you will not be able to entirely depend on it being stable. Your income will also probably trend upwards over time, though it may take a lot of personal effort on your part to make it happen. These are just guide figures, and meant as an indication of the kinds of rates you can expect. There are so many other things a freelancer has to take care of, both with your time and your money.

Obviously this is just a basic estimation, and it's still a nice amount of money, but it's much more realistic. The quality of your art work is a large factor in what kinds of work you'll have access to. No one is going to hand you that work, you have to earn it. Art directors want to hire artists who can do the job , they don't want to train you to be ready for the job.

They have a specific budget and a specific deadline - they just cannot afford to take risks on their artists, and risk blowing part of the budget or missing a deadline. If you want a particular level of work, get good enough to do equal to or better, and then get consistent at it.

Once an art director is confident you can do the art they need consistently, they won't feel like it's a risk to hire you. Another factor is speed - how fast you can produce art. Your work ethic also affects income. If you struggle to paint client work regularly, your pay cheque will reflect that.

Working on your productivity will pay dividends down the line. How much time you are able to work on your business.

Art and marketing both take time, so generally the more time you have for them, the more money you'll be able to make. If you ave lots of clients offering you work, you can be much pickier about what work you take on, and ultimately demand higher rates.

This time I quoted the project based on a predefined scope of the work included. I emphasized the end result of the project, and not the amount of time that I worked. The website took me roughly 5 hours to build. And this is the thing, the client walked away happy. They loved their new website. Shifting the focus of my freelancing away from the time I worked and toward the value I delivered changed everything.

It completely changed my income potential and how much I made. It was at this point onward that I realized that this was the proper way to go. I began pricing everything on project-based fees. Project-based fees helped increase my income while working far less time.

But the bigger question is: How do you come up with a price point for these projects? While moving toward project-based fees sounds beneficial, there is still the question of how much you should charge for a project. This is a challenging thing that many creatives mess up early on.

Often creatives set their project-based fees on a few misaligned criteria. To set project-based fees, many creatives estimate the time that they will spend. They look at the scope of a project, estimate the number of hours, and then multiply the hours by their hourly rate. They add a few extra hours for buffer and send over a quote. This is the wrong way to go. If you are going to do this then you might as well just bill the client hourly. Utilizing this method puts more risk on your end if the scope of the project begins to creep up.

While you never want to bid a project lower than the time it would take you, charging based on a time estimate is the wrong way to go. Another problem is that many creatives base their pricing off of what other people charge. They know that this person charges this much for a project, so they charge accordingly and match their rates to the market price. Neither of these methods of pricing do anything to help you make more money in the long run.

Both methods of pricing keep you stuck in the same grind of low pay for a lot of work. How do you come up with a price point that the client will buy and will increase your income? The truth is much simpler than you think. Yes — make it up! Make up your pricing for every client. There is no formula, no rules, and no perfect way to do it.

Instead, your pricing is made up based on a handful of criteria that I will explain in a moment. While there are some criteria to consider, it is important that you understand that there is no formula and are no rules to pricing.

This seems like a ridiculous way to base your pricing but it is one of the most important criteria. When a client comes along, you are letting that person into your life. You are going to be collaborating with and helping them for the next few months if not years of your life. Thus, how much you like a client is extremely important.

If a corporate client comes along, they may have a large budget for the project that does not look creatively stimulating. On the flipside, sometimes an artistic client comes along. Maybe they are a musician or a visual artist. Often I may take these projects on a lower rate for the creative enjoyment that comes from them. Other times, it comes down to the personality of the client. Sometimes clients can be picky or have a strong attention to detail.

If it is the kind of client that is going to be tweaking every little thing, then you need to base your pricing with that in mind. This one gets a bit tricky on the ethical side, but it is the most important criteria of all. The first prospect is Startup Sam.