3 pricing mistakes most designers make (and what to do instead)
Most designers find pricing really confusing.
They either massively undercharge for the work they do or just pluck numbers out of the air for their pricing, rather than spending time sitting down and thinking about their targets, how long project delivery really takes and what they need to be earning.
Pricing is a delicate balancing act between your clients feeling really excited to work with you while also making sure that you're charging what you are worth.
And because I get so many questions about this topic today I thought I would share some of the big mistakes that I see people make when they are pricing their design services plus what you should be doing instead.
The three big pricing mistakes
1: Undercharging
Undercharging is definitely the mistake I see most designers making.
The problem with undercharging is that although you think you are offering your services for a price that is enticing to clients, the way clients will see it (especially if you are significantly lower in price to others they have spoken with) is 'what is wrong with this designer?'.
I know when I'm looking to work with people I don't go for the cheapest person, I go for the person who is able to help me solve my problem - and to do that I look for the BEST person, not the cheapest.
In fact generally I'm put off by the cheapest person and would rather pay a little more to get the best person for the job.
By under charging you are actually making yourself look worse in the eyes of potential clients - not more enticing.
2: Lack of confidence
Undercharging is completely correlated with lack of confidence.
Lots of people under charge because they are scared that if they charge too much or raise their prices then people won't work with them and will take their business elsewhere.
But, as mentioned above, under charging can often backfire as clients don’t necessarily want to work with the cheapest designer they can find.
And if you do have a client who is looking for the cheapest designer they are often pretty awful clients (and unrewarding projects). This then means not only are you undercharging, you’re now also working with a difficult client or a boring project.
If you lack confidence here’s some tips:
💕 don’t compare your journey with others - they are on a different journey to you and may have been in business for a lot longer. You need to be comfortable with where you are now and accept you are on your own journey. Enjoy the process.
💕 but do compare your work with others - although you don’t want to compare your journey you must compare your work. Obsess over design and study as many projects as you can. Ask yourself:
What makes a design good or bad?
Why are your designs different?
What skills might you need to develop to improve your skills?
You may just find that your work stacks up well against other design work - which in itself will help you build confidence. But also be self-aware enough to know if your work is not as good and then seek out ways to improve (see below).
💕 build better systems in your business - e.g. set up proper onboarding for new clients and make the service you offer more professional (my business courses and templates for designers can help with all aspects of this). The more confident you are in your systems and processes the more confident your clients will be in you.
💕 know your weaknesses and work on them - sign up for short courses, seek out mentors, do further study, watch YouTube videos and read blogs. If you are worried about aspects of what you do it’s your responsibility to fix them.
💕 get feedback - ask clients about what it was like to work with you and then improve on your weaknesses
💕 know that almost everyone suffers from lack of confidence and imposter syndrome - even the most successful designers that you admire. So know that you aren’t alone!
💕 be honest - a lack of confidence can come from fear that someone will ask you something you don’t know the answer to. Your best approach is always honesty. Nobody has all the answers al the time and that’s completely fine. You won’t be seen as a ‘fraud’ if you don’t have a solution. What you do need, however, is to be willing to go and find out the answer via hard work and resourcefulness.
3: No strategic thinking around price
The final mistake I notice most often is how little strategic consideration most designers give to their pricing.
New designers tend to just pluck a number out of nowhere and start using this as the basis to sell their services.
Established designers tend to charge certain rates just because they've always done it that way rather than tracking the exact time it takes to deliver project work and then using that data to build proper pricing models for future projects.
If you do want to start being more strategic with your pricing then I have a course that helps with exactly this - The Pricing System for Designers. In the course we take a systematic approach to how you estimate and price your work and by the end you will have a system that will help you confidently estimate your revenue targets each month and put together a plan for how many clients this means you need to be finding and how much you need to charge them.
The solution - stop selling your time per hour and do this instead!
So those are the three big mistakes that I see designers regularly making when it comes to pricing.
So if any of them sound like you then here's some ideas for how to reframe your thinking.
Pricing is mostly about being confident in the value you are offering your clients.
And the way to think about value is to consider the cost that clients have if they DON'T work with you. There's lots of ways to quantify what this cost is.
For example if they don't work with you they:
❌ risk making large mistakes on expensive renovation projects
❌ can't get access to your trade discounts
❌ could end up with something that is poorly designed or not functional
❌ will spend lots of hours researching problems that you can solve in minutes
❌ will be more stressed during their renovation due to not really knowing whether they are doing it correctly or not
❌ won’t know if they are doing things correctly or not
So think about what the cost of the problem is that clients need help with and sell solutions to those problems (rather than your time per hour).
To do this think about the very best result you've got a client in the past and ask yourself:
What did they save in terms of time, energy, stress and money by working with you?
This is what you are selling.
Once you understand what the cost of NOT hiring you is then you'll become much more confident in your pricing, you'll have better words to use in your marketing and you'll stop pricing simply on deliverables.
Remember: you are selling solutions to problems, not hours of your time.
Courses and Templates for Designers and Architects
DO YOU WANT TO….
Improve your professionalism?
Find more clients?
Bring in more revenue?
Create better systems and processes?
Then check out my business courses and templates for designers and architects.
These courses and templates leave you with work done - not just a long list of things you need to do next. We have a really strong focus on taking action and getting things created that improve your business.
Enjoy the rest of your day!
Clare x
Dr Clare Le Roy
