How to price a freelance project before sending a quote
A quote needs to make sense to the client and to the person who will do the work. Begin with the actual assignment and the week it will create.
Before choosing a price for freelance work, describe what the client needs to achieve, what you will deliver and how much of your time the assignment will use. Include the work around the delivery. Then consider whether the income and the resulting week fit the business you want to run.
You can use your previous work to examine those questions. Take an assignment you have finished and compare the original quote with what you actually did. Where did the work grow? Which parts needed you personally? What would you need to agree differently before doing it again?
Understand what the client wants to be able to do
A request for a workshop or a report leaves several questions open. What decision will follow the workshop? Who will use the report, and what will they use it for? Ask about those things while you still have time to shape the assignment.
Suppose a client asks for a workshop because their team cannot agree what to do next. A session that ends with an agreed decision is a different assignment from a presentation that gives them something to discuss later. Preparation and participation may differ, even when both sessions take the same amount of time.
Describe the result you can reasonably take responsibility for. The client may also need to make decisions or do work themselves. Put those responsibilities into the conversation before you promise a result. You can then discuss a price for an assignment you both understand.
Count the work around the delivery
Look back at the whole engagement. Preparing material, discussing it with the client and answering questions afterwards all use time. A meeting may also leave a gap in the day that you cannot use for another piece of work.
Your calendar can help you check an estimate. Compare the time you expected to spend with the time the assignment occupied. Include the tasks you did before the first meeting and after sending the final file. If you kept no record, acknowledge that the estimate is uncertain and note what you want to measure next time.
Consider what the assignment leaves you able to do elsewhere in the business. You may need room to find your next client or develop another service. Decide how much delivery you can take on while still doing that work.
Make the boundaries of the quote clear
A fixed project price needs a shared understanding of what is included. For the workshop example, you might agree the preparation, the session and a written account of the decisions. Helping the team carry out those decisions would then need its own discussion.
Work through a possible change with the client. If another team wants to join, or the question changes during preparation, what happens to the assignment? Agree how you will decide whether the existing quote still covers the work. Discussing this before you start gives you time to change the scope or decline the extra work.
Hourly work also needs boundaries. A client needs to understand what you expect to work on and when you will review the time involved. Choose a way of charging that you can explain, including how you will handle work you cannot estimate reliably.
Choose a price you can explain and live with
Return to the business you want to build. Does the assignment provide income that makes sense for the time it will occupy? Are you willing to give that part of your week to this work? Your answers may lead you to change the scope, propose a different way of working or decide the assignment does not fit.
The client's willingness to buy remains something you have to find out. Explain the assignment and the price, and give them room to respond. If they want a lower price, examine what could change in the work before offering the same commitment for less.
A declined quote leaves a question worth asking. Was the price the issue, or did the client need something different? A quote that is accepted also needs checking after delivery. Compare the agreed work with the actual time and the income you received, so the next decision uses what happened.
Bring an actual quote to the conversation
In my coaching for self-employed people, we can work with customers, offers, income and time. A quote you are considering, or an assignment you have already delivered, gives us something concrete to examine. We can look at where the work changed and what you want to agree next time.
The first conversation is 90 minutes and stands on its own. Afterwards, you receive a short written summary of what we agreed. I tell you the fee before we agree a time. We can meet online in English or Danish, or face to face in Copenhagen. English can be our shared working language wherever you run your business.
If you want to talk, write a few lines about your business and the pricing decision you are facing. You can also start on your own: choose one recent assignment and compare the quote with the work it required. Decide what you want the next quote to make clearer.