What to charge

[Jeremy Clark]

Hello,

I am looking for a general idea on what to charge for the following projects:

* 60 second web ad to promote a web site. Screen shots, voice over, music & video effects.. should take about two - three hours to produce.
* 60 second video ad which I shot & produced to be uploaded to a customer site. Post took about two hours.
* 1-hour video shoot of the customer at a speaking engagement (two cameras operated by me; one HD, the other SD).
* 1-hour voice recording session / interview between two people in my home studio. Post & Mastering will take about an hour.

I read a post where a general rule of thumb is $1000 per 60 minute for a web ad, $600 per 30 seconds, but there was no real conclusion. I realize rates are subject to experience & complexity of the project, but my thinking is to charge around $50 per hour. I'm an amature with few projects under my belt, but quickly improving.

Thanks
Jeremy
web.mac.com/fusionhd

[George Kroonder]

$50/hr is pretty low if you intend to do this commercially. You should factor in the cost for actually running this as a business.

As to how much you should or could charge, that's difficult to say. A rate of about twice what you were thinking sounds a lot better.

I'd charge an hourly rate plus expenses and equipment rental.

George/

[Jason Robinson]

Originally Posted by George Kroonder

$50/hr is pretty low if you intend to do this commercially. You should factor in the cost for actually running this as a business.As to how much you should or could charge, that's difficult to say. A rate of about twice what you were thinking sounds a lot better. I'd charge an hourly rate plus expenses and equipment rental.

Just because you might no think you are worth that much, doesn't mean you aren't worth that much. If you work for this client once at a very very low rate, then the next time the client will expect the same very very low rate. Either put a full rate on your invoice, and then discount it down as a "first time customer" discount, or something else.

Also, as a new operator / business it is EXTREMELY easy to forget about all the costs you incur to operate the business. It is also very easy to vastly underestimate the amount of hours you spent on the project.

Make sure you factor in your real costs. All that shooting sounds like at least 8 tapes to me. That is $32 just in tape. What about gas to go to all these shoots. Another $50 at least. Regarding time, how much driving time was there? How much time spent just working out shoot details. What about equipment insurance / liability insurance costs? Don't forget to take off 30% for taxes. If you are self employed or not working as a W-2 employee of someone else, then you need to be sending in quarterly Social Security payments (15.5% of after expense income).

There is a lot to running a business and the thing that kills most first timers is not planning for the costs of running a business.