I tell clients the price is x. They say “too much”, and I say “what parts of the service do you want to remove to bring the price down..” ie: research hours, copyright limitations, iterations of design etc.. usually if they came in at 100, and I said 220, the happy medium is usually around 140-160 and everybody knows what’s being done.

My favourite though is: “How much for…” and the response is “Starts at.$X.” and a week later they return with “WTF.. You said you’d do it for $X!!”

In this post, I will highlight my methods and reasons for dealing with new clients, budget issues and the often tricky ‘how much will the logo cost me?‘ scenario.
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I can relate to everything you have said here, and I think as designers we have all come across clients who either have limited funds or are just too tight to pay for “too much of our services”.

Back to my quote; I supplied a client with a quotation, and he stated that it was outside his budged. However, I really, really wanted the do the project. Even if I designed for no money at all, I would enjoy doing it. So in this case, I informed the client it was a one-time deal.

Even though I slashed the quote down about 30%, I like to think of it as 70% payment and 30% promotion for my own blog and portfolio.

I wouldn’t treat all projects like this, and like you mentioned, designers are undervalued at times. I suppose it’s all down to personnel preference and frequency.

I like what you concluded with:

Remember self worth, both financially and otherwise.

If you keep this inmind, accepting projects at various price degrees is up to the businessman inside us designers. Keep up the good work :)

I can relate to everything you have said here, and I think as designers we have all come across clients who either have limited funds or are just too tight to pay for “too much of our services”.

Back to my quote; I supplied a client with a quotation, and he stated that it was outside his budged. However, I really, really wanted the do the project. Even if I designed for no money at all, I would enjoy doing it. So in this case, I informed the client it was a one-time deal.

Even though I slashed the quote down about 30%, I like to think of it as 70% payment and 30% promotion for my own blog and portfolio.

I wouldn’t treat all projects like this, and like you mentioned, designers are undervalued at times. I suppose it’s all down to personnel preference and frequency.

I like what you concluded with:
Remember self worth, both financially and otherwise.

If you keep this inmind, accepting projects at various price degrees is up to the businessman inside us designers. Keep up the good work :)