Charges per hour really mean nothing. I charge £45ph for artworking and £65ph for creative design. But I may do a job 5 times quicker than someone charging £20 per hour.
I tend to say to a client that it is better for them that I quote them for what they want and that way they know what they will be paying from the start.
A logo design is £150 - £500 for general business depending on what they are and what they want.
For this they get 3-4 concepts, then from this will get a couple more stages moving a logo onto a final design.
If your working freelance for a design firm, then I would say you need to speak to them and see what they would like to pay, and see if that is a figure your happy with. Then suggest that you do a couple of jobs for them and see how things go.
The alternative if for them to set a budget for the job and see if you want to do it.
I would say you should firstly quote for exactly what the client requests.
Insist on a purchase order before starting work. If the cost rises during the job for what ever reason, request an additional purchase order for this.
Once the client is happy, have them complete a sign off proof form.
New clients should pay upon delivery, state this from the outset. If they decline this, then wonder why??
Not many people will pay anything upfront if they are not known to you.
Don't be blinked by business, look at who you are working with, are they a small firm, likely to refuse payment? If so, is it worth doing any work for them.
Many times, you will be sourcing items such as print as part of the job, this is when you need to be careful, it is bad enough if you get taken for a ride on hours of design work, but if you have laid out on 5k of print, then you are very out of pocket.
I usually insist small firms pay upon reciept of artwork in person, no funds, no artwork. I have turned a client away and made them go to the bank and have a bankers draft made up because they arrived empty handed when they came to collect their artwork, when they new my terms for new clients.
If you deal with larger fimrs that will only pay on invoice, get an agreement on when they will pay, some are 30 days, others are 90 days!!!
Keep in mind that if they order 20k worth of print, and your printer expects payment in 30 days, you will have to find that 20k for 60 days!
In general, just tread carefully and don't get blindsided by a big order from a firm that is likely to fob you off in payment and leave you hurt in the wallet.
When I started out, because I was working in the day, I could only really do business at night, not great, but I started to deal with bars and pubs etc, the problem is trhat they are usually run by people who are lets say a little dodgy and did get my fingers burnt on 3 occassions.
The first just blanked us, and knew every loop hole, solicitors, court and baliffs did not get our money back.
The second went bump owing us 1.5k, he called us to say we should scrap the dept and he would sort us out when he could, we manged to get 500 off him and felt lucky at that.
The third was a pub, he was very hard to get hold of, but managed to get him to pay up eventually, when he called again for more work, we toid him his bridges had been burnt and to go elsewhere.
Another bit of advice would be, judge the client, they may want something simple doing, but they may be very fussy and reject endless concepts on a low paying job. It is hard to gauge if someone will be like this, but after a couple of attemps with no real progress, drop them like a stone and move on.
