Author Rates ... Essential Resources

Stormycub posted the following on another thread:

Perhaps VH should add a thread similar to Essential Resources for Authors about what designers should expect for their projects, daily rates for motionographers etc within countries who make the most purchases, like the US. There’s probably a lot of authors on here who don’t really know what their services cost, or how undercutting rates can damage their careers longterm, particularly when clients have great memories when it comes to what you charged them last time! It would also obviously help make sure no one is ripped off. Just a thought anyways….

This is a very good thought. What do authors feel about this? Rates vary hugely from place to place and of course depending on your skills. Would it be helpful to authors to have this kind of information available – and would we be prepared to reveal our freelance day rates / customization charges?

How could we organize it to make the information meaningful?

• years of experience
• area worked in (film / TV / advertising / internet / marketing)
• country of residence
• skills (i.e. AE / 3d Max / Cinema 4D / Maya / Nuke etc.)
• Day rate

Undercutting isn’t good for anyone long term – not even clients, but it’s hard to know exactly what your skills are worth… particularly when you’re starting out.

Actually, there is already a motion graphic design census linked in the Essential Resources thread with lots of this kind of information in there.

-f.

Felt sorry but I will have to slightly go offtopic. The other day I was thinking to do little freelancing like I did couple of years ago. And I found an offer where guy wants from designers to customise ae templates, and his budget per one customisation is $5. So, ofcourse I thought he was pretty insane and he was like explaining it was good deal, it’s a matter of minutes to customise one template, bla bla bla. I was positive there was no one applied, and scrolled down and saw 7 people applied with average rate of $7. And other project’s which budget is not above $100, project’s which would be made from scratch. Then I went to other freelancing site, and ever worse situation. But what are people doing? They apply for the job, try to find suitable template here on VH, or other stock site and lower the price as possible. And that’s going on for years and now people are not willing to pay more than $100 for project. Pretty crazy. But ofcourse, there are exceptions, for serious folks who know what they are doing.

I’d say to those folks who go for that…. You get what you pay for.

There are customers who are totally happy for some guy with a hooky copy of AE, zero design skills and even less technical understanding to toss their logo into a template without a thought for placement and press render, then slam it out at default compression with lots of lovely banding and the wrong gamma setting and upload it for them. If they’re happy with that level of quality then bully for them. But to be honest, they could do that themselves with the AE demo in 5 minutes.

These people are being paid $5 for “owning” a copy of After Effects and knowing how to press render. They will probably never work for a serious client.

Get paid for design and ideas, not for button pressing or mouse pushing. Don’t let these chancers effect how you price your own services. You know what you’re worth to your clients and why. Leave the 5 buck logo rubbish to these guys and concentrate on building up a base of good ideas, a refined sensibility for design and movement, a solid portfolio and a client base that understands what good design and high quality execution is worth.

-f.

Yes, well said.

Like you said Felt, no serious job or client would expect to take on a proper designer for that kind of money, and would probably be embarrassed to even ask a junior or intern. $100 for a project, seriously? More fool those who would even consider such an insulting offer. It’s like designers are pigeon-holed into a completely different category when it comes to rates and payment to everyone else. I still don’t understand why clients expect us to pitch/storyboard for free, you wouldn’t ask several plumbers to come round and demonstrate who’s best at fixing your sink before offering one of them the job!

Hopefully folks will get a chance to read these kind of threads more often though and understand that accepting such stupidly low rates only hurts them and the industry in the long run…

Anyway, goodbye exclusively great West ‘industry guild rates’... We are in the new global pretty under-priced reality of pretty fine Chinese goods, pretty keen Indian freelancers, pretty nice Envato templates, pretty professional Apple applications, etc, etc, etc… all interconnected… General turnover motto: pretty low prices > pretty big money…

$5 lol
I want new i7 cpu for $20. Where I can buy it?
Nowhere of course, maybe only stolen stuff.

It’s bad enough that we only charge upwards of $35 for an After Effects project here. Clients (or customers) don’t seem to realize that they’re paying a fraction of the price for an AE project that would normally cost upwards of $5,000.

So, as the old saying goes: “Give a mouse a cookie, and he’ll ask you for a glass of milk.”

Sometimes, customers aren’t aware of the insane bargain these projects are, and think the customization should cost less than what they paid for the template. What they don’t realize, is they’re requiring real human hours when asking for template customization, and that’s where we authors have to be careful and stand up for what we’re worth.

No matter where you are in the world, I would imagine $15-$20/hour should be the rock bottom rate for a motion graphics designer with 2+ years experience.

Don’t sell yourself short! DO NOT perform customizations for next to nothing! Your time and experience is a valuable commodity, and as mentioned above, you will undermine your own career by charging extremely low prices for customizations.

I realize that some of the authors here just want the work or experience and don’t care about what they’re getting paid. Some authors just have trouble saying “No” to customers, especially if they’re short on cash and just need a small job to get them some gas (or petrol, depending on your global location!) money.

Just think of it this way… After Effects and motion design is your career and livelihood. You’re not running errands for your Auntie. Don’t equate your rates to mowing your grandmother’s lawn.

It’s been said millions of times, but set yourself an hourly rate, and stick to it. If the client thinks your rate is too high and only wants to pay a few bucks, kindly refuse the work and let him or her go find some other sucker to do the customization. You’ll be happier for it, trust me.

MotionRevolver said
It’s bad enough that we only charge upwards of $35 for an After Effects project here. Clients (or customers) don’t seem to realize that they’re paying a fraction of the price for an AE project that would normally cost upwards of $5,000.

I agree partly because I get a few freelance jobs asking for a “custom intro” and when I give them a price around $200-$500, they FREAK out. In defense, they ask why the price is so expensive compared to VideoHive and I have to explain that I’d be making a custom intro only for them and not for resell… sigh

(Though I’m not complaining about the prices here on VideoHive, people just need to know and appreciate the prices here!)

VinhSonNguyen said

MotionRevolver said
It’s bad enough that we only charge upwards of $35 for an After Effects project here. Clients (or customers) don’t seem to realize that they’re paying a fraction of the price for an AE project that would normally cost upwards of $5,000.

I agree partly because I get a few freelance jobs asking for a “custom intro” and when I give them a price around $200-$500, they FREAK out. In defense, they ask why the price is so expensive compared to VideoHive and I have to explain that I’d be making a custom intro only for them and not for resell… sigh

(Though I’m not complaining about the prices here on VideoHive, people just need to know and appreciate the prices here!)

Just ask for the person’s budget before you say the final price, but basically you are right, please think they will get the top quality for a few $.