✅Read about it here ➜ A contract protects you, your time, your bottom line, and your sanity. As with any contract, it defines the business and legal relationship between you and your client, as well as the personal relationship concerning business practices, communication, and interactions.
Beyond protection, contracts contribute to your peace of mind, as well as the success of your business. When new to the job, less experienced and full of optimism, you may have thought or said, “It’s a small project, why bother with a contract?” or “I trust my clients to pay me for the work I deliver.”
As an overwhelmed freelancer, you are dealing with all sorts of start-up processes, and adding a piece of overly legal documentation to the mix may sound crazy. But as an established professional, it’s time to step up your game.
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, and the agreement that’s right for you won’t be right for others. Generally, clients have no idea what goes into how you do what you do. You hope they realize they’re paying for your professional expertise, and that you’ll lead, educate, and make the process as easy as possible. It’s your responsibility to avoid confusion, especially around deliverables and compensation.
These situations stem from communication problems, and a clear, well-written web design contract can help avoid them. Should you encounter a new challenging client situation, consider adding a clause to your contract.
Estimates
This can be helpful early on to manage client expectations. They provide a general idea of whether services can be delivered within budget in the client’s required timeframe and are offered with the understanding that details could change as more is learned about requirements.
Quotes
These are more formal, with a fixed price constrained by a limited valid timeframe. If your quote is accepted as a formal agreement, be prepared to complete the project at that price.
Bids
These provide documented responses to a set of well-defined specifications, often submitted in competition with other bids. Typically, you save the time and work of gathering requirements before committing to a cost, and those requirements are thorough. However, bids are often submitted without detailed discussion, providing little room for negotiation, and are often evaluated with emphasis on the presented bottom line.
Proposals
These deliver a comprehensive, detailed document, and are perfect for letting you outshine the competition. It’s an ideal platform to feature your portfolio of similar work and highlight your Unique Selling Proposition (USP), showcasing your value and ability to get the work done. Although the most time-consuming option, it works well for complicated projects where you can offer multiple options or solutions.
Freelancers struggle with setting their own rates, but it’s a simple formula. Divide that number by 1,000. Why 1,000? Because there are 2,000 working hours in a year (2,080 actually, but then the math gets hard). And you’ll spend roughly half your time doing the work and the other half finding new work, doing administrative stuff, having meetings, etc., so you’ll only get to work half the time.
Add in your extra experience, skills, knowledge, and adjust your price as needed. If you’ve been using your freelance skill (writing, graphic design, marketing) for years, but as a professional elsewhere, you could easily charge $75 per hour. If you’re still new to the field, you might want to scale back to $50, but only for a few months. Get back up to $60 as your confidence grows, or after four to six weeks, no longer.
With your freelance quotes and proposals, don’t leave it to chance and don’t assume they’re going to pay whenever they get around to it. Give them 30-day terms and tell them how you’ll accept payment. Make sure it’s easy for the client to pay, give them several options, in case they don’t like to use PayPal, or don’t have a company credit card.
Being a freelancer can be tough. You chase down clients, do the work, do several revisions, chase down the money, and then do it all over again next month. Do you want to be worth $100 per hour one day, or maybe more? That doesn’t come from watching Netflix over lunch. Get your butt in your chair and start working. The better you get, the more you can charge, and the less you can work.
The Journey is what everyday entrepreneurs, like you, need to follow in the pursuit of online success. Our experienced GoDaddy Guides are here to take you through all the steps, both big and small, that you encounter every day.
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