Found a note in my kitchen from 2019 about my freelance rates

I was cleaning out a drawer last week and saw this old notebook where I had scribbled down $15 an hour for my first design work. Now I'm wondering if I should share that number with new people or just let them figure it out like I did.

3 comments

3 Comments

faithpatel2d ago

Wait, $15 an hour for design work? That's crazy low. I thought I was getting robbed at my first job but at least it was double that.

black.oliver2d ago

Oh hold on, I gotta push back on that a little. $30 an hour for a first design job is actually pretty solid in a lot of places, especially if you're talking about small agencies or freelance gigs. I've seen plenty of kids fresh out of a bootcamp or with just a portfolio get offered $20 or less, and they take it because they need the experience (and the rent money, obviously). So $15 is definitely on the low end, but "crazy low" depends on where you live and what kind of design work we're talking about. Like, if it's basic social media graphics for a local shop, that's not totally unheard of. What really matters is if they're learning something useful, or if it's just a grind for fast food wages.

dylan_ward1d ago

Funny enough @black.oliver, that whole thing about learning vs grinding reminds me of my cousin who took a graphic design gig for $12 an hour at a print shop. He thought he'd be making cool posters and branding stuff but instead spent 6 months fixing typos on pizza menus and resizing logos for the same 3 clients. He said the only thing he learned was how to center text faster. So yeah, location and what you're actually doing matters way more than the number sometimes.