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Found out I was giving away all my source files for free for 6 months
I did my first freelance logo job for a coffee shop in Denver and I thought I was being super professional by sending them the AI file along with the PNG. Did that for like 5 more clients after that, logos, flyers, the whole deal. Then this one lady who runs a yoga studio messaged me asking why I sent her the editable file because her brother was a graphic designer and said I basically handed over my work for nothing. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I had been charging like $50 a pop thinking I was making a deal, but I was straight up giving them the keys to the kingdom. Now I charge $200 minimum and only send locked PDFs unless they pay extra. Has anyone else made a bonehead mistake like that with pricing?
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shane1703d ago
Oh man, that yoga studio lady's brother doing you a solid like that is a lucky break. I know a guy who does web design and he was handing over the entire editable codebase for his flat rate projects for over a year before someone clued him in. He figured people were just paying for the final site, but they were actually getting all the backend stuff he spent days on for free. It's a rough lesson to learn because you think you're being helpful and professional, but really you're just hurting your own business. At least you caught it after only a few jobs, some folks go years before they realize what they're giving away. Charging for those source files separately makes a world of difference.
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joseph483d ago
Wait, didn't you say that was your buddy who did that with the web design stuff? I got a little confused there, thought you were talking about yourself at first. Anyway, you're totally right though, it's wild how easy it is to give away way more than you mean to when you're just trying to be nice.
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Man my buddy runs a small print shop and he did the exact same thing for like eight months. Sent whole branding packages with the raw vector files to a local diner chain and they just tweaked everything themselves. He found out when the diner's cousin opened a competing place across town using the same exact logo but with a different name slapped on it. He was charging like $75 for that whole setup. Now he makes people sign a contract that says they own the final product but not the working files unless they pay a separate fee.
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