PSA: Found out I was losing 15% on every project by not charging for file prep time

I was looking over my books last night and realized I spent 45 minutes just sorting and renaming files before sending them to a print shop. That was on top of my actual design time. I checked a freelance forum and some guy said he adds a flat $25 file prep fee to every project now. I did the math, and if I charged that on just half my jobs last year, I would have made an extra $1,100. It's literally just clicking folders and saving stuff, but clients pay for that convenience apparently. Has anyone else hidden this cost in their rate or do you just eat the time?

2 comments

2 Comments

brian_hart5d ago

That "I would have made an extra $1,100" line really makes me stop and think. Do you worry that adding a visible line item for file prep might scare off a client who sees it as nickel and diming, even if they'd happily pay it baked into the hourly rate? I've always just bumped my hourly rate a few bucks to cover that kind of cleanup work, because some people get weird about seeing separate fees for "admin" stuff. Have you tested telling a client upfront "this project has a $25 prep fee" and seen how they react, or are you planning to just sneak it into the total quote?

aaronroberts5d ago

Brian’s math adds up on paper but I’d bet that $1,100 number gets eaten by the one client who argues over the fee and you end up waiving it anyway. Most clients don't even notice a flat fee if you just wrap it into the total quote, and the ones who do notice usually just want to haggle over every line item. Honestly, unless you're doing high volume small jobs, worrying over 45 minutes of file sorting feels like you're stressing over pocket change.