Former employer has asked me to do some freelance design/layout work. What do I charge?

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A friend has asked me to design seven posters for forthcoming events at the charity she works for. Some will be pretty simple and bold, some more complex and artistic. They are supplying all images and content.

They have suggested paying me £10 per poster - asked if it seems reasonable - and, if it doesn't, to name my price. Each poster will take between maybe half-an-hour absolute minimum and a couple of hours to complete. I think £10 per poster is peanuts! (I know it's a charity, but I already do this for free for a couple of other charities and am looking for work.) But, having never done this before (in a freelance capacity, or as my full job in an employed role), am not sure exactly what to charge. Any ideas? Thanks.

P.S. I used to work there too - hence the 'former employer' bit - but don't think that's relevant to what I'm paid.

Have a look at peopleperhour - might give you an idea of how much other people out there are charging for this sort of thing. Although if you've never done this sort of thing, I'd expect to be paid on the low side...

£10 a poster doesn't seem reasonable at all to me; you wouldn't be able to do a proper job of it in 30 mins, and you also need to factor in all other uses of time - discussing the brief, invoicing time, even booting up the computer. It's not just about how long it takes you to actually do the design.

I've done the same thing - I was an in-house designer for a charity, and when I went freelance, did some more work for them. I did do it at a 'charity rate', which meant I worked out how much I thought I earned per hour when I worked there (taking into account NI and annual leave etc), then added on a chunk for costs of being a freelancer. I came up with £25 per hour. However, most would charge a lot more than that.

My friend is a graphic designer and she charges between £200 and £250 a day. So guess that's £25 per hour minimum.

Thanks for posts. Yes, I thought £10 per poster was low.

I have done this before as part of a previous job, and my background is in design, and I get called upon to do this sort of thing for my son's school's PTA and other events in my village, so I wouldn't say I've never done this before. Just not in this capacity - not being paid solely to do this, IYSWIM.

Considering your experience, Trashbat (which is greater than mine), and that you charged what you consider to be a very low £25/hour, I wonder if the lower £20/hour would be a fair minimum for me. I have said that seven posters might take me about a day-and-a-half in total (I'll do it over a week or two, around caring for DS during the holidays), which would work out at about £200 for the lot. Does that sound reasonable? And am I slow?!

Thanks again. Really useful.

I am not a freelancer but work for a charity. I think if you say x per hour that will work out better - makes it more flexible - e.g. what if you do the posters and then they ask for some changes to be made.

We pay a freelancer £10 per hour for word tasks, £15 for excel and powerpoint. So I'd say £20 for graphic design is a fair rate for a charity. They won't find anyone to do it cheaper, I wouldn't have thought.

I just realised that I should have pointed out that when I worked out my hourly rate, I was basing it on my former salary that had an inner London weighting (worth an extra £2,500 p.a. or so - can't really remember). If you live in a village, that probably won't apply.

£20 per hour sounds reasonable enough, and £200 for the batch of seven is a fair price, as long as you don't overrun too much! (I usually do, but I am hopeless and get easily distracted). It's very tempting to sell yourself short when you start out freelancing, and undercharge just because you are pleased to have some work coming in. This can be a mistake, as it can be rather tricky to increase your rate to a fair wage later on! By the way, I also used to commission external designers when I had too much work on, and it used to cost from £100 for pretty straightforward poster, so you and I are both quite bargainous in comparison with fees like that.