How Much Should You Bill for Your Work?

In the Unit 3 assignment, you were asked to create a proposal including an hourly rate for several projects you would be completing for the Sun Devil Cafe. (*file is attached with the name of Proposal – Printed Menus for sun devil)

In this assignment, you will look closely at the cost of doing business, and create an hourly rate that allows you to cover those costs and achieve a full time salary of your choosing.  You will then compare that rate to your Unit 3 rate(s) for the same work, and write an analysis.

For this assignment, you will ACT AS IF you are embarking on a freelancer web and graphic designer,  working full time, and you are the sole financial provider for yourself – income, insurance, taxes, housing, etc. 

Assignment Details: (NOTE: NUMBERS 1-5 ALREADY DONE AND THE FILE IS ATTACHED FOR REFERNCES TO WRITE THE 3 PAGES PAPER) but I left them here for your information. It is a good idea to also go through them.

  1. I have created and attached a Microsoft Excel Sheet with the name of “Calculate Hourly rate”for this assignment.
  2. Use the information found in the Hourly Rate Generation section in this week’s textbook readings to estimate your MONTHLY expenses, and fill them in on the spreadsheet (the left columns of the Google Sheet).  There is additional information on what these expenses are in your textbook, and in the far right area of the spreadsheet.
  3. Once you have filled in the monthly expenses – Follow the instructions in the box in the middle of the Google Sheet to finish generating your hourly rate.  Please follow my instructions on the sheet, not the ones in the textbook, to generate your hourly rate!
  4. Once you have generated your hourly rate, refer to the proposal you wrote for the Sun Devil Cafe assignment in Unit 3. Review the rates you charged for the services you planned to provide, and the number of hours of work that each of the projects you did for Sun Devil Cafe requested.  Use this information to fill out the BLUE FIELDS in the Rate Comparison Chart at the bottom of the spreadsheet.  This chart will automatically generate some numbers that you can use in your Analysis, in the green fields of this chart.
  5. If your hourly rate seems really high, go back and look at your expenses to make sure that you didn’t make any typos, AND that all of your expenses listed are monthly expenses, not yearly expenses.

(PAPER STARTS FROM HERE)

  1. Analyze your findings in a minimum three-page, 12pt SINGLE SPACED paper summarizing your thoughts and explaining your overhead costs. In your paper, you MUST include HOW you came to the numbers you used in your Expense spreadsheet(*file attached*).  Once you have justified your expenses, discuss the following topics:
    1. Are you surprised at how low/high your rate is?
    2. How do your new rates compare to the cost of the services quoted in your proposal? (*the proposal file attached)
    3. Would you be inclined to adjust your rate, either higher or lower, if you were submitting a new proposal to the Sun Devil Cafe?  Why or why not?

IMPORTANT NOTES ABOUT EXPENSES

Keep in mind that this is a classroom assignment, and the purpose of this is to learn what expenses you would encounter as a full time freelancer.  “I live with my parents, so I don’t have rent, or utilities, and I’m on their insurance so I don’t pay for that” – NOT ACCEPTABLE for this assignment.  Neither is, “I’m on my wife’s insurance plan through work, and so I don’t have health or dental expenses.” You will need to put time into finding out what rent would cost, how much utilities are, and what you’d pay for health insurance if you were supporting yourself, and all of your income comes from freelance work.

Also “I don’t need to market, I will get business through word of mouth, and I’ll just learn through free content online.”  Perhaps that will be true for you in practice, but for this assignment, act as if it isn’t, and figure out what it will cost you to advertise, woo potential clients at lunch,  and to continue your education at conferences, or by taking courses that are not free.

When in doubt, please do the research to find out what the expense will be.