Freelance Mistakes: 4 Services You Should Be Charging For
It's too easy to lose out on money by not charging for these services.
Welcome to Scope Smarter, Not Harder, a new series from Wethos highlighting our services and scope of work templates. Wethos users have access to over 44 scope of work templates and 600 services. Ranging from branding strategy to social media and design, our scope of work tools streamline your proposal process so you can skip the freelance pricing mistakes and get to work.
One of the most common freelance pricing mistakes is not charging for sneaky services that may go overlooked.
Lots of services that should have a price tag often go uncharged because creative independents might not think of them as billable services. Your time is valuable and your energy should always be compensated, no matter the task. Here are the most common pricing mistakes we see, and 10+ services from the Wethos Services Library to get you on track. Read on so you don’t miss out on that cash!
1) Not charging for a content management system walk-through
This one is pretty high up there in terms of freelance pricing mistakes. After setting up a brand new and beautiful website for your client, do you find yourself answering a bunch of “how-to” questions? Or maybe you’ve even sat down with your client to walk them through Wordpress, Squarespace, or another content management system. It’s time you should be charging for since it’s energy and work that you’re putting into educating your client.
You can find the service, “Deliver CMS training,” over in the Wethos Services Library! Make sure to add it to your next project if you’re taking time to educate a client.
2) Not charging for kick-off or check-in calls with your client
We suggest that any time you have a call with your client, you charge for it as if it were a service delivered. It may be a half-hour or hour-long call, but we know that more than an hour’s worth of time and energy goes into preparing for those calls. That’s why you can’t simply go by your hourly rate for these client calls that require a heavier lift.
You can find the service, “Conduct kick-off calls,” over in the Wethos Services Library! If your project includes a lot of calls, make sure you’re adding those in as services — and charging for them!
3) Not having a price for testing a website, brand materials, or landing pages
Forgetting that testing takes time is another common freelance pricing mistake we’ve seen across the board. You may think of the product of your work as the final deliverable, but all the surrounding tasks that make that product come to life require a lot of your effort, too.
Testing happens across a lot of creative disciplines. We’ve got a few services ranging from web development to photo shoots in the Wethos Services Library:
“Conduct lighting test”
“Smoke test websites”
“Test brand materials”
“Test website end-to-end”
Have you been missing one of those all along? Add it to your next project when you build a scope of work with Wethos!
4) Overlooking the price tag for existing material audits or competitive landscape audits
Research is an extremely critical part of the discovery phase! It also takes a lot of strategic thinking and energy to conduct audits. From existing materials to aspirational or competitive brands, the time you spend sifting through content is time you should be charging for.
The Wethos Services Library has nearly 30 services just for auditing alone — there are so many types of audits! Whether you’re looking at the client’s current social media or examining their website structure, your time here still holds immense value. The research phase of a project can especially be difficult to price since the number of hours it takes you to complete may vary, but you’re still pulling from your vast knowledge base to pull insights for your clients.
Here’s a sneak peek of our audit-based services:
“Audit competitors”
“Audit social media”
“Audit user journey”
“Audit website structure”
"Audit content and media assets"