To put it mildly, by what you have said in your question’s details, I suspect you are in a bit of a tricky situation.

Did you agree a price for the lot before you started? (I’m guessing no)
Did you agree an hourly rate before you started? (also guessing no)
Did they sign any kind of contract with you? (also guessing no)

If I have guessed correctly, your best option is to just let them have them at a fair price and hope that brings in more work from them in the future. If you try and get your works worth, you risk them turning you down and getting someone else to make some.

what is your per hour rate in regard to past work? what type of work have you done beforehand or is this a new gig?

Ok…here’s the story. Went to purchase some sofas. The total was around $1900. The owner and I started talking about his website and he said he wanted some banner ads and other work on his existing site. We got to talking and I told him I could help him. I have been doing graphics since ‘02 and I explained to him that it had been a year or two since I’ve done graphics but he was interested in my info. He was excited for me to get started on them. Our situation was agreed upon that I would charge 2 different credit cards. One charged at $1100 and the other around $800. He has charged the $1100 but not the other amount. He has stated that he wants me to do more work for him using flash on his website. The company is a very high end establishment and he seems to really like my work…just don’t want to lose the potential future job by overcharging.

Sorry I wasn’t clear…The pricing above is for the sofas. lol

That still doesn’t tell us what you generally charge for your work.

Well…that’s my question. I’ve been out of the loop for about 2 years…it’s ok if you can’t help. I’ll figure it out. Thanks.

i woulda charged him at least the cost of the sofa but that depends upon your experience + work quality compared to the industry.

You could look at it this way: If he doesn’t charge your other credit card for the furniture, he has paid you about $16.50 an hour.

I would charge $36 an hour. Bill for the initial work, show the time for the first two rounds of revisions as “no charge”, then bill for each round of revisions, but detail what the changes were.

Invoice as follows:
Creation of six rotational banner ads @ 4 hours each = $864
2 rounds customer revisions – 12 hours @ no charge
Round 3 customer revisions (provide details as to changes) __ hours =$
Round 4 customer revisions (provide detail as to changes) ___ hours =$

Total it out so that you’re showing you worked 48 hours, but are billing for 36. Then is you want to show a discount to get back to the $900, you’re showing the value of the work. An agency would bill $50— $60 an hour, minimum.

Sounds like by letting him hold that credit charge open you have allowed him to demand unlimited work for $800.

Have him run the plate for the rest of the sofa charge, pay the $800 and bill him for the work you have done so far—and from now on you should work to a contract you both sign.

If you have not had a contractual agreement thus far, remedy the situation.

Did you negotiate in advance how many rough designs you would present?
Did he select one and you made it using his copy and images—or if your text and/or images, was it accepted?

Usually a flat-fee contract included a specified number of rounds of revisions, and after that “AAs” cost. AAs are author alterations, and the non-stop revisionist client is reined in this way. [Your mistakes, of course, are no charge]; or you can have an hourly rate contract. With this you must itemize hours spent.

AND, if you feel that this job is taking you longer than it would take someone else whose skills weren’t rusty, take that into account. Estimate 75–80% of the hours it would take you to actually do the job [to keep your rate professionally respectable without being exorbitant] or if you do it on an hourly basis, knock off about the same percentage of hours when you write up a time sheet.

Be fair. Acknowledge your limitations [to yourself] but don’t let yourself be held hostage by an $800 credit card bill.

id bill him btw $2400–4800 hands down.

Even at $20/hr you have done more than $800 work.
If you you feel skills are rusty, you might claim only 36 hours work.
However $20 /hr is pricing yourself too low.

At $30/hr and only noting 36 hrs of work you are now at $1080 and he has got more out of you than he should have if your work is good.

Be honest, change the way you negotiate and at least end this fairly, but preferably turn him into continuing client. Proper business negotiations shouldn’t scare any legit client away.

Experienced designers who are competitive can get $40/50 hr but don’t be afraid of a sliding scale at first.

depending upon the client someone skilled at the biz can get $100/hr fo sho. esp if its a corporate account.

Were they more complicated than these? Street Sense 1
or Street Sense 2 ?
Note these are oversize—they are working files—one a banner and one a poster ad
I would consider each of these about $250, and you did 6? That sounds like about $1500 if complexity is about the same

The problem with pricing yourself too low is that he will possibly throw more work your way expecting it at a cheap rate. That happened all the time when I worked at an ad agency. Sometimes a client would say that they could hire someone for $15 an hour, why should they pay $60, or $100 an hour for creative concepts? Then they would come back a few months later, complaining about the creative.

When you are pricing out work as a freelancer, you have to add overhead costs to your hourly rate—taxes, insurance, utilities, etc. Take what you would think is fair as an earned wage, and double it. An agency generally triples the hourly cost of their employees as a billing rate.

Thank you for all of your input. I appreciate it. :)