I know I’ve talked ad naseum about this topic before. But there is a huge relation between Price, Time, and Quality. And here’s why:
The freelancing pyramid goes as follows. Quality sits at the top, price dictates the time, and the time should always result in a quality product. To better understand this, let’s break it down.
Quality
This is the single most important factor of any freelancing endeavor. If you’ve hired someone to do work for you, that work better be up to par. If it’s not, you might as well not buy it at all. Any project that is not done with the quality assurance in mind, will not perform well in the market and you will then be in the crosshairs of failure. So Quality is the number 1 priority for any project. A t-shirt with shotty quality will no perform well against a high quality t-shirt, and as freelancers our purpose is to solve the client’s problem. Not create more.
Price
Pricing on all fronts should always assure quality. If you require $1,000 to create a high quality image, then you better charge $1,000 and no less. Charging less will directly influence the quality of the project. A business that is failing, cannot focus all its efforts on delivering a quality product. So charge with the assurance that whatever you receive will yield in a quality product. However and this is when things get complex. Price can and should affect time.
Time
If for example you charge $1,000 to create a short animation and it takes you 1 month to complete, but your client only has $500 to put towards this project, then it can be completely justified if you took this project on but with a 2 month delivery time. In this case, you would be adjusting the time, the price would stay the same, but the time and priority of the project changes. Quality is still ensured because you would still be dedicating the amount of time required to complete the project at high quality, but over a longer period of time. Which allows you to take on other projects to compensate for this longer timed project. Win, win.
Keep this things in mind when pricing your project, and remember nothing gets you more clients than quality results, so focus all your projects in ensuring quality first, and then mess around with your pyramid.
Hopefully this gives you more insight into the client/buyer interactions and can help you make better decisions when choosing to take on or pass up on a project.
Let us know how you work around this age-old dilemma in the comments section below.
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