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Sharonilevine's avatar
Sharonilevine
Community Member
14 days ago

Need suggestions for budget proposal

Hello:

I honestly don't know if it's ok to ask this. I have a potential new client who has a lot of work but wants to know what I would charge for the following:

  1. Review content from a 3 hour PPT
  2. Transform content into a Storyboard
  3. Design in either Storyboard or Rise for 1 hour of eLearning divided into approximately 6 10 minutes micro eLearning modules

I generally charge $40 US an hour but honestly don't know how many hours this might take. Or, is it better to charge by the project, say $1000 for the work as a whole?

Thank you

advice
Instructional Design
rise 360
storyline 360
  • JHauglie's avatar
    JHauglie
    Community Member
    13 days ago

    If you "generally charge $40/hr" then start with what you can identify about the project that correlates to what you "generally accomplish for that $40" - in other words, what do you typically finish in that hour of work?

    You also need to consider whether offering the potential client a slightly lower price (with the likelihood of a lot of future work) is a worthwhile cost exchange. The upside is that you get a lot of business (hopefully) for a long time (also hopefully); the downside is that the client may expect you to reduce your costs/prices because of the volume of long-term work. And you are already starting on a lower side of your "general" price scale.

    Why don't you approach the work from a tiered perspective:

    • Standard rate: $40 - Review the PPT content - Estimated time: 2 hours
    • Translate content to storyboard: Estimated time: ____ hours ("for this work, I will charge a flat rate of....") Note: If your "general" rate is $40/hr, that works out to $320/8-hour day. So the content-to-storyboard work could be $275 (say) or something other than a full-day rate. You get to decide.
    • For the greater design work - again, you get to decide. But you could decide after reviewing the content and storyboarding it that you really do not want the project. So propose a "Rolls-Royce" rate (or as Daffy Duck once said, "If money is no object, here are my very unreasonable rates!"), and charge a rate that will basically tell the client, "I will do the work but you are going to pay a lot for this."

    By coming back with a tiered proposal, you are neither tying yourself to the client and the work, nor are you undercutting your "general" rates just to keep an open client pipeline. 

    Good luck -

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