How much can you charge as a freelance designer?

[Jorge Miguel]

Hello everyone, I have a question and it is the following which would be the price to be charged for designing a PCB, which are the parameters to be taken into account to calculate those prices.

postdata I am new as a designer

Thank you

[robertferanec]

I was only taking jobs paid based on hourly bases. Here are some ideas how much to charge:

Simple answer - you can try different prices and you will get idea how much you can ask for.

More specific answer - you can try anywhere between $15 - $100USD / h, however it really depends on country and your experience.

Specific answer: small jobs $15-$30USD / h (small simple boards), complex jobs $30-$60USD / h (this is what you can normally get if you are good, you just may need to convince your client, that you know what you are doing e.g. based on your past projects), $60USD / h and more ... hard to get

Then, you can also get jobs based on delivery, but these are risky (e.g. you may not know how long it can take to design the board especially if client keeps changing the specification).

[Jorge Miguel]

thanks for the answer robert appreciate it a lot, another question those hours of design is contemplated the manufacturing management or that should be charged separately?

[robertferanec]

It's my time - so I charge them for what they ask me to do. It can be drawing schematic or doing PCB layout, but it can be also purchasing components, organizing manufacturing, testing the boards, etc.

[anovickis]

In US - I'm somewhere between free and 150/hr depending on the project complexity, and customers ability to pay and how soon it's needed.
I'll do free things for customers in a couple cases
- if they don't have money up front - in this case it it has to be something I think is viable as a product - AND it is very likely they will have money to market the product if a working prototype can be made
- the second case is where it's just a few hours or days even to help out where there is a good probability you can get more things later that are paid

Bidding on projects is fine as fixed - but only use that as an estimate if it is a design. If it's layout only then you should be OK.

A lot of customers will confuse schematic and layout, so you will need to educate on the process a bit at times
IE - They will expect you to charge for a layout, but not have a schematic and BOM

[robertferanec]

From my experience, 150 - 200 USD/h would people pay for consultation or something what only takes a few hours of highly experienced work. But I have had problems to get more than 100USD/h for a board design which takes for example 100 hours and more.

do you get 150USD/h for a project which takes 100 hours or more? Maybe I should charge more

[Paul van Avesaath]

For freelance stuff i get around 40 euro an hour, and that is for not really high speed stuff.

Never ever take a job on delivery, especially not when your just beginning.

always make a contract, that states your client has the final responbility. so if he agree's to build it and the prototype does not function properly he cannot force you to put in unpaid hours.

the 150 dollar seems too much but maybe that stakes are different there. or I am getting really underpaid too

[MarylinPurtill]

It basically depends how much skilled you are. I know many PCB designers who are using high quotes and their clients pay because of quality work. However, as a beginner, you can go with lesser quotes.

[Paul van Avesaath]

damn i really need to ask more for my free time work hours
you also need to factor in the design difficulty.. you cannot ask top dollar for a 2/4 layer layout..

now if you are talking ultracale+ with ddr4, 100G ethernet and stuff like that.. well then I agree on the higher pricepoint.. but then again If you can afford a 60K+ FPGA then you probably dont mind the cost of expert development on that front.. ( i would hate to see a prototype blow up at that pricepoint )