I've been working on a project for the past three months, putting in about 9 hours a day, which adds up to over 700 hours of hard work. I've recently received an offer of $1000 for it. While I believe my work is high quality, having designed graphics and created fonts alongside coding everything, I can't help but feel a bit undervalued. As someone who's relatively new to this, I'm unsure what would be a fair asking price. Should I be asking for more, and how should I approach the conversation? Or is taking the low offer just for "exposure" my best bet?
1 Answer
Honestly, $1000 for 700 hours of work is a joke! The starting rate for JavaScript freelancers is around $50 per hour, so you could easily ask for $30k, even a discount down to $22.5k is more reasonable. If they balk at that, you might want to consider asking for a larger ownership stake in the product and suggest they work for the $1000 or exposure instead. But seriously, having a clear discussion about pricing before you dive in is crucial for the future.
I get that, the thought of asking for that much is really intimidating, especially when you haven't earned that before. I struggle with the same feelings.