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Freelance Graphic Design: A Career Guide to Better Jobs and Higher Rates
Contents
Overview and definitions
Freelance graphic design rates are largely driven by whether or not you are limited to providing design services yourself. You can advance your freelance career if you include services similar to what an art director or creative director does. To improve your rates as a freelance graphic designer consider expanding into strategic and managerial activities.
Freelance graphic designers may specialize in areas including: print, web design, brand identity design or package design. They typically create logos, images, illustrations and other graphics needed for a product such as a website, newspaper, marketing collateral, packaging or displays.
In addition to creative skills, freelance graphic designers need technical skill in design software.
Freelance graphic design careers require effective collaboration with every other function in a business. They must also collaborate with other freelance professionals such as writers, editors and photographers.
The guide below outlines typical freelance graphic design rates and a path to improving yours.
(Nation1099 is an affiliate of some of the companies discussed below and may receive a commission if you purchase from them.)
Setting minimum freelance graphic design rates
Your rate as a freelance graphic designer should be at least $66 on an hourly basis if you live in the U.S. and have 7-10 years of experience. Your minimum day rate should be $528.
If your rate is lower than this, you may be undercutting the market or bearing some employment costs yourself that should be passed on to your clients.
How we calculated this freelance rate
We took salary data for full-time graphic designers in the U.S. from several sources such as Glassdoor, ZipRecruiter, PayScale and Indeed and applied our “all-in expense formula.”
This formula shows the complete costs to you of having a freelance graphic design business rather than a job in this field. The formula ensures that your rates include the costs of retirement benefits, health insurance, marketing expenses and other overhead, along with the value of unpaid work in your business.
This article explains in detail our formula for setting freelance rates.
You can use our freelance rate calculator to adjust the variables if you have more or less experience in graphic design.
Variables and exceptions
- We assumed a freelance graphic design career of at least 7-10 years experience. Entry-level graphic designers may have lower fees.
- If your work resembles an employee with the title “senior graphic designer,” your minimum annual earnings should be about $8,000 higher.
- Freelance graphic designers with lower personal expenses may choose to pass on those savings to clients in the form of lower fees.
- Advanced or very experienced freelance designers are able to implement value pricing which can mean higher pay than hourly rates or project fees.
- This formula doesn’t account for materials needed for your freelance work.
- This formula doesn’t account for travel, meals, conferences, memberships or learning. These may add up to 25 percent to your expenses and therefore to your rate.
Which kinds of freelance graphic design earns the most money?
Designers who get on the director path earn more money.
The average salary for an art director with 10 years of experience or more is $79,000.The equivalent minimum hourly rate for a freelance art director using our formula would be $83. The day rate, which may be more common for that role, would be $664.
The average creative director salary is $134,000. The equivalent minimum hourly rate for a freelance creative director using our formula would be $138. The day rate, which may be more common for this role, would be $1,105.
In addition to fundamental project management and technology skills, the skills required for more senior freelance graphic design jobs include:
- Leadership
- UX design
- Copywriting
- Branding
- Marketing strategy
To begin progressing toward these higher freelance graphic design rates, it’s important to:
- Have a niche.
- Identify what is unique about your services.
- Offer strategy and planning services.
5 strategic questions to help you increase your freelance graphic design rates
- Market: Do you know enough about what your prospective clients want and need?
- Differentiation: How are your services different from other freelance graphic designers who your clients might consider?
- Competition: What makes other people successful as freelance graphic designers?
- Pricing: How can you price services at different levels to funnel clients to your most profitable services?
- Resources: What systems or supports need to be in place for you to build the freelance graphic design business you want?
Related reading: 4 Steps To a Clearer Freelance Brand
Where can I find freelance graphic design jobs?
1. Ask for referrals in your network
Give them a chance to root for your success.
I’m really enjoying our work together. I’m in a prospecting phase for my freelance graphic design business right now, and I wonder if you have any colleagues who you can refer me to. I would really appreciate an introduction to anyone who you think might be able to use my services. If so, I pasted a blurb below that you can use.
2. Find mentors who can help you advance
Let your network know that you are trying to move into more experienced roles such as artistic director or creative director.
As you know, my freelance graphic design clients often benefit from the project management skills, industry knowledge and strategic direction that I bring. I’m considering how I can formalize that more and begin to shift to a more consultative offering for companies that may need an outsourced artistic director. I would love to get your advice about the need for this kind of service. Are you available for a phone call or a coffee meeting?
3. Use job boards . . . with caution
There are a few websites that specialize in freelance graphic design jobs. We track these on our list of best freelance websites. However, most — thought not all — of these also emphasize lower paying roles for beginners.
Sites with more graphic design jobs include:
- 99 designs
- Toptal
- Designs.net
- Gun.io
If you are an experienced freelance designer looking for jobs more suited to your advanced skills, you may have more success browsing our list of best consulting websites and searching for design and other creative roles that require strategy and planning.
How to market your freelance graphic designer services
Marketing for freelancers in every domain continues to be a do-it-yourself proposition. No killer resources have emerged that assist you in a meaningful way with marketing.
You may be thinking of some big name sites where you have connected with clients. But the point we have argued is that these aren’t marketing partners. These are platforms where you still have to market yourself.
Therefore, you need to think about if profiles on somebody else’s platforms make sense for you. If so . . .
How to Make The Best Online Portfolio for Freelance Marketplaces
In either case, you should be building your own home base that doesn’t depend on those platforms over the long term. We have a nice slideshow of good examples of that in this article:
Career and business courses for freelance graphic designers
Of course you can find many skills-based courses online to help you get more advanced in InDesign, Illustrator and other software products. Some of the deepest catalogs are on Skillshare and Udemy.
For a treat and some inspiration, check out the online MasterClass where Frank Gehry teaches design and architecture.
For more career and business focused courses for designers, Lynda appears to have the deepest catalog. For example, if you are trying to move from basic freelance graphic design jobs to more advanced roles, you can try Learn Art Direction.
If you want to broaden your design skills into other technical areas, the catalog at Udacity is a great place to start:
But the best career and business resources may be for freelancers in general rather than especially for designers. For example, Laura Pennington’s Freelance Retainer Mastery Program.
Business coaches who work with freelance graphic designers
Ilise Benun, the Marketing Mentor, works especially with creatives. Check out her Pick-a-Niche kit.
David Maurice Sharp works especially with artists. Watch his Facebook page for upcoming workshops.
David also wrote an excellent piece for Nation1099 about the unique financial considerations that freelance creatives have.
Both Ilise and David are guests on The Next Level Freelancing Show:
Financial Planning For Freelancers: Advice From Financial Literacy Educator David Maurice Sharp