No one talks openly about salary and pay rates (or anything that has to do with money) in fashion. Which makes it really hard to figure out your freelance rate!

“I’m not sure how much to charge…what should my rate be?”

This is by far the #1 question freelance fashion designers ask.

And unfortunately, there’s no magic answer.

Your rate will be different than my rate or the rate of the other fashion designers reading this.

Because we are all different.

We don’t live in the same area, we don’t have the same skills, and we don’t offer the same services.

But there are strategies to calculate (and negotiate) your pricing. Whether you want to freelance hourly or freelance by project, you can use these techniques. They’re really simple!

Most freelancers undercharge on at least a few projects. It’s sort of like a rite of passage. Either you underestimate the work involved, or you lack confidence and tend to lowball yourself. Often, it’s both! I’ve done both of these things, multiple times. It will happen to you too. Don’t beat yourself up, learn, adjust, and do better next time.

Every pricing tip I’ve shared here is a real life strategy that I successfully used in my freelance career, or my Freelance Accelerator: from Surviving to Thriving (FAST) students have successfully used. I also surveyed over one hundred fashion professionals and freelancers and asked what rates they were charging (and getting!). I’ve included a ton of real life examples for hourly, daily, and project prices below.

How to Charge Hourly

I suggest everyone start with hourly. It’s the simplest option for you and your clients.

Here are some techniques you can use to figure out how much to charge, and you can even use my freelance hourly rate calculator to make sure you’re making enough.

Drop 3 zeros: If you’ve worked as an employee, this is the easiest option. Take your yearly wage and then drop 3 zeros.

For example: If your yearly wage is $60,000, charge $60/hour. If it was $35,000, charge $35/hour

Charge industry averages: Depending on your skills and location, this number varies. Do some googling, ask around to industry friends, and pick a price that’s fair based on what you discover. Other fashion freelancers are your friends, not your competition, so meet them and don’t be shy to talk numbers. Chances are they’re dying to know your rate just as much as you are theirs.

This is not a perfect science! Yes, you need to charge reasonable rates, but that doesn’t mean competing with people on Fiverr charging $15 for a tech pack. I know designers who charge anywhere between $20 to $300/hour. Again, it depends on your experience, location, project, and client.

Pros and Cons to Charging Hourly

PROS:

• It’s a comfortable option for many freelancers, especially when you’re starting out
• It’s normal and understandable for clients
• It’s simple to plan your finances based on how many hours you work

CONS:

• You only have so many hours in the week and your income potential is capped
• You can only raise rates so much before your client refuses to pay $xxx/hour
• It’s laborious to track time for every email, phone call or meeting
• As you get faster at doing the work, your rate doesn’t scale proportionally

Real Life Examples of Charging Hourly

• “$45-55/hour, varies by companies.” – Christina Ward, freelance print designer, CAD artist, and fashion designer, New York, USA
• “It’s $60 per hour.” – Andressa Iop, freelance kidswear fashion & textile designer, Georgia, USA
• “$100 per hour (freelance)” – Carolyn Quan, freelance illustration and textile print designer, Australia
• “70$ per hour.” – Maddie Ciccone, freelance fashion buyer & merchandiser, Canada
• “45/hr.” – Mrudula Divekar, freelance print designer & illustrator, New Jersey, USA
• “$85/hour or if there’s a budget per project I work that way.” – Aileen Holmes, freelance apparel graphic designer / textile designer, New York, USA
• “120CAD/hr.” – Andrew Zo, freelance packaging designer, Canada
• “80-90€ perhour.” – Tina Knebel, freelance fashion designer & developer, Germany
• “$100/hr” – Ferdinand Onandia, freelance graphic designer, Florida, USA
• “My last job in-house I made $64000 / year. As a freelancer, I make $65/hour.” – Jenny Pflanz, freelance 3d apparel technical designer, Colorado, USA
• “$20/hour.” – Arya, freelance designer and technical designer, India
• “12 dollars / hour (Reality in my city).” – Vitória Kalil, freelance fashion trend forecaster, Brasil

Episodes from my podcast, Fashion Designers Get Paid, where we talk about exact hourly rates:

• Paige, a freelance fashion designer, is charging $85/hour (Arizona, USA)
• Lucia, a freelance textile designer, is charging $60/hour (Germany)
• Masha, a freelance textile designer, is charing $75/hour (New York, USA)

How to Charge A Day Rate

This pricing structure is more common with UK freelancers than US ones.

I also see it being used more for temp work “onsite” freelancing, which I discourage unless this is the arrangement that you prefer.

If you’re doing a few days of onsite consulting, a day rate may be a great option. This is the only time I’ve ever used this pricing structure. To calculate your day rate, multiply your hourly by 8 hours and adjust to a flat rate. Example: $35/hour x 8 hours = $280. Your day rate could be $300.

Pros and Cons to Charging A Day Rate

PROS:

• It’s simple to plan your finances based on how many days you work
• You don’t have to track every minute and can just invoice how many days you worked If you do onsite days, an 8 hour day somehow always turns into a 12 hour day

CONS:

• Your leisurely morning dog walk and coffee shop stop (one of the reasons you started freelancing) can *poof* be gone real quick.

If you’re just doing a few days of consulting here or there, this may not be a huge deal, but think carefully about signing up to do a day rate 5 days a week. You may not be creating the lifestyle you were imagining.

Real Life Examples of Charging a Day Rate

• “£320/day.” – Linda Briggs, freelance surface pattern designer, UK
• “Normally is hourly the budget is 300€ x day.” – Marc Barba, freelance fashion & technical designer, Germany
• “800€/day is my base for negotiation as freelancer.” – Sophie Morin Stapel, Freelance trend forecaster, creative & art directive, fashion analyst, France
• “£300-£400 per day.” – Sarah Perrin Valk, freelance fashion designer and developer, UK
• “£250 p/d.” – Leanne Hardacre, freelance clothing designer, UK
• “£300 per day (average).” Alice Ingle, freelance textile designer, UK
• “I recently did 2 days of work designing art for a girls’ line for $1600!.” – Aileen Holmes, freelance creative fashion designer and developer, New York, USA
• “£250 -£275 per day.” – Jon Gordon, freelance technical consultant
• “350-400 GBP per day.” – Kat Smith, freelance designer and product developer

How to Charge by Project or Piece (ie one tech pack or one flat sketch)

You can earn more money this way, but it can bite you in the butt if you underestimate or don’t put your foot down against an abusive client.

Even almost a decade into my freelance career, I still underestimated big projects, especially when working with new clients (I’ll tell you a story about that later).

Things get tricky and you have to know what questions to ask and be really good at clearly outline and managing client expectations.

You also have to make sure you look through any files you’ll be inheriting so you don’t wind up with a bunch of unusable Illustrator flats that have thousands of anchor points and aren’t grouped or joined.

Because if fixing or recreating that wasn’t part of your proposal, it’s a hard thing to bring up after the fact.

You don’t want to look inexperienced, so you wind up doing the work and resenting the project and the client, and that feels shitty.

Which, in a nutshell, is why I really recommend you start out hourly and move into project rates later.

But if you’re more advanced, here are some ways to calculate a project rate.

Charge based on estimated hours: If you know a tech pack takes you 3 hours, and you want to earn $50/hour, then you can charge $150 for a tech pack. Your client doesn’t know the rate or the hours, they just know a tech pack costs $150.

Be careful of setting an absolute flat rate for things like tech packs though. The time and work will vary based on design complexity. A tech pack for a basic t-shirt is going to be a lot easier and quicker to do than one for a fully lined piece of outerwear.

Are you creating the flat sketches or do they already exist?
Are specs for trims and findings, like hang tags and labels, already developed?
Do you need to create the graded specs, or does your client have them done?

In reality, you really wouldn’t want to have a flat rate for tech packs but instead offer a range depending on the design.

Remember, project based rates are more complicated. If you are going to do project based, make sure your proposal is very thorough and outlines exactly what the client will get. If the client is doing excessive revisions or being overly demanding, you’ll need to be prepared to pick up the phone and tell them the price needs to be adjusted (this can feel really hard, which is why hourly may be better).

Charge based on value: Maybe you’re really fast and can complete the tech pack in one hour. That doesn’t mean it’s only worth one hour of pay. You’ve worked hard to gain this skill, to get really good at it, and to be really fast. All the time, years, and energy you invested in getting better at this is part of what your client is paying for.

What is the value of that tech pack worth? It may be $150, or even $300. Don’t look at this as you earning $300/hour (which may make you feel like you’re charging a ridiculously high amount), but rather your client paying you a flat rate in exchange for an item that’s worth $300 to them.

Again, this is a more advanced technique and depending on the client and the type of work, it may or may not be successful for you, or you may simply not like it. If you’re feeling overwhelmed or intimidated about this, don’t start here. Start hourly for your first gigs, and move onto project based later once you’ve tracked your time and know what things take.

Pros and Cons to Charging By Project or Piece

PROS:

• The faster / more efficient you are, the more money you can make
• You can charge based on value
• Some clients like knowing a flat rate of what something will cost

CONS:

• It can take time to develop skills to accurately assess a project and what work needs to go into it
• Most freelancers tend to underestimate at first (I’ve done this and learned the hard way)
• Scope creep (when the scope of a project creeps beyond the original agreement) is common and can create difficult conversations
• Either you get abused (doing too many revisions, etc) or you have to raise the rate mid project

Real Life Examples of Charing By Project or Piece

• “I have developed a range of my rates by project based on the type of garment, Flat Sketches: Basic: $25 Stylish: $30 Detailed: $35 Tech Packs: The rate ranges between $100 and $850 depending on the type of garment and the complexity of the document (information to input on it).” – Soidee is a freelance fashion designer specializing in flats & tech packs, Venezuela
• “An average project can be anything between 5k-25k.” – Emma Golley, freelance fashion designer & consultant, California
• “Varied, I charge about $650 – $850 for a predesigned print and $900+ for custom.” – Bec Oakes Design, freelance print designer, Australia

Episodes from my podcast, Fashion Designers Get Paid, where we talk about exact project rates:

• PKP, a freelance fashion designer, is charging $150+ per tech pack (from India)
• Sam, a freelance fashion designer & Illustrator, landed a $4500 project
• Stayce, a freelance fashion designer, landed a $10k project

Whatever option you choose, set a rate you feel good about.

Don’t try to get the max wage possible right away, but don’t go so low that you resent the project and client.

Pick something in the middle and focus on getting really good at understanding your client, reaching out to get work, and closing deals.

More Free Resources for Freelancing in Fashion

I have a lot of content to help you in your freelance career, just for the fashion industry! Here are some great places to get more tips and strategies.

• How to raise your freelance rates (with scripts)
• Ultimate Guide to Becoming A Freelance Fashion Designer
• My Fashion Designers Get Paid podcast where I interview successful freelancers, fashion industry experts, and share live freelance Q&A sessions with my students