How much should I pay a freelancer?

This is a difficult topic to tackle, and I think there are no right answers. However, I will give you a few ideas how different the approach and outcome can be.

It’s crazy how wide the bid range for some projects are. I’ve seen projects where the bid range has been between $2,000 and $18,000. How do you know how much you should pay? Sadly, most of the times businesses choose the cheapest one.

My suggestion for situations like this is to talk to someone about it. If you’re about to do a website redesign and you get a bid range like the one above – ask a friend or a friend’s friend, that knows something about web design, what they think would be reasonable.

Imagine this scenario:

You are looking for a website redesign and you talk to a developer about a project, she asks no questions, and quotes you $5,000. She does the job, you pay her and everyone leaves happy.

Now, imagine the same project with a different developer. She is interested in your project – she wants to understand your business, she makes suggestions how to make the process / product better and tells you that with those changes you will receive a ROI of $20,000 a year for this project. She quotes you $15,000, which is three times more than the other developer.

Which one would you choose?

As I mentioned in the beginning, there are no right answers. Instead of telling you the ‘answer’, I’m going to tell you how I see it.

With the first freelancer you are buying time/effort, you pay for the hours the freelancer puts in to the project.

The other freelancer has already added value to the project (before it has started) by suggesting changes that will increase the ROI. From this freelancer you’re buying a way to increase the annual revenue by $20,000.

The cheapest freelancer isn’t always the best one.