In my mind, one of the worst aspects of landing a freelance project is the point where it’s time to talk money, and the client says “make me an offer”. For those of us who have experienced this over and over, it’s clear that this is–in some cases–a shameless attempt to get you to bid yourself down out of fear of pricing yourself out of the gig. In other cases the client simply doesn’t know what your time is worth and looks to you to set your own value. In one or two situations I’ve had clients who had gotten bids from others and wanted to see where I fell in the price wars. Any way you look at it, these are tricky waters to navigate.
Here are some of my strategies for dealing with negotiations over my fee: