Dan Spencer had to figure things out his own way through trial and error.
“I wasn’t handed a model,” he says. “But I’ve had a lot of people around me that have helped along the way.”
Spencer’s Web design and development firm, Demi Creative LLC, set up shop March 1 in Farmers Park at the Cast Workspace Cooperative after four years working downtown. Spencer launched Demi Creative in 2012, but he’s been providing Web-based branding, logo and graphic design services for clients since 2003 while still a graphic design student at Missouri State University. He’s been self-employed and worked at companies such as Departika, Design Fruit LLC and FlyGuy Designs.
These days, the sole employee for Demi Creative normally juggles four or five projects at a time, each one averaging three months in length with prices generally ranging from $5,000 to $20,000.
Billing for services is an inexact science, but Spencer has developed an approach that works for him.
“I don’t necessarily deliver a tangible good,” he says. “If I was building a house, I’d know how much two-by-fours, drywall and paint costs, so I could factor that in to what I do. But since I’m primarily in the digital realm, in the creative realm – even though I might have business cards or stuff like that designed and that’s tangible – the creation of those is up in the air.”
Early on, charging by the hour made the most sense. But focusing on an hourly rate brought on challenges.
“As time progresses, you get better at what you do, more efficient at what you do. So what I was doing in 2005 as an hourly rate really isn’t quite comparable to what I’m doing now,” Spencer says. “I’ve adopted a kind of value-based price structure.”
With local clients including Kuat Innovations LLC, Ozark Greenways Inc. and the Springfield-Greene County Library District, he estimates how many hours he’ll likely spend to produce clients’ desired results. But then he builds in flexibility, especially for more in-depth jobs.
When bidding a job, Spencer generally will break it into parts, with hard costs up front for known services and a range of possible charges on the back end.
“There will be a low side and a high side to that final number,” he says. “If the project scope changes, and sometimes it does, we can adjust that.”
The hourly rate varies by identified circumstances.
He charges $120 per hour for Demi Creative projects, and that factors in his time and overhead, as well as securing independent contractors as needed. He has a go-to network at his fingertips. Spencer also will work independently for other companies or designers. When he’s on-call for those contract services, he charges $75 an hour.
“I tend to undercharge. It’s my fault, and I own it,” he says. “But if I’ve had a learning experience, I don’t want that to get passed on to the client.”
When it comes to pricing, Spencer says each person has to find his own formula.
“I know a lot of people in the field, and I know they have their own ways of doing it, too,” he says. “I know this works for me.”
Click here for Part I.
Click here for Part II.
