The art of pricing and mastering sustainable rates

I’ve been editing scientific articles for 15 years now through a career in research, but with only two years of freelancing I was very much looking forward to hearing Diana Gordaliza and Marián Amigueti’s perspective on this topic.

This session’s speakers founded Dual after observing that most language professionals love to work with clients but loathe the business aspect of it. The session featured a combination of slides, calculations and real-time polls, which provided an interesting picture of where we, the audience, stood with regards to our own rates. As a positive start, the first show of hands revealed that most attendees were happy with theirs.

With a seven-month-old sleeping baby strapped to her chest, Diana appropriately stated that personal circumstances represent the core of any pricing strategy. Defining rates should therefore not be based on industry standards but individual situations, which requires moving away from asking “How much should I charge?” to embracing “How much do I need?”.

To help us define our optimal target hourly rate, Diana presented three earning scenarios reflecting different goals: the “Minimum” option, covering all expenses (rent or mortgage, bills, equipment, software, attending METM, sports membership) without touching savings; the “Average” option, allowing us to save; and an “Ideal” scenario affording new possibilities such as a big investment or an upscaled lifestyle. We also defined our ideal number of worked hours and factored out non-billable work (typically amounting to ~35% of working time). Computing calculations based on these elements (and shared with attendees in a worksheet) allowed us to define our personal target hourly rate, which could be analysed to fine-tune rates or working hours as needed. At this point, the instant poll revealed that, while most of us already used rates deemed “close to ideal”, it “depended on the client” for many.

Of course, setting rates entails more than budget considerations, as rates reflect our own value, whereby “very low” gives an impression of inexperience and poor quality, “average” implies competitiveness, speed and affordability, and “high” conveys experience and specialisation.

Speaking of marketing, Marián presented strategies to find clients likely to accept our conditions. Besides finding a niche (as most MET members do), Marián stated that we can define an avatar to uncover the type of services our clients need, and leverage the directories of associations, LinkedIn, sector events, etc., to find matching clients. She also encouraged us to use AI, for instance to narrow down a list of potentially fitting companies or institutions and learn how best to approach them.

We then talked about negotiation and how to avoid common mistakes during this phase. First, negotiating should not be done by email or text message, but during a call to gauge the prospective client’s reaction. Second, providing pricing tiers is more productive than setting strict rates. For example, quoting for task A only, rather than for an entire project, can be better at first. Finally, remaining open to differing ideas is important when negotiating.

In an interesting twist, the last instant poll revealed that our most common mistake when negotiating is underselling. Going back to the first show of hands, this suggests that, while we are seemingly happy with our rates, we also recognise that we could charge more. Solutions to fix this include setting up pricing tiers, communicating our value with confidence in a way that allows the client to clearly see the benefit of hiring us, and understanding that following up after sending a quote is not unprofessional but a key (albeit unpleasant) part of the process.

This METM25 presentation was chronicled by Emmanuelle Botte.

Featured photo by METM25 photographer Julian Mayers.