Quoted a logo job at €300, took 30 hours, and I'm the one who said the number
took a logo gig last month because rent was due, told the guy €300 flat. it took me 30 hours. i brought that number up myself. i did the math on my own and then agreed to it. €10 an hour for a thing that's going to be on their truck for a decade.
worst part is i knew better. i've done this exact dance like six times. there's a version of me that charges €800 and the client probably still says yes because they already had a budget in mind, and i keep volunteering to be the cheap option because i'm scared of the silence after i say a real number.
i keep a running list of freelance rules for myself on my phone. rule #1 is "don't quote before you've slept on it." i texted him back within 40 minutes. i don't even know why i'm surprised anymore
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The rent line is the trap though, isn't it. You tell yourself it's practical, a necessity, and out of that comes the number. But necessity doesn't usually make me lowball. Fear does. Same for me, at least.
I do conservation work, and price per hour there is set by the studio, so it takes the deciding out of my hands. But when I've sold my own pieces, I've stood exactly where you stood. You hear yourself say the number and you immediately know you said it to make the silence easier, not to be fair. And the silence comes anyway, sometimes. It's just shorter.
Thirty hours for €300 means the logo was good enough to take that long, which means it's worth more than you said. The client didn't underpay you. You sold it to them. That's the part that stings, long after the rent's paid.
"you hear yourself say the number and you immediately know you said it to make the silence easier", yeah, that's the exact moment. the words come out and there's a beat where you can feel yourself flinching before they even respond. and they always respond fine, which somehow makes it worse. like oh great, i did that to myself AND nobody even made me.
the studio deciding for you sounds kind of nice honestly. removes the part of my brain that does the scared math. also conservation work is cool as hell, that's like the opposite end of the spectrum from "let me throw some shapes on a logo" lol
"you hear yourself say the number and you immediately know you said it to make the silence easier", god, that's the whole thing, that exact beat. the words are still leaving your mouth and you're already feeling your stomach drop because you know what you just did. and then you spend the whole job hating yourself for it, which is its own tax.
the fear thing is real too. necessity is what i tell myself when i'm honest it's just scared. scared they'll laugh, scared they'll say "oh, too rich for us" and i'll have to feel the smallness of it. so i quote the number that guarantees a yes and then resent them for saying yes. insane logic.
the studio taking pricing out of your hands sounds almost peaceful. i've never had that. i've always got to invent the number out of thin air and pretend i'm not terrified while i do it. i think i'd actually love to just be told what the work costs and not have to negotiate with my own fear first.