Across 165 client projects, Cornelia Rasco has tried nearly every pricing model available to a freelance designer: hourly billing, flat project fees, retainers, and value-based pricing. Each one solved a specific problem and created a new one. Looking back at that full history honestly, rather than just promoting whichever model is currently in use, is more useful than pretending one approach was right from the start.
Starting with hourly, and its real limitations
Like most freelancers starting out, the first several dozen projects were billed hourly. It felt fair and easy to explain: track time, bill for time. In practice, hourly billing created two persistent problems. First, it penalized getting faster. Every hour of efficiency gained through experience directly reduced income on that project, which is a strange incentive to build a growing practice around. Second, it made clients anxious in a way that damaged trust, since an open-ended hourly estimate on a wireframing or UI project always carries the risk of running over, and clients understandably want to know what something will cost before committing.
The shift to flat project fees
Flat fees solved the client anxiety problem almost immediately. A defined scope for a defined price removed the fear of an open-ended bill, and most clients responded well to that clarity. The tradeoff showed up on the business side: scoping had to become far more rigorous, because any gap between the agreed scope and what the client actually expected became unpaid work.
This is also where scope creep became a real, recurring cost rather than an abstract risk. Early flat-fee projects were underscoped, often missing revision rounds, responsive breakpoints, or handoff documentation that turned out to be assumed but never explicitly listed. Each of those gaps was a lesson that eventually built into a much more detailed proposal template, one that spelled out exactly what was and wasn't included before any contract was signed.
Testing retainers for ongoing relationships
For clients with recurring design needs rather than a single project, monthly retainers were tested as an alternative to repeatedly negotiating new flat fees. Retainers worked well for a specific kind of client: one with steady, ongoing UI or product design needs and a mature enough internal process to keep a designer reliably occupied month over month.
They worked poorly for clients whose needs were sporadic, since a retainer built around predictable capacity doesn't hold up well against a client who disappears for six weeks and then needs three weeks of work compressed into one. Retainers are now offered selectively, based on an honest read of whether a client's actual working pattern fits a steady monthly cadence.
Where value-based pricing actually applies
Value-based pricing, tying the fee to the business outcome a design project is expected to produce rather than to hours or deliverables, sounds appealing in theory but only works under specific conditions. It requires a client with a clear, measurable outcome in mind, like a conversion rate or an onboarding completion rate, and enough trust already established to have a candid conversation about what that outcome is worth to their business.
That combination is rare on a first project with a new client. Value-based pricing has worked best on repeat engagements with existing clients, after enough shared history exists to have that conversation honestly on both sides.
What would change, knowing all of this from the start
Looking back across all 165 projects, a few adjustments would have shortened the learning curve considerably:
Moving to flat fees with detailed scope documents much earlier, rather than spending the first year building that scoping discipline through trial and error
Being more selective about retainer clients from the beginning, rather than accepting every recurring-work opportunity regardless of fit
Introducing a discovery call focused specifically on scope and expectations before quoting any price, which would have prevented most of the underscoped early flat-fee projects
None of these lessons could have been shortcut by reading about them in advance. Pricing strategy, more than most parts of running a freelance design practice, seems to require getting burned by the wrong model a few times before the right one for a given situation becomes obvious.
Where this leaves the current approach
Today, most new client work starts as a flat fee with a detailed scope document, moves to a retainer only if the working pattern genuinely fits, and considers value-based pricing exclusively for established relationships. If you're weighing how to price your own design work, or want a second opinion on a proposal before sending it, get in touch to talk through what's worked and what hasn't.
