I've had PMs from people asking how to charge clients..and told the same thing to some here in the open threads.

How you charge your clients is up to you in the end.

There's the honest worker, the honest thief and the thief.

The honest worker is the person that charges for the total time worked on the project with his experience. The honest thief is someone who charges a little excessively but tells the client why is it so expensive and requires some marketing talk to pull this off. The thief plainly puts it that this person just charges a bomb because he can talk marketing.

Then there's the different clients, the great client, the average client and the worst client.

The great client is the ones who respect you and understand the work you're doing for them and they're willing to pay for your time. The chances of getting great clients is 1:3 in Malaysia for obvious reasons. the average client is the ones you'll normally find in Malaysia. They'd like something done at a cheaper rate but would remember you if it was done well. The worst client are those that not only want cheap but they're taking advantage of you because you can't do anything to them. The worst clients for me are the MNCs in Malaysia who throw their weight around and those clients that just allow you to do your work but later in the end blame you for not going a good job when they themselves weren't communicative in the project.

So in terms of what to charge.. you be the judge of that.

I like charging by the time and workload needed as well as trying to tell the client as best I can why they pay more for the type of work I do. If a client can't understand and wants to become an average client, I let it slide.

MNC = Multi National Corporation / Company

short names in design ar... urm.. nothing at the top of my mind. lol