When designers ask about pricing, they are very often looking for a specific answer. Some industry standard, a reference point, something that will allow them to feel they are not charging too much or too little.

Perhaps you have already browsed other designers' websites or asked questions in Facebook groups more than once: "how much should I charge for a logo?", "how do I price branding?", "how do I price a website?".

And if you want to have any sense of the market, you can take that path. At the beginning, it may even be sufficient. Over time, however, you may discover that despite this awareness, the budget still does not add up, you are working beyond your capacity, and the financial ceiling you have reached is decidedly too low.

You need to start with something completely different than project rates.

For years, I tried to solve the problem of pricing and finances by raising prices, optimizing my calendar, and increasing the number of projects I could fit into it.

And very often it produced results. Except that they were usually short-lived and, most importantly, they really only concerned one area: finances.

Because when I finally reached the point where the numbers started to look the way I wanted, it turned out that I did not like that place at all.

I was tired. Stressed. I felt like I was on a treadmill. I was not eating well. I was not taking care of myself enough.
There was always something more important. Another project, another client, another message, another thing to deliver.

And I remember the enormous disappointment I felt then, because for a very long time it seemed to me that when I "reached" that place financially, everything would look different. That I would feel different.

I thought that bigger numbers would automatically bring me peace, lightness, and satisfaction.

And the truth was that I was sitting in exactly the place I had fought for earlier, and I increasingly felt that it simply did not work. It turned out that for a long time I did not know where to start when pricing a brand identity or website project—I was lost.

Being in that place, it was very difficult for me to think about changes, because when you are exhausted and operating in constant reactive mode, it is really hard to look more broadly.

However, I forced myself to take walks, to give myself space for reflection and analysis of what was actually happening in my life and work.

And then finally came a certain revelation. I had been focusing only on one measure of success the whole time. I equated success exclusively with a specific number in my account. Except that the truth is that money itself is very rarely our real goal.

We do not work to have money. We work for what it can give us (freedom, independence, peace—insert your real goals here).

And I think it is very easy to forget this, especially when you have been struggling for financial stability for a long time or trying to prove to yourself that you "can" build a profitable studio. Because after basic financial needs are met, it turns out that completely different things start to matter, and the definition of success can look completely different.

You design for others, but do you design for yourself?

I discovered a certain truth about myself a long time ago: I love inventing, creating, and designing.

On a daily basis, I design brands, but I also get great satisfaction from simply inventing something from scratch, sketching it out, and then watching it come to life. I have a notebook full of sketches related to my garden and home. Sometimes I just feel what something should be. It comes to me, so I sketch. Some of these things already exist in reality, others are still waiting for their moment.

And I have a feeling that this creative force also resides in you. That you are a creative person who can see something that does not yet exist and then give it form. Except sometimes we forget about this side of our personality. Sometimes because of what we hear from our surroundings. Sometimes because, observing the world around us, we accept that certain things simply must happen in a certain way. We do not even question it. And then it is very difficult to look at your own life with fresh eyes, at the framework we have dressed it in, and try to imagine everything anew.

But why such reflections in a text about where to start when pricing a brand identity or website project?

Because in order to know what your rates should be, you should first answer the question of how you want to live. What you want more of in this life, and what you do not want at all. Whether the framework and beliefs you have imposed on yourself are really the only possible reality. Whether the way of working that you consider "normal" today is really the one you want.

To know what your rates should be, you need to start not by designing your offer and pricing, but by designing your own life. Because it is difficult to reach a satisfying place if you do not know where it actually is. Only when you know what you want, what your ordinary day should look like, and what is important to you in life, do subsequent decisions become easier.

You stop constantly looking at what and how others are doing, and you start building an ecosystem around what is good for you. Answering such big questions, however, can be overwhelming. You may think that you just wanted to know how to price a project, and I am asking you to think about life. But I believe that work is part of life, not a separate area that can be cut off with a thick line.

We often devote a very large part of our daily lives to work, so it is good if it supports us in how we want to live, instead of slowly taking away our space for everything else.

If you feel that these are too big decisions to make right now and the very pressure of choosing the "right path" is starting to paralyze you, then let me take some of the weight off you before you go further. Only testing will reveal the truth about yourself.

You may think that you dream of a certain way of life, but when you finally taste it, you will find that it is not it after all. And conversely, something that seems unrealistic or not for you today may turn out to be exactly the direction you needed.

The fastest way to find out is to try. The decisions you make do not have to be forever. You can change your vision, adjust your direction, try a different work model, let go of something that has stopped serving you.

It is a process of designing, testing, and refining your own life as consciously as you design a brand for a client.

So where to start when pricing a brand identity or website project?

I hope I have left you with a slightly different direction of thinking about project pricing. More conscious, broader than just looking at other designers' rates, number of hours, or industry standards.

Because I truly believe that if you start by analyzing how you want to live, work, and what is important to you, you will reach far more accurate conclusions than when you are merely trying to fit into the market.

And you may also discover that some of the beliefs you currently have about money, work, clients, or a "realistic" way of running a studio are not objective truth at all, but a framework you have adopted from other people or your environment.

And when you start questioning these things, completely new possibilities, work models, and directions very often emerge that you had not even considered before.

If you feel that you want to approach this process more deeply and organize not only the numbers themselves, but also a vision of life and a studio that truly make sense for you, you can explore my video series on building a vision of life and work and translating it into specific decisions and amounts.