2nd edition · June 2026
A 148-page book on pricing freelance design work: how to arrive at a number, how to say it in two sentences, and what to do in the silence afterwards. Thirty-one worked examples with the real figures left in.
PDF + EPUB · 148 pages · 30-day refund, and you keep the file
4.8 from 4,100 copies sold
How to price freelance design work without flinching
Priya Venkatesan
What you get
The examples are the product. Every principle in here is followed by an actual quote, an actual invoice or an actual email, with the numbers intact rather than rounded into uselessness.
31worked examples
Every principle is followed by an actual quote, an actual invoice, or an actual email — with the figures intact rather than rounded into uselessness. Six of them are quotes that were rejected, and why.
Copy, adjust two words, send. Raising a rate, quoting without a scope, chasing an invoice twice.
A spreadsheet that turns the number of days you can actually bill into the rate you have to charge.
Both, no DRM, yours to keep on whatever device you read on. The PDF is set for screen, not for print.
Second edition is free if you bought the first. It will be the same for the third.
Contents
6 modules · 18 lessons
Page counts are real. Chapter 3 is on this page in full — if it doesn't help you, the other five won't either.
A real spread
Not a mockup and not filler — this is the typesetting, the tone and the level of detail throughout.
Chapter 3
Most freelancers do not lose money on the rate. They lose it in the four seconds after saying it, when a silence opens up and they fill it. The fix is not confidence. It is having decided, in advance, exactly how many words you are going to say.
Two sentences. The first is the number and what it covers. The second is a question that hands the conversation back. Then you stop, and you let it be their turn, however long that takes.
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The number is not the hard part. The four seconds afterwards are the hard part.
"It's £4,800 for the four weeks, including the two rounds of revisions we talked about. Does that work against the budget you have?"
Notice what is not in there: no justification, no comparison to what other people charge, no offer of a discount that nobody asked for. The question at the end is doing the work — it makes the next move theirs, and it asks about a budget rather than about the price, which is a question people can answer without conceding anything.
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Readers
I read it on a Sunday and quoted £6,200 on the Monday for work I would have priced at £3,500. They said yes without a comment. I have never had a better return on £29.
The nine email scripts are the whole book, honestly. I have sent four of them verbatim.
It is the only book on this subject that shows the quotes that got rejected. That chapter changed how I scope.
I raised my rate on three existing clients using the letter in chapter four. Two accepted immediately. The third I was glad to lose.
The whole thing
The second edition was free for everyone who bought the first, and the third will be too. No DRM, no account, no app — the download link keeps working.
PDF + EPUB
One payment · instant download · 2nd edition · June 2026
Buy the bookOr read the first two chapters free →Paid in USD via Stripe or PayPal. Priced in local currency where your card is not USD, and invoiced properly if your employer is paying.
Email me within a month and I'll refund it without asking why. Chasing a PDF back would cost us both more than $29 is worth — so the only thing I actually want to know is which chapter didn't land.
— Priya Venkatesan
Questions
It is written from design work, and the examples are design quotes. Developers, writers and consultants have told me it transferred fine — the scope chapter is the one that needs the most translation.
A 148-page PDF set for screen reading, an EPUB, and the rate calculator spreadsheet. No DRM, no account, no app. The download link works forever and the second edition was free for everyone who bought the first.
Chapter three is on this page in full, and the sample link sends you the first two chapters as a PDF. If those don't help you, the rest won't either.
The examples are in pounds because that is what I invoice in; the price is in USD. Nothing in the method depends on the currency.
Email me within 30 days and I'll refund it. You keep the file — chasing a PDF would cost us both more than $29 is worth.