I make plush dolls by hand as gifts for people sometimes, and people often approach me asking if I can make one for them. Here’s a recent potential client.

Client: That doll is so cute, can you make me one for $20?

Me: Well, it took me 25 hours of work and is all done by hand so the lowest I could possibly go is $200, if you don’t want a fancy outfit. But I’d be willing to make another at that price.

Client: How about $35?

Me: You can have the felt and thread for that. The sewing will be $165 more.

Client: Okay, so like $50?

I’d been chasing down payment from a client who owed me $1500 after many hours worked. After weeks of not hearing from him, I got this message in December:

Client: Due to lack of communication over the past Christmas holidays, I’ve decided to cancel the project. It’s a shame because I really wanted to make this project a success. Oh well. Happy Holidays.

P.S. I won’t be able to respond to this email quickly due to it being the Holidays. I’m spending time with family. Thanks.

Client: The event is 6 hours long. Can you photograph it?

Me: Sure thing. Given that it’s a pretty big job and you’re asking me to edit 500 photos I’ll let you know tonight how much I’d be asking. 

Client: Oh we aren’t going to pay you. Currently we can offer you free entrance. 

Me: Free entrance to the event I work at?

Client: Well… Yes. Otherwise the ticket costs 50 euros. 

Me: You’d expect me to pay for a ticket to an even I’d have to work for free at?

Client: We’ll get back to you in a tad bit see if we can pay you.

Later that day…

Client: We’ve discussed this with the organizers, and we agreed we can provide you an extra ticket to bring a date or a friend.

I’m a web designer, and I offer a service where I setup a server with a working CMS system on it for 30 bucks. It doesn’t take me long, and it helps bring in clients.

Client: I want a website for my company.

We spoke through all the details and it was a big job. He wanted a site, full eCommerce integration and even a year’s worth of SEO services.

Right before I said goodbye:

Client: Can we talk about the price? $30 is a bit much – I’ve just started my business.

I was dealing with this fitness Instructor who tried everything to avoid paying me for my photography or video editing services. He did however insist that I should pay him for training lessons.

Client: (when he first saw my price list) Oh so this is how much you will pay me to pose while you photograph me? 

Me: No, this is how much I charge.

He kept trying to ask me questions about how he could do it himself, using the consultation as a free class and trying to haggle my price down. In all this, he tried to convince me that I should pay him to take his training lessons.

Me: Look you cannot expect from me to pay you for your services and at the same time expect that you can get my services for free + free lessons…

Client: I don’t understand what you mean. I am a fitness instructor I actually help people. All you do is take photos and add text to videos.

I work as a full-time freelancer for the past 8 years and I occasionally receive job proposals from random clients from a forum I'm a member of. 

Client: Are you looking for work? I have a part-time job that takes 10 to 15 hours per week,managing a website. A lot of it is working on auto-pilot but some things require a human. What are your hourly rates?

Me: Yeah, I could take that on. What's your budget?

I didn't know if my minimum $25/h would scare him or be too low.

Client: Yeah, it's pretty simple and fun. About the hourly: we had this dude, paid him $15/h, good worker. We now have this other dude, doesn't do much, misses deadline, doesn't communicate and we pay him $5/h. So if you could do what the first dude did and we pay you like the second one, that'd be great.

Client: Your system is overspending on our campaigns, we demand a refund!

Me: Upon investigating the change log, it looks like someone changed the budget to $500 after the campaign spent over $1000.

Client: Hey, my old designer has been working on my site for 2 years, and it is still not done. The container is setup and so is the cart, but I need graphics and products uploaded.

Me: Since you are a friend, I will give you the friend rate of $35/h and exchange for product (I like is store, and that really cuts the fee per hour in half). You are looking at a minimum of 20 hours of work, which is $700. My fees will go up from there depending on what changes you want.

Client: Can we work out any sort of deal for payment?

Me: Well, your business sells a few things that I want and can’t afford. MSRP for these items covers about half the job, so give me that and I’ll do the job for 50%.

Client: That is insane. Do you have any idea what the tariff is on that? The other guy was doing it for free, I was hoping you’d do the same.

After doing an initial proposal with some 3D visuals for an interior design project and presenting them to the client in a meeting, we gave them a quote for our services going forward:

Client: Can you send these visuals to me so I can show these to my wife to get her opinion too?

Me: No, it’s against our policy to release our concept work until we sign a contract.

Client:  We have to let you know that we are also consulting with others on this project. We’ll let you know our decision in a week.

We had been in constant phone and real life contact on location for the previous couple of weeks.

We didn’t give them the concept, and we never heard from the client again.

You gotta love clients trying to steal your work because they assume they can get the builders to apply the same quality of design at a cheaper rate.

I occasionally do work as a freelance music transcriber. Most of my jobs are received by friends of mine or past clients giving my contact info to request a job. Also, since I’m still in school, my rates are considerably lower than a lot of professionals.

Client: I got your name from [my friend]. I’m looking to get a transcription and transposition done.

Me: Of course! Just let me know what the piece is and how you’d like to transpose it.

Client: It’s a 12 minute long piece with multiple parts. Also, I need by this next week.

Me: Glancing through it, it looks like it’ll take me about 3-4 days to do, so a week will be no problem! At that rate, I’d estimate about $240 maximum.

Client: Oh, but it’ll be great exposure! I’ll give your name to all my friends!

Me: How did you find out about me again?

Client: [Friend], why?

Me: If you, a complete stranger, were able to find out about me through my contacts, I don’t think I need more exposure.

After that, the potential client hung up in a huff. Apparently, she told my friend how rude I was and she asked me what happened. After telling her, she just laughed. You’re never too young to not work for free, kids!