My fair rate Making impactful design affordable

Businesses and organisations tackling the biggest issues – climate, nature, health and social crises – often have the smallest budgets. This can mean there isn’t the money to invest the time needed to create branding, communications and marketing that moves the dial.

Whether a branding and design project is run to your budget, a fixed quote or charged by time taken, all three approaches are based on buying an agency’s time. Time to gain insights, explore, consider and craft something impactful.

While it’s easy to assume that hiring a higher-fee agency might lead to faster and better results, the opposite is often true. Experience and expertise can speed up the process – but great branding and design takes time. And if an agency charges twice the rate, they can only spend half the time for the same budget. Less time means less care, thought and impact.

I support my clients by pegging my rate to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s Minimum Income Standard and keeping my overheads low – no salespeople, account handlers or fancy office. As a result, you get more of my time for your budget than higher-charging agencies can offer. More time means more considered, creative and effective work.

My rate is £50 an hour.
No VAT to add.

See how this is calculated below.

My hourly rate is based on the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s Minimum Income Standard. See the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s minimum income calculator.

I measure my time in hours rather than days. It’s unusual to be able to spend an entire day on one project, yet many agencies charge for a day, even if they’ve only spent a few hours on the project that day. I believe the right thing to do is to charge for the actual time worked.

With no salespeople, account handlers, or fancy office, my overheads are very low. My expenses – including software, hardware, marketing, professional fees, home office costs, travel, telephone, broadband, and office supplies – average under £3,300 annually. I’ve also chosen not to become a B Corp, which would increase my costs by over a third. This means less of your budget goes towards overheads, allowing me to invest more time on your project to achieve the best possible outcomes.

I aim to charge for around 700 hours a year. This is informed by:

Research by the industry body for design businesses – the Design Business Association (DBA) – shows that sole traders spend 50–70% of their time on client work, with the remaining time spent running their business. This includes admin, accounting, marketing, tendering for work, maintaining technology, attending events, professional development, purchasing office equipment, and periods without work. The DBA research also shows that on average 23% of the time spent on client work is unpaid, due to over-servicing – giving more time to the client than the fee allows. This results in the following:

When I started, my business mentor advised me that a consultant should expect to charge for around 100 days a year.

Over 22 years in business, this concept of 100 billable days, or 700 hours, has proved roughly correct.

Unlike some designers, I don’t subsidise my work for ethical organisations by also working for corporates. I see this as entirely counterproductive. For example, I know of an agency that works with a heart charity while also working for an ultra-processed food business – directly undermining the aims of the first client. One step forward, several steps back.

Some agencies also promote the fact they ‘donate’ a few days of their time each year to good causes. They can afford to do this because they work with corporates – often creating or amplifying the very problems those good causes are trying to address. To me, both approaches feel disingenuous.