START HERE - ECONOMICS
The price that makes it profitable
Begin with the design process.
You have the concept, and you have the deck. What is costing you is the number attached to it.
You are designing emotionally. You fall in love with an idea, then find a way to make it happen, and somewhere along the way you absorb a cost, discount the design fee, or fold production management in for free because it felt awkward to charge for it. Most planners do this. Very few admit it. None of it shows up as a loss — it shows up as a year that was busy and did not make money.
Pricing properly is two things. Knowing what things actually cost, so you do not underprice. And being able to show a client the value of what you designed, so she stays committed to it even when it comes in over her budget. Cutting is not the only answer to a number that is too high.
Where to go from here:
Pricing well comes from knowing what things actually cost, and that knowledge lives with the people who build. At The Design Residency, you work beside a top vendor in each design focus and see what a design takes to make: the materials, the labor, the crew, the hours. You leave able to quote a number you can defend, and to show a client the value of a design instead of cutting it.
The economics rest on the two stages before them. You cannot price a concept that has not been originated, or a design that has not been fully drawn. I'm sending you both class replays by email, because that groundwork is what makes your next proposal easier to price.