How to price your first freelance project

Your first quote is not really about money. It is about whether you can say a number out loud and then stop talking.

Start from the year, not the hour

Decide what you want to earn in a year. Divide by the number of weeks you actually intend to work — not 52, more like 44 once you account for holidays, sick days and the weeks where nothing lands. Then assume only 60% of your working hours are billable, because the rest go to proposals, invoicing and email.

That gives you a floor. Not a price — a floor. Anything below it means you are subsidising your client.

Price the outcome, then sanity-check the hours

Ask what the work is worth to the client. A landing page that lifts conversion by two points on a business doing ten million a year is not a "landing page", it is two hundred thousand naira of margin. Quote against that, then check that the hours involved clear your floor.

Give three options, not one

A single number invites a yes or a no. Three options invite a choice. Put your preferred scope in the middle, a lean version below it and a version with the extras above. Most people take the middle, and the ones who take the top would never have asked for it.

Say the number and stop

The most common pricing mistake is not the figure. It is the sentence that follows it — the nervous discount, the unprompted justification, the "but I can be flexible". Send the number. Let it sit.