How to price your first freelance ID project (a real calculator).

The scariest email in freelance instructional design isn’t the one where a project goes sideways. It’s the one that just says: “Sounds great — what would you charge for this?” Cursor blinking. You don’t want to lowball and spend three weekends resenting the job. You don’t want to throw out a big number and never hear back. So you stall, you write “it depends,” and you sound like every other ID who hasn’t figured this out yet.

Here’s the thing nobody tells you on your first project: pricing isn’t a vibe, and it isn’t a single number you pull from the air. It’s a small calculator with four inputs — an hourly floor, a project ceiling, a discount you can actually afford to quote, and the line where you politely walk. Build it once and that blinking cursor stops being scary.

/01Find your hourly floor first.

Before you can quote a project, you need one private number you will never put in a proposal: your hourly floor. This is the rate below which the work isn’t worth doing — it covers your actual time, the unbillable hours (admin, sales, revisions you didn’t scope), taxes, and the gaps between contracts. Most new freelancers compute a “rate” that quietly assumes they bill 40 hours a week. You don’t. You bill maybe half that, and the floor has to absorb the rest.

So work backwards from the income you need, divide by the hours you can actually bill, then pad it for the unbillable load. The exact arithmetic is yours, but the shape is always the same: a floor that already accounts for the weeks you spend chasing the next gig instead of building courses.

// What you need to clear, after the gaps and the taxes.
target_income = annual_take_home + taxes + tools_and_overhead;

// Hours you ACTUALLY bill — not 2,080. Closer to half.
billable_hours = weeks_working × realistic_billable_hours_per_week;

// The floor. Quote projects from here; never go under it.
const hourly_floor = target_income / billable_hours;

/02Then price the project, not the hours.

The floor is for you. The client gets a project price — a single number tied to a concrete deliverable and a definition of “done.” Hourly billing is a trap on both ends: it punishes you for getting faster, and it tempts the client to litigate your timesheet. A fixed project price says “here is exactly what you receive, and here is what it costs.” That’s what they actually want to buy.

The trick to setting that number without guessing is to stop counting hours and start sorting work into effort tiers. Every ID project I’ve ever scoped slots into one of three:

Tier 1 — the awareness module.

A click-through course in Rise with stock assets, one review round, and SCORM 1.2 packaging. Low branching, low SME load. Fast to build, quick to price.

Tier 2 — the scenario build.

A branching module in Storyline with custom interactions, two SME review rounds, a scored quiz with reporting, and SCORM 2004 packaging. This is the bread-and-butter project, and it’s where most underquoting happens — the review rounds and branching eat far more time than the seat-time estimate suggests.

Tier 3 — the program.

A multi-module program with xAPI instrumentation, facilitator guides, job aids, and a pilot cycle. Long timeline, heavy stakeholder load, real project management. Price it as the engagement it is, not as “a few modules.”

When a quote request comes in, slot it into a tier, then adjust for the multipliers that actually move cost: audience size, number of languages, and review complexity. A 30-minute compliance module with legal review, three SME passes, and SCORM 2004 for Cornerstone is a completely different project than a 30-minute Rise course for internal awareness — even though a client will describe both as “a 30-minute module.” Ask what business problem triggered the request before you name a price. The answer is the price.

/03Three pricing shapes that hold up.

Once you know the tier, you still have to choose how the money moves. There are three shapes worth using, ranked by how often they fit a first project:

You can mix shapes inside one engagement — sprint-priced discovery, milestone-priced build, an optional post-launch retainer — as long as you label the boundaries explicitly in the proposal. Clients reward that clarity, and it keeps a single flat fee from either undervaluing the build or overcharging for something simple.

/04The discount line and the walk-away line.

Two numbers do the negotiating for you. The first is the discount you can quote without bleeding — and the rule is simple: never cut the price without cutting the scope. If a client needs a smaller number, you trade for it. Drop a review round. Narrow the audience. Cut a language. Move voiceover to their side. A discount is a different project at a lower price, never the same project for less money.

The second number is the floor from section one — and that’s your walk-away line. When the scope-adjusted price would still drop you below your hourly floor, the answer is a warm “no.” Not a guilt trip, not a counteroffer you’ll resent. Walking from work that pays under your floor is how you stay available for the work that pays above it.

Protect the scope, or the floor doesn’t matter.

None of this survives contact with a client unless you fence the scope in writing. List the exclusions in plain language — not legalese — and make each one something a past client actually asked for: this project does not include translation, LMS upload and configuration, voiceover recording, ongoing maintenance after delivery, or more than two rounds of SME review. If it’s happened once, it’ll happen again; putting it on the list isn’t adversarial, it protects the timeline the client needs too.

Then define change orders before the first one lands: additions beyond the agreed scope — new modules, extra review rounds, new audiences, format changes — get scoped and quoted separately, and work begins only after written approval. Build the “scope creep early-warning” habit: when someone says “could we also…” in a meeting, write it down where they can see it and say, “Great idea — let me scope that as an add-on so it doesn’t delay the main delivery.” That one sentence validates the request, signals a cost, and protects the timeline all at once.

/05Frequently asked questions.