rates for freelancer & general suggestions

[texbala]

hi,

i need to know how much to quote for a project. I know it is difficult to tell for an individual, i will try to give as much details as possible.

I wish to b a flash-pro in a couple of months. I rate myself to be an intermediate. I have seen many examples in actionscript.. but havn't done much live projects. Know a lot of stuff in desinging. I see myself around $30/ hour (US of America).

I havn't had any freelancer experience. Please give an idea how much I should charge for, say
* 6 buttons (home, contact, e-mail etc..) - hence 6 pages
* 6 text fields (no dynamic text) - just scrolling ones
* may be 12 graphics (photos)
* a template for the whole project
* a design for loading each swf file (swf file for home, contact, email etc..)
* and some animation effect for the buttons

* may b the animation effects needn't be of actionscript.. may b just in design

also, what are all the things that I need to be careful while doing freelancer projects. I see that one shouldn;t handover the source code till i get the pay.

advanced thnx!!

[vilehelm]

Honestly, you can't do this with every client but I like to give a close as i can get estimate and then work on an hourly basis.

The real problem being is that with fixed prices you have to fight hard against "scope creep". Clients want to jam more and more into it. You run into project management issues of they can't get you content and you waste time running them down.

Hourly rates place some of the responsility on the clients shoulders. They get things done that need to be done so that you can get to work and stop wasting their money.

<edit> BE HONEST WITH YOUR TIME SHEETS!

Only if you have some real proprietary piece of wizardry should you delve into the world of fixed prices and then draw up a REAL tight contract.</edit>