[Circles]

Afternoon all, long time no see!

Here's a question for the design folk among us:

How do you tackle the issue of stock photography and other design resources when costing a job for a potential client?

Do you factor in the cost of purchasing the images? Do you offer to cover part/all of the cost? Do you factor in the time it takes to source these images, and, if so, how do you predict the amount of time it'll take to find the perfect image, without overcharging or selling yourself short?

I often find the process of searching for the perfect source image to be one of the most time-consuming stages of the design process.

TIA.

[Glowbridge]

It depends on how you wish to bill your clients, really.

One is giving your client a quote and having it expressly understood that external costs may be added to the final bill. Factor in a bit of time for looking in your original quote and just bill cost for the resources. Maybe also factor in a bit of time to change out fonts when they inevitably cry about paying £20 'for some pixels that you could do yourself'

Option two is give yourself a budget for each client and include it in the quote. Don't go over it. 'Course if you don't calculate correctly your designs might lack because you didn't want to pay for the right font however added bonus of being able to unexpectedly take money off the final bill when you end up not buying fonts or photographs.

Lastly there is letting the client do it. Personally never done it this way but I can imagine some clients demanding this level of control. Where you find the resources you would need and submit a list to them and have them go and buy it. Risky I think, you are essentially handing over control of the images and fonts used to their accounting department.

Personally I prefer the second method. If you know you will need some 3rd party resource but don't know to which extent or its cost just explain that and delay giving a quote until you've done a bit of research. Or if something pops up half way through the project you can determine if how required it is and discuss with the client about adding it to the final bill. Although sometimes it's best just to eat the cost because preserving the 'One quote, no surprises' aspect is more important than getting an extra £20 for a font you suddenly need.

This post has been edited by Glowbridge: 22 October 2011 - 12:17 PM

[Lieto]

Its a part of design process cant see why it should be billed on some different basis.

Unless its some "small" update for which you charged 2 hours and you need to update like 50 images.

[Circles]

Thanks for your replies

In the end, I decided to add the cost of any additional resources to the final invoice subject to a maximum budget to be agreed beforehand, which client seemed happy enough for me to do - we'll see how it works out.

[MikeChipshop]

Circles, on 03 November 2011 - 06:37 PM, said:

Thanks for your replies

In the end, I decided to add the cost of any additional resources to the final invoice subject to a maximum budget to be agreed beforehand, which client seemed happy enough for me to do - we'll see how it works out.

Pretty much what i do.
Leaves overall control in your hands but leaves flexibility in the budget to the client. They can see exactly where the money is going and it adds that important level of trust and accountability.