Product Design Money Talk - How To Go From $50 To $95 An Hour Doing The Same Work
Watch & Listen:
Nick's first freelance client paid him fifty dollars an hour. He said 'yes' before he knew what the market rate was, and it turned out to be exactly the right way to find out.
In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick spend the whole episode on money, salaries, hourly rates, and how you should ask for more. Tyler walks through the salary research tool that showed him his entire possible career path and the forty thousand dollar salary he thought he would happily live on forever. Nick breaks down the raise that took him from 2500 EUR/month to 4000 EUR/month, and the freelance pricing strategy that pushed his average hourly rate from 50 USD up past 95 USD just by raising the number with every new client until the rejections started piling up.
They also get into the LinkedIn open to work banner and why neither of them will turn it on, the case for and against salary transparency laws, and the three times revenue framework Tyler uses to justify asking for a raise with actual numbers instead of a feeling.
Key takeaways
"If people accept instantly, you know, you probably could have gone a bit higher. That's how you increase your number—you try a higher rate with the next client until you get more rejections than acceptances, and then you know you've found your limit."
"If you're at a place where you can kind of measure your ROI as an individual and you're a high performer, you can tie your work to the revenue the company generated—you have the reasoning to push for a higher salary because you've put in x and the company gets y, and you're positive on the profit and loss sheet."
Watch it on YouTube
Hosts
Tyler White
Tyler White is a Principal Product Designer with 15 years of experience in B2B SaaS and fintech, helping teams scope, frame, and connect design work to real business outcomes.
Nick Groeneveld
Nick Groeneveld is a freelance UX and product designers from the Netherlands. He started his design career in 2015 and has since then worked for startups, government agencies, and corporations.
