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There’s an incredibly fine line, but yes if you undervalue yourself from the start you will never be able to up your prices, but overvalue and you’ll fail to get business of any kind.
I’ve had the ‘value’ arguments a number of times back during my photography degrees, and it killed the passion. I’m glad nobody can expect a bag/pouch/whatever in return for ‘exposure’ or for looking good in my ‘portfolio’. That nonsense was right next to mates-rates on the bullshit scale of how to kill an independent.
Recently I’ve been faced with the mates-rates issue more than anything, and certainly there are two schools of thought - you’re a mate so you get a bargain/free, you’re a mate so you should pay greater than the asking price to show your support. Normally the wrong school applies to the person.
pdlouche-
I think ‘mates rates’ or whatever is only really fair when there’s some sort of reciprocation. My sister in law has a vintage clothing business and shop. I do design work for her without charging and she gives pretty much unlimited free clothes to..... my wife.
I’ve just seen the flaw in that arrangement :-)
AlexD
Well it sounds like you’re much more on it than me. A while back I was doing some on-going work for a small publishing firm. They were lovely to work with and because they were small, I felt like it was fine to be taking a pretty low day-rate. After a while I figured out that yes, they were a small company, but I was smaller so if anyone should be expecting charity in that relationship it was me :-)