How did I go from charging 100 dollars for 1 minute of music, to sometimes charging almost 20k for just 30 seconds? Here are some things I've learned about setting rates... 1. Your ability to price is mainly tied to your brand Brand is a lot more complicated than just your logo and snazzy website - it is everything that is associated with you as a person, not just your work. Trust is the most profitable aspect of my own brand. People will pay 3 times the price of a viable substitute if they trust you. Hard to build, easy to destroy. You can build it in many ways: Every promise you keep adds to the bank. Help as many people as you can - when a community speaks well of you, you can build your reputation in your sleep. Be visible, be humble, have integrity - over time, it'll build. Of course, there are other aspects to this - working with big clients brings you prestige and legitimacy, making you more desirable. But this is just a different manifestation of the same concept - trust. Your work has been validated by authoritative voices, giving you an air of reliability and professionalism. 2. Just ask for more money If you are a creative professional, and good at your job, I'll bet you have some level of imposter syndrome - you don't think you deserve the success you're getting. Whether or not you deserve it is irrelevant. The money you ask for should not be tied to your self-worth. It should be tied to value. My point is - you're probably just asking for too little. In the past couple of months, I've hired a few people and been completely shocked by how little they charge considering how highly I regard them as colleagues. So I doubled what they asked for. Ask for more. I remember going from 100/min to 200/min, then 400, then 800, then 1300 (this was exactly the progression, by the way). What struck me was the complete lack of objective standards for valuing custom music work - it’s quite arbitrary. Just ask for more - if they can't afford it, or don't want to pay, they'll tell you. Then you can negotiate, or dodge a bullet. Either way, you'll have learned something valuable. 3. The price of your work is not set in stone This is not some sort of "fire and forget" situation where you draw up a rate sheet and then that's that. You are not selling a replicable product that you can mass produce with predictable manufacturing costs. You are creating a completely unique thing each time, and so there is really no reason the price should be the same from project to project. The value to the client changes from project to project as well - sometimes you're working with a new startup or indie studio, and other days you're working with a tech unicorn. Why charge these folks the same prices? Price for the job. Price for the value you create - find ways to articulate that. Anyway, I'm running out of characters - hope this helps. #music #composers #gameaudio #creativity #personaldevelopment #business #entrepreneur #entrepreneurship