Image Designer Archive

So I spent an hour with a client who needed "lots" of Image Designing, face, hair, almost everything. The total time spent was well over an hour, when i finally just told him to visit a website that had all the hair pictures.

When he was done, he joked and ran off without paying. So haha, good joke. He comes and ask how much i owe him. I say i usually let my clients decide how much to pay me, and I asked him how much an hour of my time was worth. He tells me 1k. I laughed and asked him if it was more like 10k? He ended up getting mad at me and told me I should let him decide how much he should pay.

Yes, you're thinking, I said that in the beginning, right? And I told him so and laughed. And began to explain i could easily do15 or MORE delivery (or survey)missions from Theed to moenia, which would be something like, 1700 credits per run (900x 15 = 13,500 credits). In MY way of thinking, becoming an image designer should be able to generate more than simple delivery missions, this is my profession!

He throws 8000 credits at me (which i would have been fine with if he hadnt even asked) and takes off without a word.

So I want to know if i should think about setting prices for each image design? or hourly rates? Something i can say before i even do any ID on a client? How much am I supposed to charge for this service?

Keep in mind i had done over 60! changes back and forth to this man (i scrolled up and counted, 31 of them he accepted). And he kept changing his mind, asking my opinion about one thing, then ignoring it. AsI said, it was well over an hour with this man, andI beganto worryhe wasn't going to pay me. But I didn't say anything till the end.

I havent read this forum too much, and im guessing my problem here is shared by many, if not everyone. I'm just frustrated and need some advice or guidance on how to handle this

Personally, having a set pricing scheme has worked pretty well for me. Although I don't stick to it as strictly as some might. For example: I do some work on someone that I would charge 10k for. Then they tell me they only have 8325. I cut a deal.

So that would be my advice. Set some prices, but be willing to haggle a little. It's usually just enough to keep some of the more unstable customers from getting pissed off.

I adopted a price list soon after I was stiffed a few times in a row. I got together with some ID friends and we came up with the following... (the web site is kink's)

http://www.zinckiwi.com/id/

I had the same thing happen to me - problem customer, an hour of changes to "UNDO" something another ID had done to him (then some additional changes on top of that), back and forth, back and forth - then he tips me 100 creds and runs out the door, claiming not to have cash on him. I tell him there is such a thing as a banktip and that he is persona non grata around my shop. His response: you should have set a price up front, and that 100credits is "a lot". I later found him in the cantina put back the way he was before. Apparently, he had paid another (male) ID 2000 credits to ID him before our ID session (so he paid 2000 credits for a "bad" ID job and 100 credits to me for the "fix") and then yet again he paid the same male ID 2000 credits to undo all the changes I had made (no doubt using the new and mysterious "banktip" ability he had just mastered). He harassed me (which I couldn't hear b/c of /ignore), my TKA friend challenged him to a duel... hehe boys.

But just yesterday, I had two people contact me for ID while i was tediously restocking, and one tipped 10k and another tipped 15k for some random changes. And they were polite and everything and did not ask for exploits - didn't want em, didn't care about em - I think probably because I live on Talus and truly the different planets have different personalities. The reason I personally don't set prices is that I get a little motherly and out of control sometimes - I won't in good conscience let a boy leave my shop with the "zero fat girly waist" when I can dropsome fat on him. And I'm doing him a service, and he's always happy, but I can't really charge for that. Ah well.

I have struggled with the pricing issue since July. To charge a set rate or just hope for a tip.

There really isnt a great solution. I find that most players are honest and if I explain what my fee will be in advance and get them to actually agree to the fee by typing in a yes, I rarely have problems getting paid.

On the other hand if you dont set a fee in advance you can get a tip that is more than you would have charged under the advance fee idea and sometimes you get far less,,,

So I think each imager has to establish their own preference and then use their own judgement whether to charge a specific customer a fee or wait for a tip. I sometimes ask for a fee and sometimes wait for a tip,,it just depends on my mood,,how busy I am and how polite they are when they approach me. If someone starts out " I need" I am almost always going to ask for an advance fee, If the start out, using please or "do you have time to help me,,I usually just wait for the tip,,and hope to average more than what my advance fee might have been. In the end, if you keep this profession for a long time, you actually like and have fun doing image changes so getting paid to do it, isnt always totally necessary, it just helps to pay the bills,

PS, I refer to the minimum weight/waist as the GI Joe look or the Barbie look,,,they usually understand that description very quicklly and agree to the change.

N'jessi thats pretty funny about the whole waist thing.

I had a similar situation with this customer who kept wanting changes that i thought looked horrible, he wanted the handle-bar mustache (which looks horrible, like some angry biker) all his lips down to zero and eyes to zero. He asked me what i thought would make him look "hot" but he had his own ideas instead of listening to me, despite the fact that he asked me to tell him what i thought looked best.

Anyways, I might actually ask how many changes someone would be planning before i do any ID, if they do one or two changes i'll leave it up to then to price it, but anything over that, i'll probably set a price.

What's the standard pricing for someone who does, say, 6 changes? 400 or 500 perchange? is that too much? Or if someone spends an hour or more it becomes 10k?

You know what? thats what im going to do, im going to ask 3 questions before I do any ID on someone:

1) How many changes do you plan on making?

2) Are you sure of what you want?

3) How much time do you want to spend?

That way their answers will depend on my pricing scheme.

yay!

That's a good idea. I keep almost wanting to include some kind of price adjustment based on the amount of time I spend, but I still can't bring myself to do it.

I get the customers who say they need a quick haircut, then take up an hour of my day going back and forth between 15 different styles. And in the end, they tell me my prices are too high. (I don't use resources after all). These make me want to charge 100 times what I normally would, and retire early.

Then I get customers who are very friendly and polite, but they randomized their characters at creation. So I spend an hour chatting and "making them beautiful" At the end they grin and tip and tell their friends how pleased they are with my work. These are the ones who keep time out of my fees.

Some people i only charge a smile as they walk away.

I usually just charge "whatever" and leave the tip upto them. But if i miss a shuttle or something i might ask for the ticket fee with a smirk on my face.

I find its really hard for some people to tip and some people have all the money in the world. I havent totalled up evertyhing ive made or anything, but i bet the average is still pretty good.

It seems to me that if youre having fun, and theyre having fun... the tips are pretty good.

So now that I've mastered, I was considering setting in place a rigid (well, mostly) pricing scheme. Since mastery I've taken on six jobs, and they've kind of made me change my mind about fixed fees:

1. Breast augmentation / Height increase: spent maybe 10 minutes with this young lady—a pleasure to work with and when told to "Tip whatever you feel is apropriate for my time" she gave me 10K. Yay!


2. Skin coloration / Lekku marking coloration: another 10 minute or so job, this one a bit more picky than the last. Another 10K tip. Yay!


3. Hairdo: Short and sweet, sent him to Pani's site and got him set up on the first try. 1K tip.


4. Facial hair: I don't really remember this one, must have been a really short one (in the starport on the way to Naboo, maybe?) 500cr tip.


5. Haircut / Dye job: Brief stop on my way to a friend's house to see her new setup, tried maybe 3 styles, 1 facial hair, dye job. 1.5K tip.


6. Full facial reconstruction / Haircut / Facial hair / Dye job / Muscle mass: One of the longer sessions, but the client was polite, and gave me almost free reign ("I want to be hot!" he said) Another 10K tip. Yay!

So all in all I'd say I'm making far more telling them to tip what they feel my time is worth than I would if I had a flat fee…this held true before mastery, but I wasn't keeping detailed records then The interesting thing I've noticed is that no matter how much they tip, they always ask if that's okay, despite me telling them it's at their discretion…maybe if I get a really rude client I'll quote a price…but until then it's just fun watching how happy they are when they get that one look they've been searching for.

I do both. If I get a /tell saying "D00dz eye N33P a nu 90", the person acts rude, their title is one of the starting novice skills, I'll quote them a rate of 2000 credits per change and suggest they look at swg.atomicspacekitty.com first to minimize the fee.

If the person is an entertainer, friendly, cordial, and willing to roleplay the situation a little, I'll leave it up to a tip. One caveat is if they say they want a new hairdo I'll ask if they know which one they want ahead of time.

Since I've started doing this, I've saved myself numerous headaches and the people that are happy with their service typically tip more than my going rate. At this point its more about the fun than the credits, but a good tip helps =)

-Lution

I wish I could do all of mine for free, but then it's my only source of income so when people ask how much I charge I tell them to tip me and I don't usually haven any problems. I have probably only had one person give me like 100 credits and I told them it was just rude.

Mikah - Member of Sacred Valor

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