There are lots of ways to be paid. The most basic is with cash. You do the work, and the client pays you money. But once you start looking for work as a Web designer there are several other ways you might be asked to receive payment. While some are reasonable, there are a few that you should avoid or try to renegotiate.
Credit for Your Work
You should always get credit for your work, regardless of the pay involved. When a client offers you "credit" for your work as a form of payment, they are simply offering to pay you in exposure. In other words, they aren't going to pay you. My article on working for free discusses many of the reasons you would want to avoid this payment method.
It can be tempting to accept credit as payment if you don't have a large portfolio of items. But when you accept a job for free, you are taking up time that could have otherwise been spent finding paying clients, building pages for yourself as portfolio pieces, and doing jobs that offer real money for pay.
You should always ask for credit for your work, preferably as a link to your website in the footer of the sites you design. The only time you should give up your credit is if it's in the contract that you won't be credited. And you should ask for additional compensation, especially if you're asked not to use the site in your portfolio.
Working on Spec
Spec work is where you build a design or designs for your client, and if they like it, they will pay you. While this is very common in creative endeavors like fiction and screenplays, it is not a good way to be paid for freelance Web designers. Most websites are built for a business purpose, and spec work can cause some big problems. Some of the most common problems with doing Web design on spec are:
- You do the work and it's not accepted and so you're paid nothing.
- You are asked to build multiple versions, so even if you are paid, you're not paid for the amount of work you did.
- Your work isn't accepted, and then later you see that their site goes live with a design that looks very similar to something you built.
Contests
Contests can be very tempting to participate in. They are exciting if you win, and seem like they might result in good exposure, even if you don't. The problem with contests is that it's very much like working on spec. You do a lot of work, but your odds of winning are often very low. The other problem is that many contests have a submission rule where they get to keep all submissions, winning or not. This means that once you've done all the work, even if you don't win, you can't use that design for any other site.
Participating in contests can be very time consuming. Often you have to build a site that is just as good as any site you'd build for a client. But you don't have any of the feedback involved when working with a client. So you don't know whether the work you're doing is going to result in a sale (win) or not.
Job Bidding Sites
Job bidding sites can be a tempting way to find work. The problem with them is that the winning bid is nearly always the lowest one. So the only way to get a job on these sites is to make bids that are extremely low. The winning bids are often vastly disproportionate to the work involved.
If you live in a very low-cost area, or have very few expenses, you might find it valuable to be the low-bidder on a job bidding site. But most Web designers will discover very quickly that they can't earn a living on the projects they get from them.
Other Payment Options That Aren't Questionable
There are two other ways you might be offered payment that you should consider. There are definitely issues surrounding these payments, but not so severe that you should avoid them.
Work for Hire
Most Web designers who work for a company on a Web team are doing essentially work for hire. You don't own the copyright to the work, and can't use it on other designs, but you're well compensated for it. Work for hire is a good way to get paid for a short job. You probably won't get credited for the work, but you could probably get permission to use the work in your portfolio.
A good rule of thumb is that if someone wants to hire you in a work for hire scenario, you should receive at least 10% more compensation for that job than you would have in a straight freelancing project.
Barter
Another way you could get paid is in barter. This is where you trade your Web design work for something that your client has that you need or want. This is a great way to get things for your business like hosting space, business cards, or something else. And as long as you both feel satisified with the deal, barter can be a great way to go.
Just be sure to get a contract. Just because you're trading your work for some thing rather than for cash doesn't mean that you shouldn't be clear about what the trade entails. With the contract you ensure that your 10-hour design job in exchange for your bedroom being painted doesn't turn into a many-month long maintenance job with the client saying "but I spent 30 hours painting your room, and you only spent 10 hours building my site".
