Hi,
Again, thank you for sending this over!
Strictly speaking, there are seven parameters from which a quote for infographics is constructed:
1. What is the usage? (Unpromoted blog post of a smaller client is priced differently from the publication on the front page of a major media portal).
2. Area of Use or Territory (I'm still looking to understand how this applies to web distribution)
3. Duration of License (digital licenses are offered on a 1,3,5 years and on Perpetuity. I think it was mentioned before that most work done on Contently is done as a work-for-hire, but in cases where it's not, it's best to build quotes based on the length of time the work is seen on client's website).
4. Client’s Profile (life dictates that it works both ways: big companies have bigger budgets, and especially advertising (!). On the other hand, elite clients who are a prestige to work with, often pay little because there are too many high profile designers willing to work for them, even pro bono).
5. Client's Budget (connected to previous one).
6. Deadline (urgent jobs cost more than the normal priority ones. Also, different clients see urgency very differently, so it's worth considering something fixed, like number of days per amount of work?).
7. Expenses (travel and accommodation obviously do not apply to online freelance work, but there might be some - in your examples, there are costs for photography, where it is used).
Apart from that, are of course the very reasonable considerations that you listed - complexity of data, number of visuals to be created/number of entries, how prepared the data is (how much additional research is needed).
I agree that for most cases the quotes you list in the pdf are quite realistic, but it is hard to assess them because we don't know much about their production. Illustration on page 4 is easy to do visually and probably wouldn't require much research, but we don't know what were the deadlines and how much the photographer charged for his picture. Besides, usage rights for this image by now should be sky high, because it is so well-known! Authors who came up with such a brilliant idea should have quoted a lot, despite of visual simplicity.
- The categorization is another potential threat, because not all timelines are the same, and the prices for them vary greatly - the same goes for maps, comparisons, and other genres - some of them take weeks to do, others are very easy.
- The other important point with regards to the pricing is that the boundary between the writer, the producer and the designer in the infographics are very vague. The writer creates the text, and does research for that, but the production of the visual story is a completely different thing. Text for the infographic has to be cut down to a few dozen words (that's editor's work, which is often done by designers), and there has to be an approved wireframe in place before any design work starts. Producers often do the wireframes, but in those cases where they only manage and research, the fees for design work has to compensate for creation of wireframes. Often designers have to do research, too.
Hope this helps - wanted to thank you again for working on this! Very much appreciated your efforts!
Best regards,
Zhenia
