The pros and cons of freelancing
I’ve been freelancing since 2005 — long enough to get a taste for what the positives and negatives are. Here are some of the pros and cons of working as a freelance graphic designer.
PRO:
You set your own hours.
CON:
Some people expect you to work 24/7.
PRO:
You set your own rates.
CON:
How do you know what to charge?
PRO:
You’re doing the job you love.
CON:
Some people think that because you love your job, you’ll happily work for free.
PRO:
You make the rules.
CON:
No-one explains the rules.
PRO:
If you want a holiday, you take a holiday.
CON:
You don’t get paid for time off.
PRO:
You get to wear a lot of different hats.
CON:
Sometimes you just want to wear your favourite hat.
PRO:
Tax rebates after paying too much.
CON:
Accounting.
PRO:
Your clients come from all walks of life, all round the world.
CON:
You probably can’t meet every client in person.
PRO:
The 10-metre commute from bedroom to home studio.
CON:
The inability to leave your work “at the office.”
PRO:
Taking your laptop outdoors.
CON:
The weather ain’t all that great in the UK.
What are the pros and cons of how you work? Are you employed or self-employed?
Header photo by Becca Fatora
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33 appreciated comments on “The pros and cons of freelancing”
What are your thoughts?
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I agree with your post. I am a freelancer as well. One of the pros for me is that I really feel alive, not knowing what the next day holds is exciting. When you work for the man you know when your next paycheck is, when your yearly review for a raise is etc.
I also agree with you about the 24/7 thing, I can’t remember when my last weekend off was, where I wasn’t working on a project or getting calls from clients.
About the accounting thing, thank God for quickbooks lol:)
Good post.
Having been a freelancer for two years and spent 5 months working for a company, I would add the following:
PRO
Afternoon siestas. What I would do to have a powernap now!
CON
Feeling guilty about spending time doing research (20% of my current job is devoted to training myself).
I’ll look into Quickbooks. At the minute I use simple spreadsheets. Thanks James.
Neil, self-training is another con. In employment your training would likely be fully paid for, and you’d also be getting paid to take whatever course or research you’re doing. Good point.
Interesting posts. Is swings and roundabouts then?
What do you mean by:
This is the reason I don’t think freelancing is for me. I’ve done some freelance work in the past, but nothing dedicated or to be considered as the path to my future career as a freelancer. I just don’t have the proper dedication, I don’t think, even if I emotionally want to. I need a structured environment of some sort, even if it’s just in small business. I’m so impressed with people like you who can [almost] constantly keep themselves motivated!
“Sometimes you just want to wear your favourite hat.”
That is only one of the CONs which would persuade me to give up being my own boss, offer my a job only ever wearing my favourite hat. I really love my favourite hat.
When I was a lone freelancer I actually wore it more than I do now though – so any freelancers thinking that the way to do more ‘fun’ work is to grow your team, think again! It has the opposite effect.
What is it you’re doing now Lelia?
Aaron, I think I should’ve worded that one differently. I meant how some people have little appreciation of how long a certain design task will take. I’ve had clients in the past who wonder why I allocate so much time to sketching or brainstorming.
It’s the little things we do, such as optimising images for print and setting up style sheets that add time to everything.
Ultimately, swings and roundabouts could be right, but I’d say I’m happier now that I was in prior jobs working for the man.
Steve, I have friends who used to do a lot of their own design, working for large companies. Now with their progression up the ranks they have little, if nothing, to do with the reason they started there in the first place. I can appreciate how the same thing applies when hiring your own staff.
Great post David!
I was/am a freelance writer. Once I published my book, I gained more from writing for promoting my products and building my info productline & online biz, basically; and decided never to freelance again, customer load, service-base…basically all your ‘cons’.
Then, due to my health, I was offline for 11 months. I made $ to cover all costs, and made some bucks too…but, I knew getting back online I had to invest in outsourcing, and hiring out a ton of technical work…which, yes, cost $.
So, now I freelance a quarter of my time. The first month, I totally forgot to add $/time for my research. Anyways…getting back to making a point:
I find that I’m attracting highly-educated professional clients now, who appreciate my education, consultation, research, and much higher rates. I’m not cutting myself short this time around…then again its my 11th year when I first got “paid” to write for others. Fortunately, it never was my ‘only bread-money’ :-)
Patience, assertiveness, changing target markets, etc. are things I learned through my years.
Hope I didn’t bore y’all to death…
This is a great post and one that all freelancers (regardless of what it is they actually do) would do well to consider. I am bookmarking it in order to refer to it later (as I know that I will be doing). Thanks for sharing this!
Ponn, not boring at all! Thanks for the little background info, and the compliment.
Laura, you’re very welcome. Glad you have you drop in.
I don’t freelance but I do write technical articles on the side for publication in traditional print media. My day job, however, does allow me to work at home all the time. Therefore I get some of the freelance benefits and some of the freelance drawbacks (work 24/7). The only draw back I see to working at home is that the line between work and play is very blurry. My kids never know when I’m working and when I’m not. Typically question I get on the weekends, “Daddy, are you working?”
David, I think the same pros and cons apply to being a freelance SEO as well.
I think another pro…
Fewer interactions with your peers so you aren’t able to learn from them. The challenge created by peers is lost. However the rewards are also your own!
That’s one distraction I don’t yet have, Bret – kids. It’ll be a few years yet I reckon. When I worked as an employee I did occassionaly work from home, and I know what you’re saying about the work / play line becoming blurred.
Sujan, indeed, maybe I should’ve re-worded this posts’ headline.
That’s a good one, Boss. You can’t learn from the prior everyday interaction you had with your peers. Hence the reason I spend a fair amount of my free time using design forums and reading books.
Great post David. I definitely relate!
– Scot
Great post – I can relate to almost all of them. Here’s another:
PRO
You can pick the projects you want to work on (you don’t always have to say yes)
CON
Even with all the work you already have on the table, you are always having to think about getting future projects, marketing yourself etc.
To answer your q: I’m self-employed as a web designer/graphic designer. Our company also works on web apps, and we run a popular hosted photoblogging service. One of these days I’ll even get my photography studio off the ground. One day.
I don’t know if I’m unemployed, self-employed, or between jobs. I’ve always enjoyed my life the most when in this limbo, and second most when self-employed, so I’d say I’m self-employed and currently enjoying a tiny budget surplus, but we’ll see how long either one of those conditions last.
There are a few exceptions here and there, but in general, I massively prefer clients to bosses, and my own home to an office.
David -
I think your list is pretty accurate! I have been freelancing and working from home for almost 11 years – with three kids under foot.
One of the reasons I love blogging so much is that it connects me with others in my field and helps challenge me, educate me and provides social interaction, too.
Awesome list. I think it would be cool to be a freelancer, but then again you don’t have the security that you would working for an agency or the like.
At my work (pizza delivery driver) Pros: paid cash, good to get out of the store at times, fun people to work with, pretty flexible hours.
Cons: People not tipping, only $7/hour, I pay for my own car/insurance/gas, working weekend nights means no times with friends, rude customers, people not tipping, people not tipping, did I mention people not tipping? lol. People not liking to have to WAIT for their food but are too lazy to come get it themselves…I’m sure there’s more I could complain about lol.
The need for money and working with great people keeps me sane. Sometimes I do get tired of driving because I’m driving 7/7 days per week, which comes back to people not tipping since they seem to think I do nothing but work 2 or 3 times a night and sit at home the rest of the time. Stupid people and their judging…
My Pro:
Working at home so I can be with my family more, have lunch with my wife and kids everyday, and just generally here what my kids are doing all day long.
Con:
Being able to hear what’s going on with my kids and wife all day long. Sometimes, quiet is so much better.
Lorissa, choosing your clients is a very big PRO that I left out. Nice addition!
Giles, that’s great you’re enjoying life. Long may it continue.
Char, the connections online are a big part of my blogging enjoyment. What did I do before I started? Hmmm.
Sean, thanks for the insight into your working life. It’s great to get to know something about you outside of your website.
Dawud, my favourite pros and cons are the ones that apply to both sides, just like yours. That was amusing. ;)
I’m currently managing a mix of both – enough regular employment to get to wear my favorite hat most of the time, and enough freelancing to keep my creativity levels bubbling.
Keeping the freelancing at a part time level has a couple of nice advantages – the tax and accounting is managable, and won’t destroy entire weekends like it normally does. And the after hours phone calls are more manageable with less clients. It’s good to have some free time to explore my own ideas, without having to sell the concept to the person paying for my time.
I like the mix.
Good list. I feel most self employed’s really must be self motivated. I find I appreciate a steady paycheck, and am finding ways to do both.
I’m a university student right now, studying multimedia (media studies), so it’s a bit of a mix between the media and creative design work. Quite honoured, though! I’ve had some major art and design events in my life lately. :D Have two of my pieces in an art gallery right now and have been chosen to work on a major web project through one of the university’s media professors.
Now on to that self-motivation thing, again…which I sort of need to be doing now, rather than writing here. hehe Ye olde procrastination.
I’ve been freelancing since the early 90s and it was the pro of not being involved in office politics that made me make the move and kept me here.
Great blog, David.
Congratulations Lelia! Seems like things are going great for you. ;)
Rob, office politics is indeed something I don’t miss one bit. I never got involved with it, but it was kind of hard to put to one side when it’s all around.
Thanks for stopping by.
Well I like your opinion overall. I have not had the time to jump into Graphic Design after my graduation from college-starting family-get’n married — moving twice–you know???
Redefine a starting point w/ operations. I am focusing on Static Web banners for starters- and I have a couple of sources that will help me test my work on a private server. I am asking how to start within a very inexpensive budget at first then help build clients–Q? How? what methods did you use to get the ball rolling. I am capable of much more than Web Banners but it’s a place to start?
Any comments would be appreciated thx K
Hi Kris,
If there’s one piece of advice to give, it’s not to underestimate the power of networking.
Tell all your friends and family what you do. You could be surprised who they know.
Good luck!
Very interesting post David. I have always wanted my own design company or to be my own boss. I remember back as far as primary School in Galway when the teacher asked us all what we wanted to be and nearly all the girls wanted to be nurses and the boys wanted to be either farmers or firemen and there was me in the middle shouting out I wanted to be a Graphic Designer. All I remember is the teaching gulping and my friends looking like I had just said I wanted to be a serial killer. haha I think I will give myself another 3 years working for a company until I know more before I tackle the big bad world of self-employment. Thanks for the post anyhow as it was apt for my current thinking.
Thanks, Peter.
A budding designer from primary school? That’s devotion for you. :)
Off topic, and perhaps I’ve already said it, I do admire the simplicity of your brand identity design (just had another look). Hope you’re well.
Hey David!
I must say , this is indeed a great post! I’m about to quit my job and go independent as I’ve realised that this is THE way to go.
PRO: I am my own boss! I love what I do!
CON:The clients, sometimes dont understand the whole creative process involved in the design. They expect great work but when it comes to making the payment, they really cant dig deep into their pockets to pay up accordingly.
Let me know what you think of my work
Good luck with your self-employment, Rak. Nice Photoshop work.
Thank you for taking some time off to check out my work David! I appreciate it greatly ! I feel positive about going independent. Im hooked to your site mate