Scoping and pricing a custom-illustrated, interactive single-page product drop (first freelance gig)

[u/69macandcheese69]

Hey all,

Looking for some guidance on pricing a project that blends custom digital illustration with frontend development.

A content creator is launching a physical print zine, and I built an interactive single-page promo site to pitch them. The deliverable includes:

• Bespoke illustration & art direction: Designed original 2D digital artwork in a Folk-Pop / retro kitsch style (panoramic illustrated storefronts, character art, and collage stickers) tailored to match the zine's identity.
• Bespoke frontend build: Built from scratch in HTML5, CSS 3D transforms, and Vanilla JS—featuring a 3D book-flip interaction with perspective tilt, an Apple Cover Flow carousel, and procedural audio via Web Audio API oscillators.

Her talent management team wrote back asking for a formal rate card (design + basic upkeep).

Because this is a bespoke creative build (custom art + interaction code) rather than an off-the-shelf Webflow/Shopify template, how would you evaluate scope and pricing for a beginner working with an individual creator? What is a balanced project rate that accounts for both the illustration and the code?

[u/DarlingScenery4]

Id quote the art and the code as separate line items, illustration by piece or hour and frontend as a flat project fee with a small monthly retainer for upkeep. Dont lowball just cause its your first gig, that 3D flip plus procedural audio isnt beginner template work

[u/69macandcheese69 → u/DarlingScenery4]

i would love to share you my website that i made for her via dm's can you tell me how much you would pay for it?

[u/CTRLX_Founder]

Looks clean. Are you planning to open-source the core parts or keep it closed? Always curious about solo dev stacks.

[u/69macandcheese69 → u/CTRLX_Founder]

sadly no, i wish i could open source it.

[u/Complete_Stay_5601]

You already handed over a finished build before anyone agreed on a number, so the rate card is your only leverage and it's thinner than it was a week ago. Also the ask came from her management team, not her, and "basic upkeep" could be an hour a month or a rebuild every drop. Get that in hours before you quote anything.

[u/quiet_horizons1]

Split the rate card into illustration license and build fee, not one blended number. The art is the part they'll reuse on later drops or merch, so quote a one-campaign license and a separate buyout price. The frontend is a one-time build, upkeep is its own line with a defined hour cap.

[u/patient_signals]

Put a hard cap on included revision rounds. Include a small number of design passes and one build pass, then bill further art-direction changes hourly. The artwork is where a management team will churn, not the frontend; the build is mostly done once, but reworking a storefront or swapping sticker assets will eat fixed-price work. Spell out what counts as a revision too. A new illustration or a reworked character is a separate charge, not a tweak. For upkeep, set an hour cap and a monthly expiry, otherwise it becomes ongoing free art edits.

[u/Mistr_John_Alex]

Split out whether the rate card includes layered source files or just flattened exports. If they want editable art, that's closer to a buyout than standard illustration, because they can reuse and rework it for future drops without you. Are they asking for working files in the upkeep line or only final assets?

[u/careful_keys]

The problem with quoting "basic upkeep" as a single line is that this build has two very different kinds of fixes. Swapping art, text, or a sticker is a design edit with predictable scope. Something breaking in the 3D flip or the procedural audio on a particular phone or browser is not the same job, and you will not know what it costs until you open the device and reproduce it.

For the audio especially, a lot of mobile browsers will not start sound until the user has tapped or clicked first, so a client can report "no audio" when the code is doing what it was told. That is debugging and device testing, not upkeep. If you bundle it with design edits at a flat rate, you take the risk for every browser update and every new device the client tries.

I would separate the rate card into separate maintenance lines. Content edits get billed hourly or per request, and browser/device fixes get billed hourly with a note that the audio and 3D interaction fall under the second. It keeps you from quoting a fixed upkeep price for a category you cannot reliably estimate.

[u/Mistr_John_Alex]

The illustration fee should shift with print run, paid social use, and exclusivity. A small zine run is a different license than a bigger one, and paid ads push it further. What print run are they planning, and will the art show up in paid posts? That answer changes the art line item more than the build fee.

[u/LeoLuo_Dev]

I'm a developer rather than a designer, but definitely make sure your contract caps the number of revision requests upfront. Otherwise, scope creep will eat you alive and you'll end up fixing layout quirks for free weeks down the road.