How to write a graphic designer invoice

What goes on a graphic designer invoice

Six things, in the order they belong on the page. The invoice generator opens a graphic designer document with the lines already in place, so most of this is checking rather than typing.

1. Bill the concept stage as its own line. Initial concepts are work whether or not one is chosen. Name and price them separately from the build.
2. State the revision rounds included. Two rounds included, further rounds at a stated rate. Unnamed rounds are unlimited rounds.
3. Say what files are delivered. Print-ready PDF, packaged source files, web exports. "The logo" is not a deliverable, it is a category.
4. Put usage rights on the document. What the client may use the work for and whether the rights transfer on final payment. This is the line that matters most a year later.
5. Stage the payments on anything large. A deposit to start, a payment at concept sign-off, a balance on delivery. Three invoices beat one large one you are still chasing in March.
6. Send it with terms in days. Design clients are often marketing departments paying on a cycle. Give them a date.

The lines a graphic designer invoice usually carries

The generator opens with these lines when you pick Graphic designer. The figures are placeholders to type over, not a going rate.

Add, rename, reorder or delete any line, and set tax per line where it applies. Priced as they open, that comes to $2,100 before tax.

How to write a graphic design invoice, step by step

1. Check the brief against what you delivered. Open the graphic designer invoice and match each line to the brief: concepts, the chosen direction, the guidelines and the artwork. Anything outside the brief gets its own line.
2. Count the revision rounds. Write how many rounds were included and how many were used. An extra round goes on as one line, priced per round rather than per tweak.
3. Name the files handed over. Print-ready PDF, SVG and PNG, or source files if they were agreed. The file list is the answer to the email that arrives six months later.
4. Write the usage rights in the notes. Say what the client may use the work for and that rights pass on payment in full. It is the most valuable sentence on the invoice.
5. Deduct the deposit, then send. On identity work the deposit was paid at the start, so show it as a minus line. Set 14 days and send the invoice with the final files, not after.

Graphic design invoice example, filled in

A small brand identity, from concepts to print-ready artwork, with one revision round beyond the two included. The deliverables are itemized, so the client can see what the extra round cost on its own.

Subtotal $2,100, tax $210, total $2,310. The additional revision round is the line that protects this invoice: priced per round at $150, it shows the client what a third round of changes costs before they ask for a fourth. The usage note says exactly when the rights pass.

Source files, and the question that arrives six months later

A client asks for the working files, usually long after the invoice was paid, and usually because they are moving the work to somebody else. Whether that is included is a decision, and if you have not made it, you will make it under pressure.

Decide up front and put it on the invoice. Either the fee includes packaged source files, in which case say so, or it covers finished deliverables only and source files are available at a stated additional fee.

Neither answer is wrong. What loses money is silence, because silence gets read by the client as inclusion.

Usage rights, and what transfers on final payment

Design is licensed more often than designers admit. A logo used across an international rollout is a different commercial proposition from one on a village shopfront, and pricing them identically is a choice you are making by accident.

State on the invoice what the work may be used for and whether rights transfer on final payment. Tying transfer to payment is the more useful construction: it gives the clause a job to do, which is getting the last invoice paid.

If the client wants broader rights later, that is a new invoice for an extended license, priced on the new use rather than as an afterthought to the old fee.

Staged payments, because a large single invoice is a large single risk

A three-month identity project invoiced once at the end is three months of your work resting on one payment from a client whose circumstances may have changed.

Break it: a deposit before you start, a payment at concept sign-off, the balance on delivery of final files. Each stage is a smaller ask, each is tied to something visible the client has received, and a client who stops paying at stage two has cost you one stage rather than the project.

Use the same reference across all three so the set reads as one project. The cost estimator is for breaking the work into those costed stages before you quote it.

Hourly, fixed price or per unit: how graphic designers price the work

Graphic design has moved almost entirely from hourly to project pricing, because clients buy an outcome and hourly billing punishes the designer who gets there faster. What has to come with project pricing is a defined number of concepts and rounds.

Price the source files and the usage separately from the design. Handing over working files is a decision with a value, and a client who is told that at the start treats it as a purchase rather than an expectation.

Working out what to charge

Design fees depend on the usage, the client's size and how many rounds you allow, so a price from a web page tells you little. The freelance rate calculator starts from the income you need, and the service price calculator turns your hours into a project fee.

Getting paid once it is sent

Take half on identity projects before the concepts start and the balance with the final files, so the rights and the money change hands at the same moment. If the due date passes, the late fee calculator works out what your terms allow and the due date calculator sets the new date.

Five dates decide whether a graphic designer gets paid on time, and four of them are set before the work starts.

Mistakes that cost graphic designers money

• Silence on source files. Silence reads as inclusion, and you find out when they ask.
• One invoice at the end of a long project. Three months of work resting on a single payment.
• Unlimited revisions by omission. Name the rounds and price the extras, or there is no limit.
• No usage rights on the document. The same logo on a shopfront and a national rollout should not be the same price by accident.
• "The logo" as a deliverable. Name the actual files. A category is not a deliverable.

Graphic designer invoice questions

Free graphic designer invoice template

The free graphic designer invoice template opens with the lines above already priced, in any of 30 designs made for the trade, and exports a print-ready PDF with nothing saved to a server. Opening a design needs a free account.

Invoicing guides for related trades

Everything on this site, set up for graphic designers

The whole toolkit, with the reason each one matters to graphic designers rather than in general. The four marked links open with graphic designer already selected.