The price is right: we chat client budgets and project rates, with Mother Design and Date of Birth

When the topic of finances is breached in potential project talks, we were curious to know the answer to a chicken-or-egg conundrum. Do clients share their budget straight away, or expect studios to name their price first? “It depends,” says Mother Design’s Head of Design Mark Sloan, “if a client has already done some research or spoken with other companies already, they might offer a budget number in our initial conversations, but usually they look to us to estimate what a project might cost.” In terms of scale, they’ve “found that larger clients sometimes have a set amount of money to spend and are very transparent about that early on.” Still, a ballpark estimate is a helpful way to gauge financial compatibility. And from there it allows the studio to fully comprehend the ambition for the project and the shape of the creative team. In Date of Birth’s experience, clients are interested in a rough budget estimate straight away. But the Melbourne-based branding and design agency believe that it’s important to understand the full requirements of the project before the money chats even begin. To aid this, General Manager Ollie Mann explains that, “sometimes, we will send a brief questionnaire to new enquiries that includes a question about their budget expectations.”