Web designers who work for themselves will constantly face difficult decisions as they have to determine if they should accept or pass on a client’s project. Since there is no shortage of designers out there, many designers feel that they should accept every piece of work that comes their way, but that is not true.

One of the main reasons that you should not accept every project and every client is simply that some of them are not willing to pay what you need to get for your time. If you’re spending all of your time on low paying jobs it will prevent you from taking other work. Of course, there are many other reasons as well, which we will get in to.

In this article we’ll look at five factors that should be considered by designers when they are evaluating a potential client and project. Taking the wrong projects can be a detriment to the designer because it means they will be unable to take other work in it’s place if a better opportunity comes along.

1. Price

One of the first things you will evaluate is the amount of money that you can charge for the project. Is the client willing to pay a fair price, something that will adequately compensate you for the time that will be required by the project?

If the client is working with a very limited budget that doesn’t fit into your normal pricing scale, they should be willing to make some compromises that will reduce the amount of time required from you, or you should probably pass on the work. You may also consider having a package especially for clients who have less-than-ideal budgets. This would allow you to capture some business from clients that you would otherwise have to pass on.

2. Timeframe

Deadlines are an everyday part of life as a web designer. Some projects may me more flexible with deadlines and others may have multiple milestones that need to be met on the way to an overall deadline. Even in situations where the deadline is not set in stone, getting the work done in a timely manner is important to keep clients satisfied.

If a client has a time line that simply isn’t possible for you, let them know that it isn’t going to work. Tell them when you think you would be able to get it done and see if they can accept this deadline. Otherwise, you could increase your pricing for the rush job, or walk away.

3. Match

Most likely there are some specific areas of design and development that are your strong points, and others where you could improve. Taking jobs that are challenging and teach new skills are good to have in your schedule, but most of your work should be a good fit with your own strengths.

4. Interests

In addition to having some specific strengths and weaknesses as a designer, you’ll also have some types of work that you prefer and others that you really would rather not be involved with. Once you know the types of projects that you enjoy working on, make an effort to make this a higher percentage of your workload.

5. Workload

One of the best ways to drag down the quality of your work is to try to do too much at once. Taking too many clients and projects is tempting because it may pay more, but you will soon find that you would have been better of to push that project back to a later date.

If you don’t have the time to add a new client to your workload, talk to them to see if they are in a position to wait a few weeks or months, whatever the case may be, until your workload will be more conducive to a new project.

Steven Snell runs a popular web design blog that includes a job board for web designers to help designers find work, and to help companies find the right designer.

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