Free, or What It Costs

When you do something professionally that a lot of people want or need, like making websites, things can get a little tricky interpersonally. Less so nowadays because there are tools available for people like Squarespace, Wix, and other site creation platforms that make putting a website on the internet fairly trivial. However, there are still some times when calling in a professional is required, and those are the cases where things can get awkward.

My policy is that it either costs the market value, or it’s free. I think I picked this up from Merlin Mann a million years ago. It’s clean and extremely clear. If I am willing to help someone out with their website or something web or tech related, I will either charge them what I would charge a client, or nothing at all. I am very comfortable charging people my rate. I spent a lot of time and effort building the skills that they are looking for. I did that for many years of my career. I was an independent consultant, so those types of arrangements are very familiar to me.

When friends, or family have needed help with something in my lane, and I have the capacity, I have offered to help free of charge. It’s not because what I’m doing doesn’t have value, it’s that I want to offer that value to this person that I care about as an expression of that care, and monetary compensation is not necessary.

In the past I did charge friends for work that I did, often at their request. The result was almost always awkward. Listen, I’m not one to shy away from awkward, but the thing it did was change the tone and intention of the exchange. For me, it wasn’t transactional, it was relational. In the same way that someone who is a great cook might offer to make the menu and prepare a meal for a dinner party. It would be weird if you and your friend then haggled about their fee for cooking the meal. Would we also account for renting the space for the party (someone’s home)? No, that would obviously be ridiculous. For me, it’s the same with my professional skills. The rule I picked up from Merlin Mann all those years ago turns out to be the cleanest way I’ve found to protect both the relationship and the work: free, or what it costs. Nothing in between.