New ask Hacker News story: Ask HN: First client, how not to undersell myself?

Ask HN: First client, how not to undersell myself?
2 by yscodes | 1 comments on Hacker News.
So as it turns I am about to get my first client as a freelancer. Nothing too big, it's a small but successful business who want a new website (their current one looks like your average 90s family business site). My family and I have been long-term customers of theirs so that's how this came about. Now it seems like a very, very common theme among freelancers - I've read this over and over again in many different places and from people of various fields - that thinking back to their first customer they believe they massively undersold their services. The naive fool that I am I would like to try and avoid that "mistake" while also not wanting to appear like I'm only out for the money (which I'm not). My focus is obviously first and foremost to deliver a top-notch service but I would also like to get the pricing right. So how do I go about doing that? I am in Germany if it matters. My own idea so far is to say my work is worth 40€/hour and it will take me maybe 40 hours to do the job so 40€*40 = 1600€. Then I'd give like a 25% discount as a gesture of friendship and make it 1200€ but doesn't that still seem ... like a bit too much? Or am I falling for that trap... ? I wish I knew.

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