Illustrator Invoice Template

As an illustrator, you may be unsure of the best and most efficient way to bill clients for your services. However, with a service like illustration, a professional skill that freelancers devote a lot of time and resources to developing over the years, it's especially important to keep an accurate and clear invoice workflow for all parties involved. 

Without a structured payment process in place, clients may be discouraged from using a freelancer's services in the future, and freelancers will have a more difficult time obtaining payment from clients.

Contract illustrators use a freelance illustrator invoice to request payment from their clients for the service of creating visual, artistic content to accompany a wide range of applications, including books, television shows, movies, posters, and more. An illustrator invoice may be structured differently from freelancer to freelancer depending on the format of a specific freelance illustration operation, but most include several core components.

A standard illustrator invoice should include a number of components that are common to most typical invoicing scenarios for illustration and multimedia professionals. For the majority of common invoicing scenarios, freelancers should include the following items on their illustrator invoice: all services provided; service rates; detailed and accurate descriptions of the services; and all relevant payment information, such as accepted payment methods, deadlines, and associated fees.

By using an effective, clear, and descriptive illustrator invoice, freelancers will be able to bill their clients more accurately while also ensuring a communicative, thoughtful, and overall pleasant payment process for clients.

When clients have a better user experience, especially when it comes to completing payments for products or—in the case of illustration professionals—services rendered, payments are made more quickly, and the risk of late or missed payments is significantly reduced. Remember that the user experience is everything, which is why illustrator invoices must be as clear and complete as possible before being sent to the client for payment.

We understand how hard freelance illustration professionals work to improve the quality of their craft over time—from learning new artistic techniques to improving overall hand- or digital-drawing skills, illustration freelancers go to great lengths to ensure their clients have access to a capable and accurate illustrator professional for all of their print or multimedia artistic design needs. As a result, your invoices should reflect your hard work.

By including all pertinent transactional information on your illustrator invoice, you ensure that your clients have access to all of the resources they require to pay you correctly and on time, every time. You also show concern for your client relationships by being transparent throughout the billing and payment processes.

When your client is fully informed about your freelance illustration business's unique invoicing methods, he or she will be better prepared to complete the payment process successfully. By including all relevant transaction information, there should be no room for confusion, reducing the likelihood of late or missed payments. Your clients will be more likely to return to you for illustration services in the future if you provide them with a clear and professional illustrator invoice.

The beauty of freelance work is that you can choose how you run your business and how you bill for the work you do. Understanding how to bill for your illustration work effectively and accurately is critical for ensuring prompt payment from your clients as an illustrator or artist.

As a contracted illustrator, your freelance company could be on either a services- or products-based business model, depending on how you choose to charge your clients for your illustration work. 

If your freelance illustration operation is products-based, you will need to establish criteria for pricing your artwork or designs. For many freelance illustrators, the task of placing value on their own work can be very uncomfortable, but it’s an essential part of ensuring you are properly paid for the work you produce. As you think about the criteria you will use for billing for your artwork using a products-based model, consider elements such as the cost of additional resources needed to complete the program, such as art supplies or digital softwares. 

If your freelance illustration operation is services-based, you will need to establish a billable hour for each of your illustration services, depending on their complexity and the amount of time associated with a particular method, medium, or activity. To establish your billable hour for your illusion work, you must first begin by tracking your hours spent on common tasks.

By utilizing professional invoicing software by Indy, freelancers can streamline the time-consuming process of establishing an hourly rate for each service by utilizing the platform's time tracking functionality. To begin tracking the hours spent on a specific service—for example, illustrating a five-page pamphlet or illustrating a 20-page children’s book—use time-tracking technology or a simple timer to determine how much time you spend working on various tasks associated with a client project.

Your illustrator invoice may take on a slightly different form depending on the structure of your freelancing operation and whether your company provides products or services (or a combination of both).

If your freelance illustration business is currently based on a product-based business model, your invoicing process should be fairly straightforward. Simply select a document development platform that works for you, such as a word processor like Google Docs or Microsoft Word, or spreadsheet software like Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel, to create your illustrator invoice. From there, you should include all pertinent information about your transaction. Before you begin billing clients, you can customize your illustration invoice using the customization tools provided by each of these platforms.

However, if you operate a services-based business, the process of gathering the payment details required to inform your illustration invoices will be slightly different. By choosing to work with professional invoicing software by Indy, however, freelancers can use powerful vocation-specific invoicing tools to streamline the payment process—both internally and for clients. 

Remember to consider important elements regarding the effort required to provide your products or perform services as you work to establish your hourly rate for your illustration invoice. Take into account elements such as the amount of time and resources associated with your business operations to accomplish this. 

To bill for hourly work, first determine an hourly pay rate per task for your services, and then create thorough and accurate service descriptions. By using Indy invoicing software, freelancers can track their hours directly in-platform, ensuring accurate billing hours are conveyed to the client throughout the project's duration.

Following that, ensure that all other relevant transaction details, such as contact information and payment terms, are included on the document.

If you are a new illustrator who has yet to establish an hourly rate for your illustration invoices—or simply new to freelance work—the task of putting a monetary value on the artwork you produce can be daunting. Your hourly rate, on the other hand, is a required component of any illustrator invoice—and absolutely critical to ensuring you get paid for your services on time and completely.

There are a number of important factors to consider as you work to establish your hourly rate, each of which is intricately linked to your freelance business operations plan, your unique payment process, and the type of work that you do as a freelance illustrator. Consider the following factors when determining how much your time and services are worth billing your clients:

• your reputation as an artistic professional
• competition within the illustrative professional field
• your bottom-line, or the figure you get after calculating how many resources (both time and money) you spend when fulfilling a project with a client before you make a profit

When researching your competition, keep in mind how much other illustrators in your area charge for services similar to yours, whether print or digital. Avoid undercharging or overcharging your clients by learning as much as you can about job market competition and adjusting your hourly rate based on the nature of your freelance illustration business and, if applicable, specific specialties or talents. Price yourself in relation to your competition to improve your financial and professional position in the market.

Determine your hourly pay rate per service as the first step in determining how much to charge for your illustration services. As an illustrative professional, your services may differ slightly from those provided by your competitors. Depending on your speciality—which may be print or digital work, a particular style, or medium-specific, for example—your hourly rate may also vary.

As you work to determine your hourly rate, keep your bottom line and return on investment in mind at all times. To arrive at this figure, add up the time and money you spend on illustrative services, including resources dedicated to traveling to a location and purchasing supplies, for example. Also keep in mind the complexity of a given project when determining your hourly rate, as well as illustrator availability and/or demand for a particular art style.

From there, you can start establishing prices based on different services, if applicable. Consider the effort required to illustrate a 5-page brochure versus a graphic novel—the former would most likely take no more than a few weeks to complete, whereas the latter may take several months to complete. Your hourly rate per service should reflect the complexity of the illustrative and design work that you do.

You will need to establish your billable hour for more complex, longer-form projects that require more time to complete, such as illustration longer form content by hand, for example. To do this, freelancers can utilize invoicing software with time tracking functionality to more precisely establish a billable hour for each illustrative or design service