Fair value. Realistic budgets. No games.
There is a question that sits behind almost everything we do at Mad Black Cat:
What is this actually worth?
Not what is the maximum we can charge?
Not what does somebody else charge?
And not how much money can we extract from this opportunity?
We think the better questions are:
What can you realistically afford?
and
What value will this work have for you?
Those two answers help us arrive at a fair price.
We are a business
Let’s be clear about that.
Mad Black Cat has costs. Our time has value. Our equipment, software, production resources and expertise all cost money.
We therefore need to cover those costs and, where appropriate, make a reasonable profit.
We are not pretending otherwise.
But we also don’t believe that every piece of work should be priced according to the maximum amount someone might possibly be persuaded to pay.
Making money is necessary. Making money for the sake of making money isn’t our reason for doing what we do.
Small businesses matter
A small business does not necessarily have a small idea.
An independent creator, community organisation, start-up or family business may have something genuinely brilliant to say but a budget that would barely register with a large agency.
That shouldn’t automatically mean they get poor creative work.
Sometimes the answer is to make the project smaller.
Sometimes it is to find a cleverer way of producing it.
Sometimes it is to use technology to remove unnecessary costs.
Sometimes it is simply to explain how the client can do part of it themselves.
And sometimes we will say:
“You don’t need to spend that much.”
We think that is part of our job too.
If we can teach you, we will
One of the things we genuinely enjoy is showing people what is possible.
If you have the enthusiasm and the time to learn, we may be able to show you how to create something yourself.
That might mean explaining a process, recommending a tool, sharing an idea or helping you find a better way of doing something.
We don’t believe that every piece of knowledge has to be locked behind an invoice.
If we can help you become more capable, that’s a good result.
And if you subsequently need us to do the work for you, that’s fine too.
Value works both ways
There is, however, an important boundary.
Our willingness to share knowledge, skills and ideas should never be interpreted as an invitation to exploit them.
We will not knowingly provide our expertise, intellectual property, creative processes or specialist knowledge to someone who intends to use it to exploit others, misrepresent it as their own, undermine the principles behind it, or simply turn somebody else’s trust into an opportunity for personal gain.
We have learned that lesson through experience.
Being generous does not mean being naïve.
Helping people is a choice. Protecting people is one too.
What does that mean in practice?
It means you may not always receive a conventional agency quotation.
Instead, we may ask you about:
- what you are trying to achieve
- what you can realistically afford
- what the finished work could be worth to you
- what you can do yourself
- what we can do more efficiently
- what genuinely needs to be produced
- and what probably doesn’t
We may offer several routes rather than one expensive solution.
We may recommend doing less.
We may recommend doing more.
We may even recommend that you don’t spend the money at all.
Because if something isn’t going to deliver worthwhile value, we would rather tell you than take your money.
Fair doesn’t mean cheap
We don’t promise to be the cheapest option.
Nor should you necessarily want us to be.
Good creative work takes time, thought and experience.
Our aim is something more useful:
Fair pricing for worthwhile work.
Sometimes that will mean producing something remarkably cost-effectively.
Sometimes a project will require considerably more time and investment.
The important thing is that you understand why.
No mysterious agency jargon.
No deliberately complicated packages designed to make comparison difficult.
No unnecessary production simply to increase an invoice.
And no assumption that having a small budget means you deserve a small amount of respect.
And sometimes, we just want to make something
Not everything we produce is commissioned.
Some projects start because we have an idea.
Some start because we see a problem that interests us.
Some start with a question:
“I wonder if we could do that?”
Those projects are part of the reason Mad Black Cat exists.
We make them because we enjoy creating things, because they allow us to experiment, because they might teach somebody something, or simply because we think they are worth making.
And if something we create inspires somebody else to have a go themselves, that’s a result too.
Our simple rule
If we have something that can genuinely help you, we want you to have access to it.
If you want to learn, we’ll help you learn.
If you want guidance, we’ll provide it.
If you want us to do the work, we’ll quote fairly.
If your budget is limited, we’ll look for a sensible solution.
If we don’t think something represents good value for you, we’ll tell you.
And if we believe something would be used to exploit other people, we reserve the right to say no.
Because we believe business can be commercial without being predatory.
We believe creativity should be accessible without being undervalued.
And we believe that if we can make something better, easier, clearer or more achievable for somebody else, that’s a pretty good reason to do it.
Mad Black Cat
Ideas worth making.