# Freelancing for Beginners - review & insight | Gareth B. Davies Source: https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/freelancing-for-beginners/ [← All courses](https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/) Business & Marketing · Quick win · Rated 6 /10 # Freelancing for Beginners Updated September 2026 Jeremy Mura · Brand and Web Designer Beginner · 61 min A four-year freelancer packs pricing, client attraction, and delivery workflow into one fast, practical hour. [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Ffreelancing-for-beginners%2F1262489332) New to Skillshare? Your first month is free, enough to take this course at no cost. Jeremy Mura's "Freelancing for Beginners" moves fast: 61 minutes across 14 lessons that never linger. The arc runs from mindset (why freelance, pros and cons) through acquisition (attracting clients), monetization (value-based pricing, passive income), operations (tools, templates, scheduling), and finally execution (email examples, a real client case study, file delivery). For a beginner course, that is a sensible order, and it means someone with zero freelance experience comes away with a rough map of the whole process rather than one narrow skill. ## What actually gets taught The pricing lesson is the strongest single piece of content. Mura walks through why hourly billing punishes speed and scope creep, then lays out a value-based alternative: a discovery questionnaire, a call built around high-value questions like what an extra 100 clients a month would mean to the business, and a three-tier package structure (he calls them bronze, silver, gold) capped at three options so clients aren't overwhelmed. The advice to never negotiate on price, only on deliverables, is a concrete, reusable rule rather than vague encouragement. The client-attraction lesson is nearly as useful, built around building credibility before you have real clients: fake briefs from sites like Briefbox, pro bono work for local businesses, and posting unfinished process work rather than waiting for polished final pieces. The anecdote about a web designer who redesigned a startup's homepage unprompted and then got hired off the back of it illustrates the direct approach better than a bullet list would. Where the course thins out is the tools lesson, which runs long and reads more like a bookmark folder than instruction: Calendly, Hello Bonsai, GoProspero, Milanote, Unsplash, MOO print, and a dozen more get a sentence or two each with no real comparison of when to pick one over another. The passive income lesson (affiliate links, Skillshare courses, coaching, digital products) is similarly a list of options rather than a worked example of any one of them. ## Where it delivers, and where it doesn't The case study lesson, walking through an actual rebrand for a hair and beauty client (brand discovery, style-scapes, logo directions, a style guide), is the closest thing to a class project demonstration, and it is genuinely instructive to see a real presentation structure rather than a hypothetical. The file-delivery lesson, showing a numbered folder system and a Dropbox share link, is small but practical, the kind of operational detail many courses skip. The email examples lesson is thin: two short exchanges that mostly confirm the obvious advice to keep emails brief and book a call quickly. The course is explicitly Adobe-Illustrator- and design-industry-specific in its examples, even though the marketing claims broader applicability. Anyone outside visual design will find the pricing and attraction principles transferable but the templates and tool list irrelevant. For its stated audience, students or early-stage designers testing whether freelancing is viable, it earns its short runtime by covering the right ground without padding, even if a few lessons trade depth for a longer checklist. The standout The value-based pricing breakdown, tiered packages instead of hourly rates, paired with the discovery questions that get clients to name their own value, is the one technique worth the whole runtime. ## What you will learn - · How to structure value-based pricing in tiered packages instead of charging by the hour - · Specific questions to ask clients in a discovery form and call to surface the value of a project - · Concrete ways to attract clients before you have real ones, including fake briefs and pro bono work - · A file delivery and folder-naming system for handing off finished assets through Dropbox - · A short list of tools for invoicing, scheduling, proposals, and mockups - · Five additional income streams beyond one-off client work, including teaching and templates Best for: A design student or early-career designer who has never priced a project or written a client email and wants a fast orientation before their first paid job. Skip it if: Anyone already freelancing for a year or more, or working outside design and illustration, since the tools and templates shown are Adobe-and-design-specific. Helpful Examples Clarity of Instruction Organization of Lessons Engaging Teacher [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Ffreelancing-for-beginners%2F1262489332)