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Thread: What do you charge for a website?
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 13
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admin
Advanced Member Joined: Jun 14, 2003 Post Count: 2933 Status: Offline |
Sometimes I get some very interesting questions from people, and on rare occasions I use them for a newsletter. Just below you will find a recent email from someone, it may be a little long, but I think it is worth a read because Myra�s question is not that uncommon. - Hello Stefan, "I am opening a web site design business and am doing some market research. In my community, I have discovered the there is a wide range of prices being charged. The local community paid $30,000 for its web site www.hainesjunctionyukon.com and others in the community have paid from $500 to $5000.00. These figures are very confusing. I have just finished a course in multimedia design and communication. My first site I designed is at www.alsekfest.com. This site was a�personal project that I launched as a gratuity. One that hopefully will give me some recognition. It still needs some work. The dilemma is...what do I charge? I want $35.00 an hour at this time in my career and feel secure in being able to offer the client a site that will serve the needs of the business. My sites will be optimized for the web and maintained for a year after publication. I intend on incorporating flash, video and sound if these are reasonable solutions. The target and purpose of the site are my prime concerns in addition to�its look and feel. It goes without saying that download times and effectiveness are also very important.� I am presently preparing a brief for my first, possibly, paying site. This site will be at least 10 pages long, no database involved, target: international and national audience, purpose: exposure, promotion and contact. The company is owned by one person. Could you shed some expertise on this matter? I really think that, we, in the designing/web industry, need to have a good handle on what everyone else is doing "out there". Thank you for your help, Myra Egli" MY ANSWER: Hi Myra,� What to charge: I once put that question to a self-made millionaire and his answer was simple: "Whatever you can get for it..." That doesn't seem to help much, but the reality is that this is a telling statement. I have seen web design cost fluctuate widely depending on the current markets' health, features�of the website (Flash or no Flash, server side programming or not etc.), how skilled the�sales person�was and how rich the buyer was. In the example website you sent me ( www.hainesjunctionyukon.com ), it looked pretty good, but not great. It has several broken links (http://www.hainesjunctionyukon.com/BusinessDirectory/Home.html) and the�site was�clearly designed by a print design based firm who moved over to website production - it has all the tell-tail signs. Was it worth $30, 000? I don't think it was worth $3000! You need to work on your website - it has some really good foundations and it is clear you will be very able in a short time. But you need to loose the framesets and work on basic design rules: - Alignment of page elements: your page pulls apart too much at higher resolutions - Proper use of fonts: no more than 2 fonts faces a page! Otherwise your page will look messy. - Use CSS properly. It is clear that you don't have a good understanding of CSS. You include a link to a CSS file in your pages: <link href="alsekstyles.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"> But then you use font tags: <font color="#999999" size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Craft and food booths are scattered around the ...</font> And then you use tables to create your page. You can make your life much easier and build better pages faster�with pure CSS based layouts. Check out my tutorials on this: www.csstutorial.net ---------------------------------------- Stefan Mischook Video Tutorial Store | Web Templates ---------------------------------------- [Edit 2 times, last edit by admin at Jun 19, 2005 10:02:53 PM] |
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LSW
Advanced Member USA Joined: Nov 27, 2003 Post Count: 6287 Status: Offline |
Actually this question in itself is illegal in the minds of some... some legal mumbo-jumbo about organizing prices...... I'll let you in on a secret... now that the Internet is here, there aren't any "average" rates, because the demographics are too widespread. Furthermore, in the United States, it's now illegal for competitors to discuss rates amongst each other in light of antitrust laws, which explains the absence of rate survey information online. - Matt Mickiewicz Anyways my experiance the more expensive the site the less it is worth. I almost landed a job doing a site for some one with a adult site that had payed over $5,000- and it was horrinle and didn't work. My prices have been around $150 - 500 so far as I was looking to make a portfolio and not a profit. But now I specialize in Accessibe web design so my prices have rissen, also I am looking at (being forced actually) to go freelance in the next few months if I do not find a company to hire me...... so have to charge more to cover costs and feed my family. So it really varies on were you live, I would charge less living in Plainwell Michigan as in Berlin Germany, cause my customers have less money..... on the otherhand Plainwell has less competition as Berlin as well that forces prices down. Personally I do not think you can really make a living with Web Design at all these days. I find 10$ an hour to be to cheap.... I have seen up to $50.- an hour, so if you want to charge hourly $35 seems reasonable... but remember you have no reputation yet so do not overcharge. Then there are those  web designers who build sites per template and say for $300 you get 17 links, 5 pages, 3 pictures...... that is plain rediculas and unprofessional in my humble opinion. You limt yourself that way. I make a set fee with set requirements and I build the site..... and I have done one site less then 5 pages. So you do your customer no service with that either. So I hate such design groups and find them rather questionable when they claim to be web designers.A old employer of mine chose a professional company over me for design - the site sucks, they two guys were some multi-media guys with no web training. Everyone can claim to be web designers and do, but the fact is in the code if you are or not. Also being fresh out of school - do not stroke your ego with what you can do - web design is about what you should do. Do not make some fancy flash splash screen and charge your customer for it. Those are out, skip intro is the most clicked button on the internet. It is your job to talk your customer out of a splash screen when he thinks he needs one cause "Everyone else does". Do not do what you can, do what you should. ---------------------------------------- Gu.aal kwsh� yak'�i it�akw ijeet wugood�k LSW-WebDesign.com ---------------------------------------- [Edit 1 times, last edit by LSW at Oct 6, 2004 1:31:32 PM] |
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LSW
Advanced Member USA Joined: Nov 27, 2003 Post Count: 6287 Status: Offline |
Stef - here are some articles I found I had saved in my Favorites on the subject: How to Price Your Services Pricing Web Work - What Should You Charge? Freelance Pricing Part 1 - Set Your Rate! This Blog-discussion is well worth reading as well to get a feel for the subject. More thoughts on the subject. This could be some real fertile ground for comming newsletters...... I know I have been selling myself cheap to get a portfolio built. ---------------------------------------- Gu.aal kwsh� yak'�i it�akw ijeet wugood�k LSW-WebDesign.com ---------------------------------------- [Edit 2 times, last edit by LSW at Oct 6, 2004 12:31:28 PM] |
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LSW
Advanced Member USA Joined: Nov 27, 2003 Post Count: 6287 Status: Offline |
Here are two good starting places: Dice.com Salary.com Good to get an idea on what is earned in your area and generally. ---------------------------------------- Gu.aal kwsh� yak'�i it�akw ijeet wugood�k LSW-WebDesign.com ---------------------------------------- [Edit 1 times, last edit by LSW at Oct 6, 2004 2:38:37 PM] |
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admin
Advanced Member Joined: Jun 14, 2003 Post Count: 2933 Status: Offline |
Hi, I'll take a closer look as these when I can. Thanks ---------------------------------------- Stefan Mischook Video Tutorial Store | Web Templates |
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capmexbiz
Advanced Member Joined: Sep 26, 2004 Post Count: 113 Status: Offline |
Prices are getting lower. In places where people bid for web design projects, unless they have a minimum bid amount, people are paying less for web projects. I have been participating in those bids, and realized that they didn't worth the time, if I made some of those projects and commercialize them myself I would get more money. The buyers are setting their budgets too low and some bidders are bidding ridiculous amounts just to get the jobs and create a "reputation". A lot of global competition. ---------------------------------------- Need Web Design Advice? Webmaster Resources for Business Websites |
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LSW
Advanced Member USA Joined: Nov 27, 2003 Post Count: 6287 Status: Offline |
Just thought some of you may find the wage surcey from the US of interest if you are looking for work as a web designer etc.: Marketingvox Design Slaries Chart ---------------------------------------- Gu.aal kwsh� yak'�i it�akw ijeet wugood�k LSW-WebDesign.com |
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yinka007
spammer Joined: Dec 3, 2007 Post Count: 1 Status: Offline |
Spammer dealt with ---------------------------------------- [Edit 1 times, last edit by LSW at Dec 3, 2007 8:42:27 PM] |
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cboudy
Advanced Member Joined: May 26, 2006 Post Count: 1757 Status: Offline |
I think that area in which you live in places a big part too. In places like New York where you have high-price companies, web design firms are going to charge higher prices. One good clue is to see what people around you are charging and try to come up with a reasonable rate, based on your skills. As LSW said, there are many times when we see a website that was built for X company for alot of money and it turns out to be a bad site. |
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Thelma
Advanced Member Texas, USA Joined: Dec 8, 2003 Post Count: 3021 Status: Offline |
Actually, Chris, I think this is spam - a new member with a 'duh' reply to an ancient post conveniently dropping links to his own site.... Clean-up in aisle 4, please! ---------------------------------------- ... |
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