What Do You Normally Charge For WebDesign?

[Guest]

I realize everyone is from different areas and their fees for designing a web page may differ, But I am wondering on average how you set up your fees?

For example do you charge one flat rate...$500 for a basic 5 page site?

$100 bucks per page made??? etc...

I am also wondering once you sell your reseller hosting, do you charge initial set up fees? and/or do you charge for building the page and then a monthly fee if they want you to maintain it?

And if the customer just wants to use the Site studio and build themselves...do you offer any initial "training" and if so how much 1-2-3-...hours free and then charge for hourly support after that?

I am new to web design....and want to design some sites but I want to get an idea for how people normally charge. I would appreciate if anyone out there could give me some help on this. Thank you.

[Guest]

Hi Plato1,

I'm getting more and more out of design work (large business clients, anyway) after having a very rotten experience with a client, but I'll share what I know!

In my experience, if you're putting together a website for a large company with deep pockets, it's best to find what the final derived value from the project is expected to be. Once you know this, you can set your fee as a percentage of the final derived value - for instance, 10%. You can also have a "minimum fee" in case the 10% of derived value is not as much as you'd like to make. So for larger clients, your web design price could be, say "10% of derived value, or $500/day, whichever is greater." Of course, with large businesses, you NEVER share your pricing structure with them - only give them your final bid - do not explain to them how you reached your price. And don't feel obligated to price low - I did this and really regret it.

For small and midsize business clients, it seems to work best when you have defined design plans. For instance, "Website with up to five pages, 1000 words of text per page, 2 images per page, $500.....Website with up to ten pages, 2000 words of text per page, 5 images per page, $1000..." and on and on. For SMB design clients, I myself have a package on our site called the "Small-business Complete Suite". The way I plan to sell this (haven't made any sales yet - but it is also a fairly new service) is under a different reseller account, with the hosting priced at $400/yr and the domain at $29/yr - so the client would pay $429, of which $345 would be mine. This package includes a website designed with Site Studio or one of my PC-based templates (up to ten pages), Website Hosting (Corporate plan), and search engine optimization with a monthly re-optimize. If the client would like for us to administer updates to the site for them, it is an extra $25 per month, which they would pay to us by check. What I like about having the client order a hosting plan for a design/hosting package is that payment is guarateed - they have to setup the account and pay with a cc to get service - and we don't have to mess around with the billing.

Anyway, that's just my thoughts. I'm sure others here have a wealth of information they can share as well - there seems to be a lot of designers here. So speak up guys!

[Guest]

Thanks WebHoster, That really gives some of the direction I was looking for...I am especially interested in offering to more of the smaller businesses...

I do have a question, when you said: "If the client would like for us to administer updates to the site for them, it is an extra $25 per month, which they would pay to us by check. "

I was wondering for the extra $25/month....do you limit that to X number of hours per month...

I too am still contructing my "first" website (which is for a friend of mine) So of course, I initially estimated way way to low a price...and then of course it is a friend...

My issue is that I agreed to build her a basic site for x amount of dollars (too embarassed to tell you how little I charged)...but I agreed so I have been working to get it finalized....

Its a scrapbooking site...which has a ton of photos and I have had to take all the pics and resize then etc...in a nutshell, I have spent way more time on this than I initally intended....

Now as I get closer to completion I want to be able to say...here is your site...but from here on out...it will be X dollars for X amount of hours for administration changes etc....I also gave her the option to teach her the very basic basics and then she can administer it herself...but I know when I do this I will probably spend a lot of time doing "support"...so I want to get an idea of what others do......so I can have a plan in advance...

I was thinking of charging $100 per month for administration for up to 5 hours...after five hours its $25/hour. Otherswise if she wants to do her own administration support will be $40.oo per hour. How does that sound?

Thank you for your response, its been very helpful.....

BY the way what happened to the spellcheck in here?????

[Guest]

I'm personally inclined to charge by the hour. Like in a situation I was in with webhoster (that he mentioned in his post), we charged way to little... if I had charged by the hour I would have gotten 4 times the cash I did. But, live and learn.
From what I can gather, good competitive prices for designing website ranges from $50/hr to $60/hr for HTML, and $60/hr to $80/hr for php/python/ruby/perl programming.
And if your making a website for a flat fee, write every thing you will be doing in a contract. That way you wont end up doing more than you anticipated. Then charge say $60/hr for anything that they want done that isn't in the contract.

Just my $0.0000000002

[Guest]

I do have a question, when you said: "If the client would like for us to administer updates to the site for them, it is an extra $25 per month, which they would pay to us by check. "

I was wondering for the extra $25/month....do you limit that to X number of hours per month...

The $25/month covers one hour and additional hours can be added for $25 each. Of course, if no work is done during the month, but the service option is in place, the client would still be charged the $25 for that month - effectively building a nice, steady, residual income.

I too am still contructing my "first" website (which is for a friend of mine) So of course, I initially estimated way way to low a price...and then of course it is a friend...

My issue is that I agreed to build her a basic site for x amount of dollars (too embarassed to tell you how little I charged)...but I agreed so I have been working to get it finalized....

Its a scrapbooking site...which has a ton of photos and I have had to take all the pics and resize then etc...in a nutshell, I have spent way more time on this than I initally intended....

Now as I get closer to completion I want to be able to say...here is your site...but from here on out...it will be X dollars for X amount of hours for administration changes etc....I also gave her the option to teach her the very basic basics and then she can administer it herself...but I know when I do this I will probably spend a lot of time doing "support"...so I want to get an idea of what others do......so I can have a plan in advance...

I was thinking of charging $100 per month for administration for up to 5 hours...after five hours its $25/hour. Otherswise if she wants to do her own administration support will be $40.oo per hour. How does that sound?

lol, sounds like all the mistakes I made just a few months ago! At least you're still early enough in the process where you can set a reasonable maintenance fee - our original contract with the client even set the maintenance fee - which would also have been way too low! Needless to say, we got out of the contract - and luckily, it was a clean break.

$100/month sounds good to me - it's highly unlikely, especially after the first couple of months, that ALL five hours would be used. And the $40/hr for support sounds good to me as well.

Re: joey101's post about charging by the hour - the one problem I see with this is that there are but so many hours in a day, so you limit the amount of money you can make. I'm now in the middle of a fantastic read, Million Dollar Consulting by Alan Weiss, that I recommend all the designers here read. It really puts things into perspective....remember, you're not running a charity - don't feel bad about making money, and CERTAINLY don't limit yourself to a set amount. By setting value-based fees, instead of charging by the hour, the sky's the limit!

[Guest]

enough to pay the bills and not to much to lose the bid.


Simple enough?

There are actually a couple good books about starting a web design business... check your local library... sorry, don't recall the names, but the one in particular is title very similarly to that... how to start a web design business. The author, I think the name was Smith, has done just that and I believe his firm is called blarneystone or blarneystonedesign... something like that.

Anyway, that book gave me some great insight starting out.

I would recommend developing some kind of fee schedule with which you use to build your quotes, not necessarily set in stone, but a starting point for each project.

I actually keep my hosting prices separate from the design, but have the flexibility to manipulate things on either end if need be... always keep some things in your back pocket... ideally, things that you can "give" that won't cost you.

Years ago, I sold menswear. If we needed to sweeten a deal and get the purchase, we'd throw in a tie or two, or a shirt, long before we'd give a discount on the suit.... the suit was the bigger purchase, but had the smallest markup, so dropping the price $10 or $20 on the suit really cut into the profit, but tossing in a $30 tie made the deal even sweeter for the buyer, and at less than $3 or $4 at cost, didn't hurt as bad... sure, I'd like to sell the tie, shirt, and suit together at regular price... but if they didn't buy the suit, they aren't going to buy the tie and shirt either.

First off though, you need to figure out what your time is worth, in other words, a combination of what I would like to make teamed up with what I need to make... if you charge too low, that you are actually losing money... opportunity cost, in other words, I could work somewhere else and make more than doing this.

In the end, everyone is all over the board, so I think the buyer actually ends up making the decision based on what they want or can spend along with who they feel most comfortable with.

Since I do custom work, I use my fee schedule to work out a cost, layout a good, better, best scenario, and within each, factor in a page spread, or graphic spread based on the project.... in other words, this scenario for this much allows for between x and y pages, with a to b graphics. For my client's benefit, the last thing I want is them to equate a page = $$$, because they will try to combine pages to save money, but if their pages are all 5 scrolls long, it is a diservice to them because most of the visitors won't even see it. The end goal is to provide them the most value for their money and the best website for their needs and their target market. This way, they don't have to worry too much if we split a long page into two pages, or add a page, it may not impact the cost at all.

I actually like to get my clients to determine their needs and wants, and their budget, either what they can or are willing to spend.... okay, hold on to your hats.... and then let me know what that is. You need to educate them that web design isn't like going to their local car dealership, where the last thing they probably want to do is let the salesperson know what they can spend. As a designer, you have a vested interest in their site.... people, who have no idea how little or how much they spent, will view that site, and may look to you to do their site. No matter what they spend, I want to make their site look like a million bucks, and meet their needs as well as their visitor's needs. There are many ways to build a website, some are far better than others. Lock a designer into a price and then try to pull the wool over their eyes, trick them into delivering more than what you've paid for.... they will because that is their job.... but they also know how to cut corners they you may never see, that may bite you later down the road or not serve your site as well as it should... but then maybe that's what you deserve.

The tips above are great, as well, there have been other posts here that you might want to check out.

I too would caution the hourly rate... unless you are doing piece-meal work, I would quote out larger projects as such, layout exactly what that entails, and be ready to charge more for "change of scope." If you try to bid hourly on a full project, clients may be too afraid that they have no idea what it will cost until they get a bill. Likewise, especially if you are just starting out.... why should your clients pay for 10 hours of work that could/should have taken 2?

good luck, cheers

[Guest]

Thank you to everyone...you insights have been tremendously helpful to me...and which is why I initiated the post to begin with...it seems like starting out you qoute a price thats too low and then spend enormous amount of time on it...I sort of made that mistake, but realized I need to know more so the next site I build I won't, or at least be able to minimize it.

All of your thoughts accomplish that for me. I agree with you Identity...why should one pay for 10 hours for something that should have taken less...this is why I initially laid out a $25/hour fee...and then when I become more proficient in what I am doing I can raise it up a bit...even if that means for the first few sites I do I may have to take a small price hit..

I also liked your comment on the contracting Joey....I failed to take the time to detail out a written contract (when I have a JD degree and know the consequence of not doing so) but because it was a friend...the time you need to write one the most...I didn't....and under the circumstance it would have been inappropriate and may have ruined the arrangement altogether...so I went with the oral agreement

It turned out okay...except that I greatly under estimated not the value of my time, but the amount of time it would actually take me....and then of course (this goes with Joey's comment) that I ended up receiving additional changes not originally anticpated or agreed upon...but I did them anyways....

And thank you Webposter for clarifying, I guessed it might be an hourly rate you were talking about...and yes my goal is to set a monthly maitenance fee and whether they utilize it or not they pay the fee and of course, if they don't want a monthly fee, I will administer for them but at a higher rate than the monthly fee......This I figure will encourage them to go for the monthly deal and then I can generate a monthly income from it......

Joey of course, I think you have summed it up..Live and Learn! No matter what we do this will always be a factor, but the more we can learn, I think the better we can at least mitigate our damages in the future. Thanks again.

[Guest]

and then of course (this goes with Joey's comment) that I ended up receiving additional changes not originally anticpated or agreed upon...but I did them anyways....

I feel your pain! And you would think that it would be rather easy to say no to something you didn't agree to... right? heh


Be glad you had the misfortune... especially if it is on a small scale. Cuase now you know how to better handle biz deals.... and know how to charge more... and shouldn't make the same mistake again

[Guest]

Well actually in the other line of work I make this error at times, but I wouldn't really call it an error but more of a weighing of the bigger benefit of something versus at the cost of doing certain things that you would normally charge for your time.

PS...In my last post I mentioned WebHoster...I apologize for the typo in your name.

[Milen]

...Its a scrapbooking site...which has a ton of photos and I have had to take all the pics and resize then etc...in a nutshell, I have spent way more time on this than I initally intended....

....

BY the way what happened to the spellcheck in here?????

Just a couple of small notes: most image editing software includes some batch resize functions. Such functions save a lot of time when you need to resize many images to standard dimensions, but you probably know this already.

As for the spellchecker, this forum does not include such a function; this is why I always run my posts through an external spell checker before submitting. Of course, you can always go back and edit\correct any mistakes you want in your own posts.

P. S. I am moving this thread into a more suitable category of the forum.

[Guest]

PS...In my last post I mentioned WebHoster...I apologize for the typo in your name.

Not a problem at all!

[Guest]

Ohmygosh I just thought of this and it's absolutely brilliant! Sorry if someone's mentioned this alread, but here goes:

With a lot of people getting into the designing business, how about in version 2, we get to set our own Set-up price instead of it just being automatically free?! This would make it much easier for resellers to charge one initial fee for the site, and then make a recurring price for updates! And we wouldn't have to be charging the max. price on domains just to turn a decent profit!

Thoughts? Again, sorry if this has been mentioned, but I haven't seen it before here.

[Guest]

That is a very good idea! I like it!

[Guest]

As for the spellchecker, this forum does not include such a function; this is why I always run my posts through an external spell checker before submitting. Of course, you can always go back and edit\correct any mistakes you want in your own posts.

P. S. I am moving this thread into a more suitable category of the forum.

Sorry Milen....I wasn't sure what category to put this in....Oh about the spellchecker....I realized that it was a different forum I was in that had it...oops..

[vlasi47gr]

With a lot of people getting into the designing business, how about in version 2, we get to set our own Set-up price instead of it just being automatically free?! This would make it much easier for resellers to charge one initial fee for the site, and then make a recurring price for updates! And we wouldn't have to be charging the max. price on domains just to turn a decent profit!

Excellent Suggestion! Let's hope the Administrators pick up on this.