What IS the cost of designing a (DW4+) site?

Seanie M

Hi all,

I know there have been different posts and various replies to these posts, all about what to charge for doing a website or a number of web pages. I would like to know, if there are any proper geeks in this forum who could properly answer this question.

As an example, I use DreamWeaver MX, and I have potentially 3 sites for potential 'customers', but I don't know what to charge. I have seen figures from €50 per hour to €500 per day.

Can any of you answer this, based on a site of, say, 15 pages, fixed frame top and left, done in Dreamweaver? The usual time consumption of manipulaing pictures, even taking them, and testing etc would be straight forward to guess at for those who do this sort of thing.

Thanks,

Seanie
(who is no expert in web design, but would like to make a little cash from the work he CAN do!)

silverside

I'm no expert but I reckon 1000-2000 euro would be a fair all-in price for doing the site and putting it up on the servers, together with a little bit of support.

Seth Brundle

what part of the other posts did you not understand?
This cannot be answered in the way you want as we don't know how good your skills are, what the client / you expect from the site, etc.

'manipulaing pictures' can range from cropping a photo to serious graphic design. Is it just HTML or is there any server side coding? The fact that you use DW is irrelevant really. The 3 sites - are they designed to suit all browsers? Frames?

Rates of €50ph or 500pd would be for those with excellent skills in developing sites. Are your skills this good? However, the final price of a site is not just €x per day. Based on this and assume you & I value ourselves @ €250per day. I might take half as long as you (or twice as long) to complete the site. This leads to a sharp difference in potential prices.

Sorry for sounding negative but I hope it kinda answers it

Seanie M

Originally posted by kbannon

Sorry for sounding negative but I hope it kinda answers it

Not at all kbannon, thats the kind of feedback I am looking for. No point looking for suggestions if one cannot accept criticism too!

Thanks too silverside.

I know that I didn't give an in depth description of my capabilities et all, but I purposefully don't want to so as not to appear I am fishing for work. Likewise, I am not going to put up the sites in question either.

Also, all the sites I have done seem to be compatible in all IE's, Mozilla Firebird (which I highly recommend-even though I know newer named versions are out), and Netscape. I will try them in Opera soon.

However, to get a rough idea of some stuff I HAVE done for myself, here are two sites you can judge for yourself.
www.tullamoreastronomy.com
www.seanie-m.com
But keep in mind if you want to have a look to add anything in this thread for me you guys, these sites are free - obviously, I have some extra features/techniques on the 3 probable customer sites I am working on.

Thanks for the feedback guys.

:cool:

Seanie.

pork99

One thing I'll tell you Seanie M, nothing says "amateur hour" quite like a background sound file on a website. Talking about your Tullamore Astronomy website here.

One which you cannot at least switch off is a bit inconsiderate to your users.

At least yours didn't take too long to load (I'm on 512k DSL though).

RicardoSmith

Not trying to rain on your parade dude but theres very little "design" or any real functionality on either of those sites. €50 ph and 500 a day are very professional rates. No offense but I wouldn't rate your sites at being close to that sort of level. If I was you I'd get a web or graphic design mag and see what styles (Web/print) are in fashion and try and get some of that style into your webpages. The fact that some one is paying you do some work is great. But you really need to work on your "design" and graphic skills.

jank

Ya need to do some more design in your sites i think.

those sites are pretty basic i think, however if your a capitalist then go for what you can get


by the way learn how to do sites in photshop

Its the next level you want to get to and you wont regret it

Seanie M

Thanks folks. I know they're not the best of sites, but I did say that I was keeping them basic in my last post! Of course, what I am working on to get a bit of money is a little more advanced. I will be including submission forms, special offer pop-ups on certain pages and things like that.

Thanks pork99 for the comment. I think I will remove that jingle at the start. It has been a bit annoying to me at times too, to be honest!

One thing I do have to do that you are all correct on is to enhance the 'designs' of those pages. But, saying that, they're not supposed to be terribly flashy anyway. They're small time, and get the job done. But I am looking round at other sites of a similar nature for ideas and perhaps a little inspiration!

And I'll have to explore Photoshop a bit more!

Cheers,

Seanie.

Seth Brundle

Originally posted by Seanie M
...pop-ups...

aaaaaaaaaaaaagggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

mneylon

I wasn't going to reply, but I could not resist.

http://www.seanie-m.com/ - basic spelling mistakes. No design whatsoever. It looks like something thrown together in about 30 seconds.

http://www.tullamoreastronomy.com/index.asp - very 1996. More spelling mistakes.

Have you heard of ALT tags?
Why is this image 50k? http://www.seanie-m.com/images/observatory.jpg
It's bad quality, yet it's huge.

I'd advise doing a bit of work on basic HTML and web design or just design in general.

Seanie M

Sorry blacknight, you'll have to point out these spelling mistakes you seem to find! PM me IF you want to!

JustHalf

I see a lot of people mention 500 euro a day. If anyone can get me work at anything from 250 a day upwards, I'll gladly give them a 20% cut.

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by JustHalf
I see a lot of people mention 500 euro a day. If anyone can get me work at anything from 250 a day upwards, I'll gladly give them a 20% cut.

I'll second that!

Webmonkey

I'll offer 30% cut

clearz

This seems to be a topic that comes up a lot so I have a question. I recently did a small static website for a neighbour and was wondering could someone value it. The address is http://www.glendownhouse.com

bp_me

I personally wouldn't like to pay any more than about €200 for that site. It could be done with little more than an hours coding, and the server is painfully slow (I'm using iolbb).

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by bp_me
I personally wouldn't like to pay any more than about €200 for that site. It could be done with little more than an hours coding, and the server is painfully slow (I'm using iolbb).

Theres more to getting website done that a bit of coding. Theres all the clinet interaction, getting the content together, getting approval for your idea, getting it proof read and signed off by the client, doing a quote, raising an invoice getting paid, putting it through your accounts. Then theres the hosting costs, domain registration etc. Registering it with search engines etc.

I wouldn't do all that for €200. I'd say you'd need to charge 600ish for that site. I thought it was a nice little site. Though I wouldn't have done it the same, but thats just subjective taste. Loads fast enough on my 56k dialup @ 45kps.

bp_me

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
Theres more to getting website done that a bit of coding. Theres all the clinet interaction, getting the content together, getting approval for your idea, getting it proof read and signed off by the client, doing a quote, raising an invoice getting paid, putting it through your accounts. Then theres the hosting costs, domain registration etc. Registering it with search engines etc.

I wouldn't do all that for €200. I'd say you'd need to charge 600ish for that site. I thought it was a nice little site. Though I wouldn't have done it the same, but thats just subjective taste. Loads fast enough on my 56k dialup @ 45kps.

I wasn't talking about the hosting costs, etc when I mentioned that price.

maxheadroom

Originally posted by clearz
This seems to be a topic that comes up a lot so I have a question. I recently did a small static website for a neighbour and was wondering could someone value it. The address is http://www.glendownhouse.com

The HTML doesn't validate (linky ). The site is painfully slow to load. and there's wayyy to much information presented on the front page.

You're using popups on the rooms page. Why?

Also, as a niggle, neither of the twin rooms seem to be twin rooms

From http://www.irish-hotel-guide.com/glossary.htm
Twin Room

A twin room is also designed to accommodate two people only. The room contains two single beds. (approx. 3 x 6' 3 or 1m x 1.9m)

RicardoSmith

Whats the big deal about popups for images?

The twin room has two beds in it. What more do you want. Smaller beds?

maxheadroom

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
Whats the big deal about popups for images?

The twin room has two beds in it. What more do you want. Smaller beds?

Well, they're blocked by my browser for one

Also, I only see one bed in those photos. a big bed, but just one. Like I said, its just a niggle, maybe its just a bad set of photos (to me it looks like 2 rooms, each with a big bed, or two slightly different pics of the same bed).

Seanie M

Wow! this thread has been a bit busy since I left it!

Thats a pretty nice site for that hotel clearz. AndRicardo, you are putting it into perspective too. I would have to consider the 'evaluation' period I suppose - getting photos, travel time to client, testing etc etc.
Even though some others who commentd on my 'lack of design' on my personal sites, they're not reflecting what is going to happen on the ones I am building for the dosh.

But, from all the replies here, it seems that a bit of money can be made if what I can offer is what a client wants i.e. is within my capabilities. I'm no expert, but I'm learning all the time!

Seanie.

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by maxheadroom
Well, they're blocked by my browser for one

Also, I only see one bed in those photos. a big bed, but just one. Like I said, its just a niggle, maybe its just a bad set of photos (to me it looks like 2 rooms, each with a big bed, or two slightly different pics of the same bed).

I could have sworn than there was a second bed in the bottom right of the photo earlier. Isn't one there now. Theres only one link to a twin room that I can see. Theres two for a double room though.

All popups? I'm only filtering some of them myself.

Originally posted by Seanie M
....Even though some others who commentd on my 'lack of design' on my personal sites, they're not reflecting what is going to happen on the ones I am building for the dosh....

The personal sites say more than enough. If you had even a basic understanding of layout, typography, graphic design, you'd wouldn't have a personal site like either of those. You also wouldn't have asked for an opinion on them

mneylon

Originally posted by Seanie M
Sorry blacknight, you'll have to point out these spelling mistakes you seem to find! PM me IF you want to!

No thanks.

If you can't fix them I'm not going to do it for you unless you pay me to do it

clearz

My God havent we got alot of critics. First of all I aint a professional and once I am finnished college I have no interest in persuing a career in web development (Too many people at it) I simply asked the question of valuing a small website.

I personally wouldn't like to pay any more than about €200 for that site. It could be done with little more than an hours coding, and the server is painfully slow (I'm using iolbb).

An hour to complete if you magically had all the photos and graphics on hand and had an intimate knowlege of glendown house and Cavan which I certainly hadn't before I started.

Good points about the popups not appearing because of popup blockers ect

Dun

Originally posted by clearz
http://www.glendownhouse.com

Seanie M threw down the gauntlet, and I picked it up: unfortunately it was the wrong one! So here's your spell-check clearz.

No, I don't have lots of time; yes, I am a stickler for grammar (you can thank God I didn't start adding commas :eek: )

maxheadroom

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
All popups? I'm only filtering some of them myself.

Just the default settings for firefox (0.9.2), and its blocking those popups unless I whitelist the site.

cleareyed

I checked out the websites in this post and they scream "amateur". Glendown is ok for its market but I wouldn't pay anyone to these sites for me. Any pc literate person who can find their way around google could do at least as well. You did ask!

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by cleareyed
I checked out the websites in this post and they scream "amateur". Glendown is ok for its market but I wouldn't pay anyone to these sites for me. Any pc literate person who can find their way around google could do at least as well. You did ask!

You have a very limited view of the business side of things. A business person would say why spend a couple of hours doing this myself when a web designers time is cheaper than my own, and I've more important things to be doing. Theres a lot more people who use google than build websites. So obviously theres something holding them back. Also lots of Irish business'es, big and small don't want to pay big money for a website until they see some evidence that its earning its keep. They are happy to get a basic presence on the web, and take it for there.

cleareyed

A business person would say why spend a couple of hours doing this myself when a web designers time is cheaper than my own,

A Sunday afternoon. (Pick appropriate downtime) Website done at least as well as these. 500 euro for me rahter than amateur. How bad is that.

I think your comments apply to businesses that need a web presence of some stature.

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by cleareyed
A Sunday afternoon. (Pick appropriate downtime) Website done at least as well as these. 500 euro for me rahter than amateur. How bad is that.

I think your comments apply to businesses that need a web presence of some stature.

At wesite at this level, they are going to want to pay the minimun they can. So your 500 will be in competition with anyone who can do an amateur site for 100-200 or even for free. In my experience most websites built at this level are done by people can't tell the difference betweena good site and a bad one or are not willing to pay the difference.

I used to work for a small local web development company and I'd say 3 outta 4 jobs were for 500 or less. In fact around 500 was our minimum as any less than that and it wouldn't cover the costs of the IIS hosting and labour. Labour is not just the cost of building the site. Its any time spent on a project that could be spent on another. That includes meetings and things like that. The reason some jobs got done at under 500, was that the owner reckoned doing it for less would mean repeat business. Most of the time it didn't and I don't think its a business plan that holds any water.