Is this standard practice for a web design company?

Zascar

My dad has wanted a new website for a while as his current one is dated. I have some experience and if I had the time I would have managed the project but outsourced it to e.g. an Indian web design through www.elance.com or similar.

However, my dad got a proposal from someone he knows - a guy that has a business that provides web design as part of a multitude of business services his company provides. He send over some forms to be filled out etc, I wrote some guidelines of what are the important parts (seo etc) and came back with a jpg draft of what the website would look like. I was actually quite impressed and thought it looked nice and was well laid out.

Dad went back to him with a few small changes he wanted, nothing major - and then later pointed out a few mistakes that the designer had made in error.

The guys come back to him now saying something along the line of 'you only have one revision left' - apparently he only allows the client to make three changes and after that you have to be happy with what is there.

I find this absolutely ridiculous. When I designed website I'd do as many as were needed (within reason) to please the client. Even when I managed the project of getting Dad's logo redesigned, we were allowed unlimited revisions - it took many many of which the designer gave us maybe 6 different logo versions each time, and was more than happy to do so - and he was cheap too!

What really annoys me here is that he is charging €1,500 + vat - and I happen to know he is outsourcing the business to Indian subcontractors himself. Its based on a CMS - and possibly a template so I'm sure he's netting himself a fair wad of cash for the small amount of work invovled in managing the project. But to 'limit' revisions of the site to three - especially when they are small things, not total structural resdigns or anything - i find this unacceptable.

Opinions please?

seamus

Doesn't sound normal to me tbh. I would expect the normal process to involve drafting the site/design. Then the client settles on one design or suggests tweaks. At that point I can understand the designer/developer limiting the number of changes which can be made, but not at the drafting stage.

oeb

Zascar wrote: »

My dad has wanted a new website for a while as his current one is dated. I have some experience and if I had the time I would have managed the project but outsourced it to e.g. an Indian web design through www.elance.com or similar.

However, my dad got a proposal from someone he knows - a guy that has a business that provides web design as part of a multitude of business services his company provides. He send over some forms to be filled out etc, I wrote some guidelines of what are the important parts (seo etc) and came back with a jpg draft of what the website would look like. I was actually quite impressed and thought it looked nice and was well laid out.

Dad went back to him with a few small changes he wanted, nothing major - and then later pointed out a few mistakes that the designer had made in error.

The guys come back to him now saying something along the line of 'you only have one revision left' - apparently he only allows the client to make three changes and after that you have to be happy with what is there.

I find this absolutely ridiculous. When I designed website I'd do as many as were needed (within reason) to please the client. Even when I managed the project of getting Dad's logo redesigned, we were allowed unlimited revisions - it took many many of which the designer gave us maybe 6 different logo versions each time, and was more than happy to do so - and he was cheap too!

What really annoys me here is that he is charging €1,500 + vat - and I happen to know he is outsourcing the business to Indian subcontractors himself. Its based on a CMS - and possibly a template so I'm sure he's netting himself a fair wad of cash for the small amount of work invovled in managing the project. But to 'limit' revisions of the site to three - especially when they are small things, not total structural resdigns or anything - i find this unacceptable.

Opinions please?

While it's not something that I do, it does happen. Specificially it happens regularly with cheap solutions (and 1,500 is dirt cheap.) It's simply not worth their while at that money to do unlimited revisions (within reason). I do unlimited (within reason) revisions, but for even a basic CMS site I would be charging at least 4 times that price.

Solarpitch

You will find many, if not all design companies employ a policy where there are a certain amount of design changes that can be made within reason. Otherwise it leaves them open to having to spend days/ weeks retouching design drafts and it ends up not being worth there while.

Even companies that say they do unlimited revisions, you will find that there are terms and conditions to state that this is within reason of the projected project cost and development time.

But make sure that them changing the color of a link or banner is not classed as a revision, I think you would be hard done by there. :rolleyes:

tomED

We'd be similar in that we'd have unlimited revisions unless it got completely out of hand.

If you are correct in saying he is outsourcing, this is probably why he has the limit. I know from the past of dealing with outsourcing, they usually set a limit of 3 revisions. Anything after that is usually charged on an hourly basis.

The Mighty Ken

Three revisions of a design should be more than enough. Effectively you hire a designer that you feel will do a great job and then the onus is on you to detail all the changes that you would like to make to the design. The designer makes those changes and you have one more iteration for tweaking and refining things. That should be more than enough.

Any Web agency that allows the client to make unlimited iterations of a design is asking for trouble. Of course it's important to be flexible for your clients and small changes generally don't count as iterations. However, there are a considerable number of very unreasonable clients out there who will have you spending weeks and weeks on a design that should have taken days if you don't protect yourself. I've been caught out by this myself in the past and it was a world of pain... particularly on my wallet. Lesson learned!