what to charge for a site?

Heathen

Hi there

I have been building sites for a few years and made some pretty successful sites but i normally build them for myself, for making money on Google ads and so on, and then have also gon on to sell them on to people interested in making a business from the sites.. in all i have made about 20k in the past 2 years on sites.. but now i have been asked to build a site for a small business starting up not too far from me.. i have no idea what to charge or how to work out a formula for charging for time etc.. and them what way to handle reoccuring domain/ hosting charges.. do i look after all that for them? cos they are noobs to the web, on the back of this offer i also got asked by another company that are friends of this company to do some content change on their current site.. not a lot of work, and if it was a mate i would just do it for free, but with things the way they are at the moment i need every cent i can earn, what would you guys charge for maybe 3 or 4 pages that need the content altered to reflect new contact details/ change in the company profile/ description...??

all replies will be very helpful cos this is the first time i have built on demand.. normally they are projects i make.. just for me..

Thanks
H

mneylon

This comes up every few weeks over here:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=23

You'll find discussions over here:

http://www.creativeireland.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=11

and over here:

http://www.irishwebmasterforum.com/

kdaly100

My only suggestions are the following

• Work out how long it will take you to design the site. Multiply this by your hourly rate. Add 10-20% for potential problems.
• For the hosting charges / domain names don't overcharge them. Develop a yearly support fee for the stie that includes this (and explain that there will be yearly charge for support)
• If you buy some graphics, images then don't forget to include this.
• Look at the last site you built and remember how long it took.
• Get a payment up front of some percentage of the fee as I have at least 5-6 clients from when I was new to this who NEVER paid me.
• Establish some terms and conditions as well that are clear simple and make sense based on the previous point.
• If the end price seems a bit high don't worry it isn't. Designing a website for 300-400 Euro is a losers game if you want to reflect the effort put in.
• If they are not happy with the price negotiate maybe 10% down but don't go further it will end up costing you money.

I would put 30-40 hours into a standard site so work out that from the above mathematics at even 30 Euro per hour (and please don't start the offshore debate )

Hope this helps

Kieran

cormee

It's not the most informative answer but; don't charge a penny more, or less, than you think your time is worth. If your client shares your belief he/she'll engage your services.

It's important to get a very good brief from the client, after that send them back a price with an exact breakdown of what you will be giving them for that price and make it clear that price is for that breakdown, any deviations will result in the price change.

A lot of clients like to move the goalposts after a project has started, when they ask for a change make it clear that will affect the price.

Don't agree to any milestones over the phone, always make sure there is some record of it and if the person you are doing the work for seems like a chancer ask for 30-40% after the design templates are agreed. If they don't agree to that walk away from the project, it will probably save you a lot of grief later.

Also make sure you agree on the content - after the design has been agreed I don't start coding it until I have all the content. Some jokers will see unfinished content (that they've failed to provide) as a good reason for holding out on paying you.

Personally my fees work out from €50 - €70 per hour for freelance work. Or about half that if it's a friend.

seomul

There are Three basic strategies which you can chose according to your project.
1- Hourly rate
2- Package pricing
3- Customize Quote

Its all depend upon you how to deal up with clients.

Sully

Blacknight wrote: »

This comes up every few weeks over here:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=23

You'll find discussions over here:

http://www.creativeireland.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=11

and over here:

http://www.irishwebmasterforum.com/

As above.. Best place to start are the above links. Iv always felt these topics were better suited for the Design forum rather then Internet Marketing and SEO (queries on pricing for such, I guess should be fine)

Hope that helps.

Topic Closed