Career as a freelance web dev?

G-Money

I was thinking about whether it's possible to carve out a living as a freelance web developer. It's something I'm considering doing part-time as a way to earn some extra money. However I also wondered if everything worked out, would it be something I could do full-time.

However the first thing that popped into my mind was the money. How much would a freelancer roughly charge to create a site? And let's assume it's not a huge massive e-commerce site. Say €400 for a site? You'd have to develop an awful lot of sites per month just to make the rent, pay tax and bills etc?

Or are my numbers or expectations completely unrealistic?

I know one guy who does freelancing and he seems to advertise sites from €350 euro or so. It made me think if I charged a similar rate, I'd have to build an awful lot of sites per month just to get by. And that would be even if I could get the work.

fergalfrog

I build sites for €300 (as do others) but this would not make up most of my income. €300 will give someone a basic site with a CMS and a few bells and whistles like a photo gallery, blog contact/newsletter form etc.

Many clients will need a bit more than this however and if there is some complex programming involved then obviously this takes more time and thus costs more.

Yes if you are charging €300 for all websites then obviously you will need to make 100 in year to make 30k before tax.

Remember you have more overheads (small or home office) and no sick/holiday pay.

Have you much experience building sites? Can you get a job turned around quickly and if you hit a problem can you get it fixed quickly? The quicker you can, the sooner you get on to the next job and the more you have billed at the end of the month.

There are people/companies selling sites for €99 (one who was doing a lot of this up to a month ago has just gone out of business!) but unless you are doing a big number of these or providing other services you will not make much money.

If you can start doing it part time it will give you a much better idea of whether or not it's something worth doing full time.

Hope this helps and good luck!

Placebo

hold on a second, you guys charge €3OO for a site? Where is the design coming from ? There is no way in hell i would design a site , then code it with CMS features then add a form and a GALLERY? for €3OO

fergalfrog

Placebo wrote: »

hold on a second, you guys charge €3OO for a site? Where is the design coming from ? There is no way in hell i would design a site , then code it with CMS features then add a form and a GALLERY? for €3OO

This is where the design is supplied or a paid/free template is used. To get a site designed from scratch with branding etc is totally different.

PCPhoto

this seems to be a problem in this country today ..... there are lots of people who think they can do something part-time and maybe make a job out of it.

for me I work as a photographer and over the past number of years hobbyists have been claiming they are photographers and taking jobs off people earning a living from it....granted some of the hobbyists are brilliant - but there are a number out there who are chancers - doing a cheap job because they can get a couple of quid....and these days some people look for cheapest option.

I would imagine that if you are serious about starting a new career - then spend 12months learning and experimenting - or assisting a professional, become part of Elance or one of those sites and do a few nixers....but please don't start charging money until you can provide a top level service.....dont just do a basic service that anyone can do using a WYSIWYG site.

Webmonkey

This comes up over and over again here. Unfort the average joe as a client doesn't know any better if he getting a template or not.

Placebo

can some one link a template or site with templates, ive seen theme forrest?
I would find it harder to change a site, rather than design one.
Doing something for sunday times, while the design took a while, i coded most of it up today in a day . And if the client is that flaky that i could pass on a template then i would easily design something that quick too

BostonB

grandmaster wrote: »

...
Or are my numbers or expectations completely unrealistic?...

The trick is to do something, that people will willingly pay you more for. Find some added value that you can offer than others can't. Trying to compete with the cheapest is really not a business plan that will work for any length of time. Also you won't enjoy the experience at all.

JimmyCrackCorn

Depends on customer needs. But a site for 300 is a case of you get what you pay for.

I avoid that kind of thing like the plague as a free web template sitting on joomla is not exactly my idea of development. It also confuses the hell out of things when you actually design a site and try to charge appropriately.

There is contract development work out there but the standard of people who claim to be web designers and developers vary wildly.