[zibizibi]

Hi,

For a website, I gave a price to a client who replied :

1) Does that incude the actual build aswell ?
2) Can you provide a break down as to what that entails ?

I have absolutely no idea what he means by « build » in 1) and by « a break down » in 2). Anybody can translate for me please ?

[MikeChipshop]

Build means to actually BUILD the website, code it so that it is up and running. Not just design it.

A breakdown is to list what it is you will do and how much for.

[smoothonline]

i normally provide a breakdown so they can see where the different money is going but sometimes clients get confused and i leave it out, depends on client

[zibizibi]

You mean that the client expects something like : Contact form: £xx - Homepage: £xx - Page#1: £xx - etc. If so then I would be making things up because I just reckoned that it would take me 3 days to do the job, so my price was 3 x my_daily_rate.

Plus I don't see that development time can be divided like that. For example, a contact page with a form takes like 3 minutes (installing WP plugin Contact Form 7 for example) so I'm not gonna even mention it ! How do you deal with this guys ?

(Hum maybe I should create a new topic ...?)

[zed]

so just say
design 1 day
develop, test, site setup 2 days


or whatever you feel appropriate. You probably don't need to cost these either. You've given the price.

[zibizibi]

@zed I think that some clients may react like « What ? I pay him so much for just 3 days of work ? ». I mean it opens the door to this kind of reaction unnecessarily doesn't it ?

[terydinho]

If he is that type of client then do one of 2 things:

1. Lie (say you have spent 10 days on it, not 3)
2. Show him the door and don't take the job on.

Simply break it down as such:

Design = 1 day
Front End Development = 2 days
Back End Development = 3 days
Testing = 1/2 day
Deployment = 1/2 day

Etc... - quite straightforwards

[porkchops]

I'd be wary of anyone who asks you for a breakdown of your costs. They are probably going to not appreciate design work or be such a penny pincher that they are an absolute nightmare to work for.

If you still want to work for the client I'd recommend following what Zed recommended: Break the cost down into something like 20 hours for design, 20 for development, etc. You should be basing your prices on your hourly rate anyways. If they want something more granular run for the hills.

[zibizibi]

OKII thank you all very much for your help.