Hi all

 

A general maintenance man approached me today and asked how mch i would charge to do him a small website (about 2 or 3 pages probably with possibly a contact form). This would be my first ever project & I want the price to be fair but have no idea how much to charge?

ive only been doing coding for a few months but i heard you charge based on how many hours u think it will take and how much you want per hour

Hi there,

 

What you charge for a piece of web design work, especially when you're starting out can be a tricky decision. Do you go in high, with your fingers crossed, and try to make an extra buck, or do you go in bottom price because it's good experience, and you should be thankful for the work?

 

What I'd suggest you do, is scope out the project to see how long you think it will take in terms of hours and what costs are associated with services; try to cover all bases here and include things like domain name registration, hosting etc.

 

With this info you should have a cost in time (hours) and a cost in services (Pounds/Dollars). The services have a set monitary value which you need to cover but the cost of your time doesn't. To find this out you'll need to decide what an hour of your time costs to you, so how much you think an hour of your time is worth. Multiply this by the hours you think you'll be puting in and you'll have a monitary value for your time on the project. Add these together and I think it will give you a good idea of what the project is worth to you.

 

When you put the price to your prospective client, try breaking the costs out between design, build, and services so your client can see where the money is all going and it's then much easier to change the price by moving things around. An example of this could be something like adding google analytics to the site. Although with this there's no money associated to services, it will take some of your time. If the cost is too high, you can suggest leaving Google analytics out, but remember to push the benefits of having analytics active. This is just an example but you'll get the gist of things as you go along.

 

In my experience the average cost of a freelancer in the UK is around £25 - £60. Bear in mind that if this is freelance work and you're declaring it, you will pay the tax man roughly 30% (if you're already working) so keep this aside.

 

At the end of the day business should be a fun thing, and people are people so be open and honest about what you think the project is worth to you. There is no "set price" for the kind of work we do and meeting somewhere in the middle, that suits both of you, is a good start for your first project.

 

When I think back to my first freelance job, I think I charged £12.00 per hour (This was a good 5 years ago though).

 

I hope this helps.

 

Rick.

Thanks Rick! Thats very helpfull indeed. I'm keep it fair and dont feel that this chap should pay extra for my inexperience whilst im still learning so i guess i'll pitch it between £100 - £200. Reckon thats fair?

That's no problem, glad you found the info helpful.

 

Regarding your price, I think if you're happy with it and the client is happy with it then it's fair.

 

Good luck with your first web site project.

 

Rick.

Yeah I think £100-£200 is a good price, I think working on a time basis can be unfair on the customer

Thanks again for your replys guys will show you the end result once its done,

 

thanks again,

 

Jason

Best of luck on your first project! It's good that you got someone to ask you to do this. I want to do some freelance stuff myself and in the process of making a website of services but I have a long way to go with regards to finding out about declaring earnings and all that jazz!

Yeah I think £100-£200 is a good price, I think working on a time basis can be unfair on the customer

 

If you don't base a quote on the amount of time that it takes to do the work...how else is it possible to price anything?

 

I use a spread sheet to form my quotes that takes hourly rate into account & a long list of tasks with the amount of time that it takes to do each one...this way I end up with an accurate quote that is pretty much always correct - I can't see any other way of producing a meaningful quote.

If you don't base a quote on the amount of time that it takes to do the work...how else is it possible to price anything?

 

I use a spread sheet to form my quotes that takes hourly rate into account & a long list of tasks with the amount of time that it takes to do each one...this way I end up with an accurate quote that is pretty much always correct - I can't see any other way of producing a meaningful quote.

 

You should publish your form lol

If you don't base a quote on the amount of time that it takes to do the work...how else is it possible to price anything?

 

You really can not base your quote on how many hours it will take you to finish project/job.

 

If i, with 8 years of experience, need, lets say- 10 hour for some project ; someone with only 1 year of experience will take 4 or 5 times more time (40-50 hours) to do the same.

 

Lots of unexperienced, new people here and on other places on WWW, charge about £20 (yeah, its hilarious), maybe even £25 like me.

 

So, for 10h of work, i would charge £250, and they will charge about 4-5 times more, lets say about £1000 for the same thing.

 

Somehow, i think costumer will pick someone with 8 years of experience for £250 over someone with 1 year of exp. for £1000.

 

 

If you want to give your quote based on time you need to spend on job, have REALISTIC prices (not £45-£60 if you are freelancer) because people dont have to pay arm and leg because of your slowness/inexperience/not enough skills.

 

ps. and everything over £100-£150 for 3 page XHTML/CSS site with form is 'rip off'.

£200-£250 for 3 page site and a little design work sounds fair to me.

Yeah I agree with Zack. My level of experience is really low at thd moment and so slot of my first projects will be on the basis of learning as I go. For example it's taking me ages to understand when to use id's and when to uses classes and I still dong understand fully. But this is not the clients problem and nor should it be. The fact is he wants a website that would take some of you guys 1 night to do. I'll never complete a project in such a short timescale at the moment. Therefor, imho, it's me that has to take the hit until I am up to speed. If I am serious about making a living from this then it's me who has to learn to develop my skills quicker because if not where would be the motivation to continue to learn new skills to take me to a new level. Just my opinion however.

If you don't base a quote on the amount of time that it takes to do the work...how else is it possible to price anything?

 

How to price up a website is always a tough one. I also use a spread sheet but I split it down into type of work. i.e.

 

Template design, Template Code, additional pages, flash, Forms, SEO, Google Analytics. etc.

 

This way I can break the site down into chunks and see where I make my money and were I loose money and I can re-adjust the formula.

 

 

End of the day we all work for the bank manager, mortgage company, so I have not real intrest in charging stupid low prices unless, I want the job for my porfolio.

 

 

Mamba,

You have to strike a balance between what you would like to get for your work and what people are willing to pay. Dare I say you need to know when to compromise on certain aspects of the job to fit the requirement and budget. You mention working for a general maintenance person - that's the sort of market I'm going for but it also implies smaller budget work. My experience so far is extremely varied from folks that have NO CLUE what they want - except a web site. And others who have very clear ideas because they have researched.

 

But there are so many variables. Do they already have a logo? Do they have their own pictures. Have they researched competitor sites themselves and know what they want to say. I see Zach's point about £200 or so being a rip off for three pages, but only if you are given everything on a plate.

 

But if you are sourcing some content, pulling together pictures, spending time picking a logo with your client as well as probably advising on and securing a domain name for them then quickly £300 will seem like a good deal.

 

Any way - I personally pitch a starter basic site at £100 pounds but am careful to be really clear about the scope of that and so far I've averaged around the £350 mark. (for three jobs so statisically irrelevant!!!!) In summary you sound like you're on the right track IMHO.

I see Zach's point about £200 or so being a rip off for three pages, but only if you are given everything on a plate.

 

But if you are sourcing some content, pulling together pictures, spending time picking a logo with your client as well as probably advising on and securing a domain name for them then quickly £300 will seem like a good deal.

 

Well, logo and/or writing content for site is not included in the price.

 

I would charge maximum £150 (probably £125) for 3 page static xHTML/CSS site. For that price, i can handle the pictures (if client dont want to use their own, ofcourse).

 

Logo would be about £15-25 (it depends how complex)

 

Domain: about £10

 

So lets say, 3-page static site (without any flash/jquery) with logo would be £160-170. With contest, about £200-£215.

 

Ofcourse, if they need hosting that would be £4-5 per month, monthly maintenance £50-75....

 

But my point is, to build 3 page static site with form, shouldn't be more then £125 (without logo, hosting, flash, domain, maintenance.... person who opened thread never gave us this info so im working with what i can here.)

 

If you quote more, i doubt your skills are very good (weak skills, slow work and all of that.

But my point is, to build 3 page static site with form, shouldn't be more then £125 (without logo, hosting, flash, domain, maintenance.... person who opened thread never gave us this info so im working with what i can here.)

 

If you quote more, i doubt your skills are very good (weak skills, slow work and all of that.

 

I think we agree about pricing actually then, just how to "package" it to some customers is the trick. I read a bit more context in the original post - because I deal with these "maintenance" type guys quite often and you just have to package it up sometimes to not confuse them!! Cheers for clarifying!

When I started out I tended to charge small fees for the first few web sites I did because I was learning and so potentially something could go wrong (which I explained to the client). I adopted the same approach when I started doings CMS' and shopping carts, charging smaller fees for the the first one I did until I was confident enough to charge more.

 

For your project £100-£200 sounds about fair. Remember to charge for domain name and hosting on top though otherwise you won't end up with as much.

Don't be embarassed to ask for a decent deposit, I usually ask for 50%, and most are quite happy with this.

 

As per other recommendations, always have a contract. There will come a day when you will need it.

 

Regards,

 

Dean

Does anyone have some resources such as a contract template and template for fees like a speadsheet etc. Would be very useful. Cheers

I was searching through the net for something else and stumbled across this thread. Here's my 2 cents:

 

You should absolutely charge based on the number of hours you estimate it *should* take. First of all, determining how long it will take you to complete the project is a good practice and will help you understand your timelines and deliverables. Also, over time you will be able to see your progress as a web designer/developer.

 

Notice I said *should*. What I mean is that if you think it will take you 6 hours to do something, but you honestly think you should be able to do it in 3, then charge for 3. As a newbie, it will take you a little longer until you get more experience.

 

As for the statement of 1yr of experience versus 10 yrs - the way to address this is simple. Adjust your rate accordingly. A designer at an agency with 10 years experience should be making much more than a junior designer with only 1 year of experience. The same applies to freelancers. Ask around, do some research on the net and try to determine where you "fit" in the grand scheme of the industry. Seeing that you're new, you will probably want to start your rate near the bottom. The bottom of what? well ask around, try to find some willing freelancers that have experience and ask what their rate is. Everyone is going to be different but you should be able to make an informed guess about your worth as a designer. Knowing what you're worth is very difficult when starting out, but the more work you put into figuring it out, the easier it will be for you later on.

 

When I first started 10 years ago, I was charging about about £20 per hour. As my skills grew, so did the quality of work and my rate adjusted accordingly. Also, remember that if it used to take you (and most other designers) 8 hours to build something and the same project now only takes 3 hours, then you should be adjusting your rate, because you're actually losing money.

 

Also, don't get caught up on things like how much a "3 page website" should cost. I've built 1 page websites that were worth over £3,000 and my business colleagues told me I undercharged the client. It all boils down to what you believe you are worth (per hour) multiplied by how many hours you think it should take.

 

Sorry if my thoughts on this seem a bit random and frazzled - this was just a quick stop in to share my knowledge.

 

~ Shu

Thinking long term, after you've gained some experience and have a few steady clients under your belt, don't be afraid to raise your rates (after you give current client at least 30 days notice), based on your improved efficiency and increased knowledge.

 

Consistently undervaluing services not only hurts your business, but also the public perception of what web design professionals are worth.

 

 

 

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St Albans Web Design

Web Design, SEO, Development, Email Marketing