Hi All,

 

How would be the best way to work out the following job cost?

 

Client wants a website build in a cms (I am going to use wordpress)

 

Logo

Custom theme

Booking system

Merchandise

 

Following pages

 

Home

about

location

people

events

prices and bookings

sponsors

contact

 

Some pages will be integrated e.g. home will probably have the contact details in it.?

 

Decide your hourly cost. Then work out how long it would take, and multiply the two, and thats your cost

How would I work out the hours if im new to wordpress themes? (I reckon I can do it by changing the default them to the style of the psd template that i make and css ect.)

The only way is to try out it out first. Depending on the complexity of the wordpress integration it can vary. For just maybe 1-2 page templates, possibly £120, not including the psd. But if you have to develop a backend with options, or lots of templates, then it could amount to much more.

 

I would say take a psd from http://freepsdtheme.com/ or your own, and turn it into a wordpress page. See how long it takes

first account 15 hours to study wordpress. Then around 2-3 for design, 1 hour to convert to html and css and a further 2-3 hours to code the design into wordpress. Then all customisation to the code depends on how good you are at php, jquery.

first account 15 hours to study wordpress. Then around 2-3 for design, 1 hour to convert to html and css and a further 2-3 hours to code the design into wordpress. Then all customisation to the code depends on how good you are at php, jquery.

 

 

You shoudnt really charge a customer for 15 hours of you learning to do something.

You shoudnt really charge a customer for 15 hours of you learning to do something.

 

exactly, that is a hit you will have to take with the opportunity.

Thanks everyone, Cause i'm still learning and this is a fairly big project for me compared to my norm of 3 - 5 page static sites. I have also ordered: Smashing Wordpress: Beyond the Blog (Smashing Magazine Book Series) To help me with the learning process.

Thanks everyone, Cause i'm still learning and this is a fairly big project for me compared to my norm of 3 - 5 page static sites. I have also ordered: Smashing Wordpress: Beyond the Blog (Smashing Magazine Book Series) To help me with the learning process.

 

good idea...

 

I disagree with not charging the customer for learning. If it is required, would they rather have 15 hours charge for learning or 20 hours charged for custom build.

 

Otherwise you would be knocking out wordpress websites for less than £200 which has no profit for anyone apart for the client.

 

I always look to save money for the client but to me if i am having to study a script that is still working... otherwise that is 15 hours i could spend on a project that is paying for it. I dont think any major web design company do not charge if they are actively working on that project, and learning the script for that project is working in my opinion!

 

 

Lucky for my clients now i know wordpress very well so no learning will be charged anymore

By all means include the cost of learning in the price, but don't itemise it in an breakdown/invoice. If I hired a plumber who said, he would charge me £xxx to learn how a new boiler was fitted and set up I would look elsewhere.

Thanks Guys I will try and work it out. Another thing, would I charge the customer for premium plug ins i buy for the project?

Thanks Guys I will try and work it out. Another thing, would I charge the customer for premium plug ins i buy for the project?

 

Generally yes, it depends how itemized your invoice is going to be.

Surely you wouldn't charge your client for learning Wordpress Robert? Why should your first client have to pay for it when you will probably be using it a lot for other clients too in the future? Fair enough if it's something unique they're asking for you to code. But I'm pretty sure most designers advertise that they do CMS integration and wouldn't expect to pay the developer extra to learn it?

Thanks Guys I will try and work it out. Another thing, would I charge the customer for premium plug ins i buy for the project?

 

I think it also depends on the plugin, if it was a plugin bought solely for the project then definitely yes, but if it was a contact form plugin, then you could charge a small amount, and recoup the cost over a few projects

Nice, I don't think I will be charging for the learning of wordpress as this will be a main skillset that i will want to use in the future. Thanks everyone for the advice. +1

Near £1,000 I'd say!

This is a pretty good formula, I use it too. Its all about being able to properly quantify your time.

 

At the moment i am finding it a little hard to know how many hours it will take?

Ok this may or may not help you but I don't want to go into too much detail about how I price and manage my projects because I'll be here for ******* ages... I split up the project into iterations. Each iteration contains 35 units of work, a unit is equal to 1 hour (7 hours x 5 days = 35 hours). So 1 iteration is essentially one weeks work (unfortunately I'm not able to work 100% of the time to on one project so an iteration may take weeks to complete).

 

Now I break up everything I need to do in the project (and I mean everything, even if it takes you all weekend) into tasks and I estimate how many units of work each task will take (decimal units are fine). So in your example:

 

Logo (4 units)

-Logo design (3 units)

-Logo refinements (1 unit)

 

Install wordpress (1 unit)

Design theme (18 units)

etc.

 

Once you have your total units, its basically the total in hours work. For example the project I'm working on right now is 105 units, so that would be 105 hours x £35 = £3675 then I add 10% so project total is £4042.50. I send the client the unit breakdown in the proposal, so they know EXACTLY what they are getting, which helps to prevent scope creep. A lot of clients ask you to justify the price as well, and if you've just pulled a number out of the air, you look amateur.

 

All of my unit data is stored in my project management application (Gnome Planner), so I know what I'm suppose to be working on, what iterations need to be complete before starting task X etc. Every unit of my work is tracked using Hamster, which is very useful to compare your estimations vs actual time at the end of the project so you'll improve at time guestimation with each project. I can also export HTML timesheets and Gnatt charts if the client starts asking wtf I've been doing (they love graphs) if possibly I try and make an iteration a deliverable as well so the client is happy.

Ok this may or may not help you but I don't want to go into too much detail about how I price and manage my projects because I'll be here for ******* ages... I split up the project into iterations. Each iteration contains 35 units of work, a unit is equal to 1 hour (7 hours x 5 days = 35 hours). So 1 iteration is essentially one weeks work (unfortunately I'm not able to work 100% of the time to on one project so an iteration may take weeks to complete).

 

Now I break up everything I need to do in the project (and I mean everything, even if it takes you all weekend) into tasks and I estimate how many units of work each task will take (decimal units are fine). So in your example:

 

Logo (4 units)

-Logo design (3 units)

-Logo refinements (1 unit)

 

Install wordpress (1 unit)

Design theme (18 units)

etc.

 

Once you have your total units, its basically the total in hours work. For example the project I'm working on right now is 105 units, so that would be 105 hours x £35 = £3675 then I add 10% so project total is £4042.50. I send the client the unit breakdown in the proposal, so they know EXACTLY what they are getting, which helps to prevent scope creep. A lot of clients ask you to justify the price as well, and if you've just pulled a number out of the air, you look amateur.

 

All of my unit data is stored in my project management application (Gnome Planner), so I know what I'm suppose to be working on, what iterations need to be complete before starting task X etc. Every unit of my work is tracked using Hamster, which is very useful to compare your estimations vs actual time at the end of the project so you'll improve at time guestimation with each project. I can also export HTML timesheets and Gnatt charts if the client starts asking wtf I've been doing (they love graphs) if possibly I try and make an iteration a deliverable as well so the client is happy.

 

Thanks for taking the time to help me out. +1

When giving the customer the price, would i give as a straight figure or a broken down figure?

When giving the customer the price, would i give as a straight figure or a broken down figure?

 

I give them the total, I'd be worried they'd start stripping out bits of the project if I were to give them a completely itemized proposal. If they ask for it to be itemized once its submitted then its a simple case of referring back to your project plan that I outlined above.

 

Occasionally clients ask for the price of optional extras, in which case I'd say it will be £200 extra for this and it will extend the deadline by x days. Sometimes If I have a really good idea about an extra feature, or something they've completely missed I'd enter it in as an optional extra.

Are you taking on a project that you don't have the skills for, and just buying a Wordpress book and hoping it all goes OK? If so, I'd consider learning to walk before you try running. Stick to what you know, and learn in your own time.

 

As for price, hourly rate + extras they need.

Are you taking on a project that you don't have the skills for, and just buying a Wordpress book and hoping it all goes OK? If so, I'd consider learning to walk before you try running. Stick to what you know, and learn in your own time.

 

As for price, hourly rate + extras they need.

 

It's not that I cant do it, I know I can do it. Just would need to do it Properly. And the project is a quite a big one compared to what i'm used to.