Hello all,

 

I'm not completely new to web design, but I'm new here and I'm new to working freelance and I have a question..

 

I used to work as an IT Technician for a marina/yacht broker company here on the south coast of England. My role there involved working on their many websites (updates, new pages, and I completely rebuilt two of their yacht brokerages pages as they were outdated) using XHTML, CSS and Java.

 

I'm now unemployed after being made redundant from my most recent job and I have acquired two clients who want me to make them a website each.

 

My problem is I have no idea how much to charge. I can't really estimate as to how many hours it's going to take me, either, but at gunpoint I'd say 2-3 days per site depending on how sensible I am with cracking on with it!

 

First client wants a simple website for a construction company based in Romania. 6 or so pages, just text and pictures that he will provide for the most part, menu, header banner, contact page, etc. He is asking how much I will charge him before I start the work and I don't know what to ask for as I don't want to go to high as to scare him off, but at the same time I'm on jobseekers right now and would like as much as I can get..

 

So for a 6 page, pretty simple website, no e-commerce or flash or anything fancy, what sort of ballpark figure comes into your heads?

 

Thanks in advance and sorry if this isn't where I should have asked this question..

 

D

So for a 6 page, pretty simple website, no e-commerce or flash or anything fancy, what sort of ballpark figure comes into your heads?

 

Probably in the region of £250 - £500. Its difficult to be more accurate without knowing more details of the nature of the work involved, but that should get you started. The more confident and skilled you are with your work, the more you can be expected to charge.

 

 

Kyle

Thanks for the fast reply, Kyle

 

That's made me very happy! I was thinking I didn't want to go below £150..

 

Nature of the work involved.. not quite sure how to answer that but.. basically I'll be using Dreamweaver, writing all my own code, some graphics work in Photoshop and setting up the hosting and domain.

 

I'm also not sure how to go about hosting, do I pay for it out of my own pocket and recoup the costs in my final bill? Or do I ask for the money for the money in advance?

 

Thanks again,

 

Doug

Hello, Doug, and welcome!

 

Does your client want just 6 static HTML pages - without any CMS?

Hello, Doug, and welcome!

 

Does your client want just 6 static HTML pages - without any CMS?

 

Thanks, Lev

 

He just wants the static pages. Possibility of e-commerce of some kind in the future, but for now he just wants it as a 'shop window' for his company.

 

I have another question: Today I went in to independent shops asking if they have a website and if not offering a 'very cheap' site to be made purely to pad out my portfolio. I went in 3 shops and got 2 bites (3rd wants me to call next week).. I was thinking around £75, does this seem reasonable? Originally I was going to offer £50 but for the whole site from a blank page of code right through to their site being online with a domain I thought I should ask for a bit more..

Thanks, Lev

 

He just wants the static pages. Possibility of e-commerce of some kind in the future, but for now he just wants it as a 'shop window' for his company.

 

I have another question: Today I went in to independent shops asking if they have a website and if not offering a 'very cheap' site to be made purely to pad out my portfolio. I went in 3 shops and got 2 bites (3rd wants me to call next week).. I was thinking around £75, does this seem reasonable? Originally I was going to offer £50 but for the whole site from a blank page of code right through to their site being online with a domain I thought I should ask for a bit more..

 

I think thats a fair enough price

Me too, I beleive Kyle named a fair price.

Ok thanks guys!

 

Could someone help with my question regarding paying for hosting/domain names, please?

Hi and welcome to the forum!

 

Well done getting some bites with shops, I spent a full day scouting for design jobs and ended up with just wasted time.

 

For a full design job, 6 pages static with some images.... you really shouldn't go below £250 because its not like this job is copying and pasting stuff is it? you want to be paid for your time and skill and I personally wouldn't budge for anything below £250 with design. I'm quite new to freelance selling myself but there's no way I would build a web site for less than that unless it really benefited me in some way.

 

With payments, make sure you get half the final payment in advance before you start, that way you can take care of hosting and domain names. I have a reseller account so I can host many web sites on the same account, but it only benefits clients in UK and Western Europe. The nice thing about a reseller account though, is that you can login to your clients packages and take care of anything very easily.

 

Just be sure not to give full control of a site to any client until they have paid in full, otherwise they may take liberties and then shut you out. Reseller is the best in my opinion because no matter what, you can revoke access if something should go wrong.

I hear a lot of the time that people ask for half upfront as a deposit and the other half upon completion. I find this is the best way because you have money from the beginning just in case you have other things needing to be paid for, in your case, hosting & domains.

Just be sure not to give full control of a site to any client until they have paid in full, otherwise they may take liberties and then shut you out. Reseller is the best in my opinion because no matter what, you can revoke access if something should go wrong.

 

THIS!

You have no idea how many times this has saved me. You'd be surprised how many clients forget you still have control, when they neglect to pay you and you exercise your power it's often surprising how fast your fee arrives

 

Only problem is many clients of mine already have hosting in place. Boo

 

 

 

 

I hear a lot of the time that people ask for half upfront as a deposit and the other half upon completion. I find this is the best way because you have money from the beginning just in case you have other things needing to be paid for, in your case, hosting & domains.

 

How do people approach this with customers? As in, some customers don't like the idea of handing over money without anything?

THIS!

You have no idea how many times this has saved me. You'd be surprised how many clients forget you still have control, when they neglect to pay you and you exercise your power it's often surprising how fast your fee arrives

 

Only problem is many clients of mine already have hosting in place. Boo

 

 

 

 

 

Is it worth placing a php script to enable / disable the website?

How do people approach this with customers? As in, some customers don't like the idea of handing over money without anything?

 

Agreements/Contracts. Maybe even offering a preview during the work or within a few hours. That's what I've had in the past anyway

Is it worth placing a php script to enable / disable the website?

 

No, just suspend the website

How do people approach this with customers? As in, some customers don't like the idea of handing over money without anything?

 

 

Is it worth placing a php script to enable / disable the website?

 

 

Always get a deposit sum... i usually work at about 25%, if your client is dodgy about handing over that then ask yourself why and would they try to cut you short at the end of the job too.

Always get a contract signed that thoroughly explains the job (there is one posted in the sticky topics of the freelance thread here if i remember rightly)

 

AS for placing a PHP script to disable the website if a no pay, well this is not something i have done before and i'm not sure i would as it seems like a waste of my time. If you have the binding contracts and evidence that the job was done then small claims court will get you your pay

 

 

Update: Eskymo's Thread containing contract and discussion... here

Charge up front or else you wont get paid theres a lot of dodgy people out there welcome to webdesignerforum