Web Design Rates?

[webgyrl]

Heya!

 

I've been doing a bit of researching on e-commerce site design for a friend and have noticed that a lot of web design and development sites don't list prices for services.

 

A few of the sites I found do list rates, but there is such a variance it got me to wondering how web design companies or individuals go about setting rates to design web sites.

 

Some charge a per page fee, some do packages and some do an hourly fee.

 

It all seems very confusing to me.

 

For those that are designers here, how do you set your fees and what critera do you use when you quote a job?

 

I was thinking about maybe getting into this type of service for other musicians who need web pages, but I have no idea how I would go about quoting to design a site and web graphics for them.

 

Any insight would be mucho appreciated.

 

Nat

[kaseytraeger]

There is an excellent article at SitePoint.com that may be of some interest to you. It helps you determine what kind of hourly rate you should charge for web development work depending on what area of the country you are in.

 

Two web sites you may want to visit before reading the article are Dice.com and Salary.com. By entering information about your skills, number of years of experience, area of country, etc., these two web sites will give you a rough salary range for the type of work you're interested in. Be sure to write these numbers down because you'll need them to complete the exercises in the SitePoint article.

 

Unless you're working on a very small web site (<5 pages total), I would not charge by the page. If I were a customer needing a moderate-sized web site (say, 15-25 pages, or so), I'd be more interested in getting a package deal. The per-page method of charging would be a turn off.

 

However, you can blend the two quite nicely and come up with a pricing structure that works for both you and the customer. For example, say a client wants you to build a web site. You sit down with him to decide what pages will be needed. During your meetings, it is determined that he needs 12 pages in his web site. After considering how much work you'll need to put into each page, you can come back to him in a few days with a custom quote for those 12 pages. You also tell him that any additional pages will be charged at a rate of $x/hour for simple XHTML programming and $y/hour for more complex back-end programming. You could also go the route of quoting a flat rate for additional pages of $w/hour for more simple pages to $z/hour for more complex pages. (But if you're a novice web developer and will be spending considerable time creating these pages, passing on the price of your "learning curve" is not a cool thing to do. In that case, I would charge a flat per-page price. If you're an experienced web developer and programmer, you could use either route. In my case, I can code just fine, but there are things that come up that I've not had the experience to anticipate, so it takes me much longer to get through them than an experienced developer/programmer. I would not dream of asking someone to pay me by the hour to "learn" web development. I am therefore giving my web sites away for free right now as I learn how to deal with issues that come up, such as browsers that don't interpret CSS the same way and how to deal with those problems. Rather than charge at all, I tell people that I'll do their web site for free. It takes longer for me to develop their web site than if they were to hire an experienced developer, but in the end, they get a free web site. Plus, I gain the experience. It's a win-win for both sides. But I digress...)

 

Now, let's say that 75% of the way through the project, your client decides he needs additional pages. You have already laid out in the quote (and hopefully included it in the contract) the rate you will charge for additional pages. The beauty of this method is that the client gets a good rate on the package deal you gave him for the initial 12 pages, and the addition of more and more pages adds to your pocket book without encouraging "project creep" where the client keeps coming back and saying "But we need more. We need this, we need that, and you should include it in the package deal because of this reason and that reason." As long as you spell out very clearly that your package deal is only for the 12 pages negotiated in the original quote, the client will be less likely to continue to call on you to free-be him more and more pages. Hence, the discouragement of project creep.

 

I think I've just about written a novel here. As I mentioned earlier, I'm not currently charging for my web work, so all you're getting here is one person's opinion. However, I've done a little bit of research in this area, so hopefully some of my ideas will strike a chord with you one way or another.

 

Good luck with your web development business!

 

[Deverill]

Heya Nat! Long time no see!

 

A few things to consider. Mostly opinion so take it for what it's worth.

 

1. As a designer, you are worth whatever your time is worth to you. It may be that you have a lot of free time (Yeah, right - I know better) so your time is worth a little. If you highly value your time then you're worth $200/hr. Now whether you can get someone to pay that is another question.

 

2. There are a TON of unknowns in a website. Will they have graphics you need to tweek or scan-then-tweek? Do they want a 3 page site or a massive monument to music, life and everything else? Will they provide you usable information or will you have to research it yourself? These and many others make it nearly impossible to make a fixed price list.

 

3. Get a written contract and control the payment of the money. Many designers do 1/3 up front after the initial meeting, 1/3 when final design is approved and 1/3 when the finished product is delivered. NEVER trust anyone or say "It will be X dollars when I'm done." Even the best of intentioned folks can get squirrely and then you are out all that development time for nothing.

 

4. How to set fees is up to you. Do you think that 5 pages for $X is reasonable or do you think they will nitpick you to death so that they never get a final version? If the latter then an hourly rate will protect your time investment. If you think a lot of folks will want a one-page site then charge by page. It's totally open and there does not seem to be an "expected method" so you are free to do as you wish.

 

As for me, I set it up based on size of site (bare-bones, small business, hobby, etc.) and related a number of pages, search engine submissions and graphics to each. Any variance from the "template" fees can be negotiated such as extra photo touchups.

 

Best wishes to ya always, amigo. If there's anything else just yell - hope it helps!

[surefire]

I give my clients one fee for all of the work. It's my job as a professional to understand what it is they want and to have an agreement (verbally and in writing) what the work will not cover.

 

Once I know what the client wants, I have a very good idea of the amount of work/time involved... and I price accordingly.

 

I tweak that price based on who the client is, my relationship with them, and the PITA factor... extra costs for clients that might become a real Pain In The #$%.

 

But the end result is one flat fee for the work. Half up front, half on completion.

[webgyrl]

Hey everyone! Thanks for the very helpful info and perspectives on this.

 

It seems that design can be very open ended and I don't think I'd want to venture into doing massive sites or anything like that. Things 50 pages and under seem doable to me right now. I'm very familiar with small business, musician and org. type stuff and it's not hard to do that type of thing... just gotta figure out the pricing structure.

 

I know that for a site like my official site, you could pay upwards of $2500 plus a monthly fee (that's what I gather from looking around at other co's anyway). The sites I have been approached to design are a tad smaller with not so many features... so of course they would cost less... but I just want to figure out a good and fair pricing scheme.

 

Anyway, it's just something I'm toying with as a few of people have been asking me to design sites for them lately.

 

If anyone has anything further to add, I'd love to hear it.

 

Thanks again

 

Nat

[TangentIdea]

My first real "job" was for CHALC, a homeschool organization. (www.chalc.org) The site was already designed, but would need continual maintenance. They decided that the best way to pay would be at $15/hour. The CHALC Board sees this job as somewhat of a "scholarship" they provide to their members. It gives a student good experience in web design, and they get someone to maintain their site.

 

I've just always done work at per-hour pay. When I give someone a quote, I give them a target range (eg, $45-$60 for a simple site, possibly $75 if something goes wrong, or $120-$180 for a small dynamic site, $210 if something goes wrong). That also encourages them to provide information, such as text and photos, in a format that makes life easiest for me -- if I have to clean up after them, it costs them more.

 

I don't have a whole lot of experience in this realm yet, but I hope that helps somewhat.

 

-Ryan

[webgyrl]

Ryan,

 

Thanks for adding your insight.

 

I think for some jobs the per hour thing works very well, and for others the package rate deal type thing.

 

I'm still doing more research, but it all seems very open ended and like someone stated previously, it seems one has to figure what one's time is worth and then go from there based on the project scope etc.

 

Thanks for sharing

 

Nat