Thread

Greetings all,

I need an idea of how much, so I can start with a base price range.

Ive got a few clients in mind. They require a web site for their company. They dont need to do e-commerce online. Just a simple web site with a few pages that tells its audience who they are, what they do, the services they offer, a product listing etc.

For general web sites like this, how much do you charge?

Please quote if project-based and / or by the hour.

kriz, you will find that designers and developers are notoriously hesitant to talk about their rates, for a bunch of professional and legal reasons. This thread has some good infos and links.

Spot on Ingmar!

Kriz - how much are you thinking of charging?

It’s a learning process, that is for sure.

Somewhere between [edit] and [edited]. 😝
That being said, my one piece of advice is to not undersell yourself. If you need to do a site on the cheap to get the experience under your belt, do it, but make sure you learn everything you can and make sure to charge more next time.

You get what you pay for, and by undercharging you are cultivating an image of low quality. Just make sure your work is good and you’ll do well.

Personally, I think the hardest part is figuring out how much time the site is going to take.

As to how much you should charge, that question is unanswerable here for a number of reasons. 

You have to figure out how much your time is worth.  How much do I have to pay you before you are willing to take time away from whatever else you could be doing and do web development for me?

Though we can’t answer your question, here is a survey of hourly rates from Freelanceswitch.

Even better, here you will find a calculator which will help you figure out what your hourly rates should be based on the factors you should consider.

That being said, my one piece of advice is to not undersell yourself. If you need to do a site on the cheap to get the experience under your belt, do it, but make sure you learn everything you can and make sure to charge more next time.

I did this with my first client and I what I learned was that I should’ve asked for more. He’s been very uncommunicative, 3 weeks between emails (multiple times) and a little picky.

I sent an email this morning stating that i wouldn’t be able to continue his project until November due to his communication problems and all of a sudden he is now able to respond in less than 12 hours wondering why it’s going to take so long.

Would’ve been finished his site by July 30th if he’d been communicating properly since the beginning.

Yup, that’s the most common client relationship. Ever. Make sure to detail out schedules in your contracts (you DO have a contract, right?) with milestones for client deliveries. Don’t make hard dates, but rather have your items be based on receiving the required info/feedback.

Example: Design Phase: 2 weeks. Client Feedback. Build Phase: 4 weeks from feedback.

Hope that helps!

Spot on Ingmar!

Kriz - how much are you thinking of charging?

Im thinking of charging $### - $### USD

Since no one would like to give an actual number, is it appropriate to give out a range? For example:

General website (no ecommerce): $###-####
Intermediate website (could be with ecommerce, forum, etc): $###-####

Advanced website (social networking website, forum, ecommerce): $###-####

The above is JUST an example.

Just went through some of the articles mentioned. In particular, read through http://freelanceswitch.com/general/3700-freelancers-surveyed-the-results-are-here/

The average hourly rate for a web designer is $XX USD?? Assuming the web designer would have to work for 9 hours a day. In one day he/she would make 9 * XX = $??. Isnt that too much? This means in one week 5 * XX = $XXXX. I reckon that may be way too much… Please correct me if otherwise

Remember as a freelancer your not on salary, get no paid vacation, have no benefits and have to pay all your own overhead.

No freelancer is going to be able to code 9 hours a day every single day - there’s other parts of the business that need running.

Yeah kriz, u gotta charge more than that. PM me if you want to know what i charge. For corporate stuff i bill out over $###/hr, but personal is different.

All numbers have been edited out.  You are free to discuss how you come to a number, why you may come to a number, under what circumstances that number may change - but you may not discuss actual numbers.  This is to protect this forum from any difficulties.

Thanks for understanding.

Hey Kriz that was low, you don’t want to undersell yourself. You could have a month where you have no work at all, so you have to take that into consideration.

There’s a good rate calculator over at Freelance Switch that might be of some use: http://freelanceswitch.com/rates/