Thread

Sales suggested I turn to the forums to find out how other partners/designers who use EE with their clients handle this subject.

As you all know, white labeling of the control panel is not allowed (for very understandable reasons). This can present some issues however if you are marking up your costs for your clients. I personally wouldn’t want to charge a client $20,000 for a web solution and have them find out the license is only $250 by clicking on the EE link on the control panel. This is not to say I or any other design firm would simply mark up the software alone, there is MUCH more involved in building a website (branding/design, strategy, custom development, data migration, etc), but this can still potentially leave a bad taste for clients. 

Has anyone come up with a creative way to handle this?

I say be honest with them—let them know how much the software costs, but make sure to explain that the software alone does nothing, and that it takes a significant amount of work to design and develop their site.

Yep - honesty is the best policy.

Just make sure to let them know how much their project would (potentially) cost if you were using a CMS that had a $10K license fee. Or $100K even..😉

The value to them isn’t in the CMS - it’s in the final developed site on the CMS.  License cost should be an advantage to working with you.

I totally agree that honesty is the best policy for sustaining long-term relationships with clients. Don’t pretend you developed something you didn’t, but rather explain how you add significant value.

I explain to clients that I use EE as a development platform because I don’t believe in charging them to re-invent the wheel. I explain that the underlying platform is constantly being improved by the crew at EllisLabs and how they reap all the advantages of new versions of EE at an incredibly low cost.  All of my clients have responded very favorably to this approach and in fact really appreciate it.

In addition, this approach works as well as it does because EllisLabs have been very careful about not positioning themselves as our competitor, but rather as providers of a terrific platform that we as consultants, designers, etc. can leverage to the clients benefit.

Cheers,
Robert

www.knomad.net/ee/

The value to them isn’t in the CMS - it’s in the final developed site on the CM

Bingo!!!

I let the client purchase EE direct so they own it. And, they can buy anything else they need direct (photography, etc) or have it billed direct. I don’t make my living on markups, I make it on MY services and expertise.

I agree with being upfront as well. I show them the EE site and explain which license they will need. I typically just buy the license for them myself and absorb the cost because in the end it is negligible compared to the final cost of a site (plus it adds into the volume license discount)...

plus it adds into the volume license discount

Just notify Les when a client buys direct and get credited. At least I think he’s still doing that.

Convincing the clients on this may be easier than convincing the sales manager.
😊

My rule…“Always avoid sales managers”.

Thinking more on this…

If you’ve met with this client, gotten a good understanding of their needs, and put together a proposal to meet those needs and they’re questioning it based on the license cost of EE, I don’t think the question is if you should be transparent with pricing around clients.

I think the question should be - why would they not trust you, as a web professional, to come up with the best solution for them no matter the cost of the CMS?

If you think that the issue of trust is a temporary one—IE they don’t know you well enough yet, they’ve been burned in the past, the owners son’s friend is a web developer who only works on $100K sites etc….then (if it were me) I’d just offer to guarantee my work. 

Let me implement the site as best I can, and when I’m done if you don’t agree that it meets the requirements we’ve agreed on then don’t pay me.  Just make sure to document the requirements very well.

However—you might also ask yourself if this lack of trust is indicative of future issues - like are they going to question every design decision, every hour on an invoice, etc?  If that’s the case it might be best to pass on the project to begin with.