Pricing Website Design Jobs (1 Viewer)

[BarryTape]

Can anyone give me some advice on how to price website design jobs?

I know there's a load of variables but I've done a bit of looking around and saw a few places charging 499 euro for 2-5 page website, including domain and hosting. It doesn't include any graphic design.

That seems a bit much to me but I've really no idea.

I'd say I'll be mostly doing brochure type sites for the time being.

Any advice on the subject will be much appreciated!

Thank you.

 

[broken arm]

what kind of experience/skills do you have?

some people use an hourly rate. i.e.

Discuss job with client, decide how long it will take, add some time for the usual changes/ammedments arseing around, multiply by hourly rate plus additionals (hosting etc.)

get client to pay 3rd up front.


some people charge a day rate.

You just need to avoid the risk of getting shafted on the client being unprepared, clinet meetings, phone calls, research, stupid shitass changes, photography etc etc etc.

 

[taubstumm]

Can anyone give me some advice on how to price website design jobs?

charge by the hour, with a rough estimate of total cost at the beginning, divided into three or four payment points throughout the project.

I know there's a load of variables but I've done a bit of looking around and saw a few places charging 499 euro for 2-5 page website, including domain and hosting. It doesn't include any graphic design.

anyone who charges by the 'page' is usually a chancer -- particularly if that includes some kind of a 'special deal' with hosting and domain name. a website with a thousand identical pages will often involves less design work that a two or three page website with variable layouts.

anyone who charges €500 for an entire site is also probably a chancer. €5,000 is more like a reasonable basic budget for a quality website. many companies would charge multiples of that. happy cog estimate that their average project costs $100,000, and they're not the top end of the market.

also...

You just need to avoid the risk of getting shafted on the client being unprepared, clinet meetings, phone calls, research, stupid shitass changes, photography etc etc etc.

...that's quality advice.

if you want more, it might be good to ask creative ireland as well.

apart from all that, make sure you know web standards.

 

[BarryTape]

Thanks for the advice.

Since I'm mainly doing this work over the summer to build a portfolio and gain experience how much would be a decent rate to charge per hour? I presume it depends on experience and skills. I'm well grounded in CSS and getting into jquery now. I have a fair knowledge about usability testing and accessibility priority checkpoints.

 

[BarryTape]

I know that's a bit of a "how long is a piece of string question" but whatever advice you can offer would be great.

 

[taubstumm]

depends how much experience you have, how good a designer and/or layout ninja you are, how big the job is, how well you know your standards/browsers/css/html, who your client is, and, to a certain extent, how much you think you can get away with. soooo... somewhere between €20 and €100 per hour.

 

[Froog]

you can outsource websites to india for 10 - 50 quid, there's some website where you put up a project and various guys try to make the lowest bid for it.

 

[Borja]

Also be carefull how you deal with your client. Do not show things too soon and do not let them choose too much. My first job designing web was a nightmare because the client didn't had a clear idea of what he wanted and made me change the design loads of times and I was too naif to increase the final price for creativity changes

 

[egg_]

If you're out on your own with no portfolio and no commercial experience no-one's going to go near you for "serious" work, so I expect you're going to be mostly doing sites for very small businesses like, I dunno, your local hardware shop or pub. If I was you I'd kinda forget about making much money and just try and do an amazing job - not just of the html/css/jquery, but try to really understand what the client wants and then deliver it.

Having said that you'll still need to charge a few hundred quid for a site or you'll just look like a messer.

 

[pissypants]

I work for a webdesign company, we're quite competitive on price and, especially these days, will charge a fair price on a per hour basis.

A really important thing to do is to draw up a brief on what the site will look like, and what it will and won't do. Agree a price and get the client to sign off on it. That stops them from continually adding new stuff they want (that they've seen on a competitors site) and expecting you to do it at no extra charge.
We learned this the hard way in the early days.

 

[BarryTape]

The first job went surprisingly well although there were a fair few changes but nothing worth pulling hair out over and he was more than happy to pay a bit more for the changes. He's throwing more work my way as well.

 

[maims bond]

I'm getting a tender together for a site and have a question about VAT. I have no VAT number and intend on just applying for this as a freelancer and not charging the company VAT. I will take care of my own tax liabilities. Is this common practice or will I look like a chancer?

It's just that the tender mentions 'Price including VAT' quite a bit and is obviously keen on reclaiming it. I figure they won't be bothered if I don't charge it in the first place, or can I even do this?

 

[Anthony]

You can do that. It's on you to be registered for vat or not. Although if your turnover is above x per year you are obliged to register for vat. So I suppose any company you're tendering to will straight away know that you earn less than x per year. Can't remember what the figure is, €20k or something (turnover, not profit). So in a way you might look like a chancer, or at least, not that professional.

 

[maims bond]

You can do that. It's on you to be registered for vat or not. Although if your turnover is above x per year you are obliged to register for vat. So I suppose any company you're tendering to will straight away know that you earn less than x per year. Can't remember what the figure is, €20k or something (turnover, not profit). So in a way you might look like a chancer, or at least, not that professional.

Yeah, that makes sense. Do have a good portfolio though and have actually done a job for a similar outfit to this new one.

 

[Space]

I thought it was more like 35k before you need to be registered for vat. Although that's from a few years ago so may have changed.

 

[Anthony]

maybe, I can't remember.

 

[Diddles]

I don't charge VAT and mostly it's fine. But I did have one bloke seemed very suspicious of me for some reason. He was a prick though.

I did some work for a big multinational and they couldn't pay me because I wasn't registered for VAT. Their computer system wouldn't allow them to invoice without VAT so they had to get another contractor of theirs to pay me.

I always put my pps number on invoices and I am legit, I just don't work enough to register for VAT.

Pricing jobs is a fucking nightmare. I always under quote. I've just worked my hole off the last two weeks for the equivalent in dole money. But they're giving me more of the same work next week so all the donkey work will be done and I can charge the same again. It took so long because i migrated to AS3 and haven't a fucking clue what I'm doing. I have to google everything

 

[mark]

i totally agree with these 2 posts. initially, don't show the client to much, and defo try to steer them in a practical direction. you're the designer so without being rude, make sure they know what works and what doesn't.

Once you have them sold on an idea, do up a flat in photoshop or something, set out a site map and get them to sign off on it. make sure they considered everything they want the site to do. once the brief as drawn up and aggreed on, you should be grand.

A really important thing to do is to draw up a brief on what the site will look like, and what it will and won't do. Agree a price and get the client to sign off on it. That stops them from continually adding new stuff they want (that they've seen on a competitors site) and expecting you to do it at no extra charge.
We learned this the hard way in the early days.

Also be carefull how you deal with your client. Do not show things too soon and do not let them choose too much. My first job designing web was a nightmare because the client didn't had a clear idea of what he wanted and made me change the design loads of times and I was too naif to increase the final price for creativity changes