$250US per page = professional design?

Any shortcuts for a fast estimate?

[Undead Hunter]

A client once told me that another web designer told him that professional website design works out roughly to about $250 US per "page" - with the assumption that a page has about 500 words on it, and professional means that a real graphic designer was involved in the process - not some good-hearted techie or FrontPage user. Assumption also is that it's HTML or DHTML, not Flash or data-base driven...

I'm just curious on everyone else's thoughts on that - does that seem very low or very high? Could this be a shortcut to estimating for newbies, or those without a good history of similar projects?

Do you have any recommendations or shortcuts for estimating new projects?

[killroy]

That seems rather ridiculous and unprofessional to me. Design is usally quite seperate from content, and ideally done be respective professionals in the fields involved. So there is one design per site (or section) which could contain any number of pages in th esame design.

I can only imagin him to refer to something he imagines as a standard format, like a catalogue site or a brouchure site. But I assure you that is based on assumptions not shared by all professional designers.

SN

[Undead Hunter]

Hi Kilroy:

At the outset, perhaps it does - but again, the idea is for a *rough estimate*, a place to start. Consider breaking it down, looking at various averages:

- A professional writer working on 300-500 words @ $50 an hour = one "page" of writing, covering that aspect

- A professional graphics designer working for $75 an hour, putting in an hour of work

- A web professional putting in an hour of work (on average) breaking down the graphics into code = $75

- Plus $50 for misc. management & profit

?

Of course, from our experience it's usually a lot more time on the labour involved with the code than on the design or writing - but as a general rule...?

Anyway, Kilroy, how do you do your estimates? How long does it take you to generate one?

[coopster]

Every company will estimate differently based on any number of factors including internal personnel skill sets, outsourcing, overhead, etc. Our company had to get a good feel as to what was reasonable and profitable as well as competitive based on our unique structure. Other companies all have to do the same. This is a services-based business, much like accountants or lawyers, and everyone has to find a business partner that "fits" then grow the relationship. Selling yourself as a provider of professional web site design with a comfortable client relationship still becomes the primary point when trying to "get the job". A part of me wants to agree with killroy, but since I have analyzed my competitors, I know where the high rates come from and some companies find they need to charge a certain rate just to stay in business, not necessarily competitive -- and you'd be surprised how many folks believe that those rates *mean* that "this company must be top-notch, I'll go with them". All I can figure is that they haven't found anytihng better...yet.

I guess the bottom line is, it's not like going out to buy a new personal computer, you won't find a medium price, not very often anyway. It's more like shopping for getting bids for auto insurance and deciding on the best fit for you.

Best of luck, my friend, no matter whether you're the buyer or seller ;) Regards, Coop