How much to charge?

[maryb86]

I am thinking about starting offering my website creating services to local businesses. I am not sure how much to charge them though! Could some give me an estimate as to how much they charge local businesses for websites of varying sizes and skills?

[wolfadeus]

Too many factors to consider: Amount of work for individual projects, required skills (ie your qualification), local fares, number of competitors, etc.

I suggest you to write a typical proposal for a project and send it off to some agencies in your area and request a quote - if you are a private individual, ie, non-professional, you can charge probably 50 to 75 percent of that.

[webmustang]

I suggest you do not charge too high, because even elementary students nowadays can create websites. What I mean is it's easy for them to look somewhere else to get it cheaper, plus there are a lot of freelancer sites where people offer good services really cheap.

Start with a low price just to get a started, then they will start referring you to other people. That's how your business will grow, and expand your portfolio.

[mack]

You can only charge based on your ability and experience. Dont expect to get top dollar if your relativly new to the game.

By doing low cost and even free sites you can build up a good portfolio. It is the portfolio that will help you charge more further down the road.

Mack.

[Ardrigh]

I would like to share also my two cents worth. Since you are a new player in the industry, I agree with the suggestions of others here in this thread that you lower the price of your service. Do some simple cost accounting about the average costs of your work and choose the price that you're comfortable with.By doing this, you will have a clear track of your expenses and your profit. This will avoid also in lowering too much of your price(I know your very eager to have your first transaction!) that can't give you noble profit. You're chance of competing with other players is competitive pricing and quality results. Referrals will follow.

Good luck to your venture and let us know as you go along.

Ardrigh

[simonuk]

Until you have a good portfolio under your belt you'll struggle to get any real money.

I started off charging nothing to peanuts until I had half a dozen sites under my belt.

Ten years on I have a nice portfolio and people are more prepared to pay good money for good work :)

[Animated]

its good to look up the classifieds section where people look for freelancers and do some stuff for them and they usually tell you how much they would pay you and with time and experience going up bigger fishe clients will find you.

[cmendla]

You need to decide if you will charge fixed rates for a project or bill on time and materials.

The problem with time and materials is that the client needs to trust you with the billing time. You still need to have a contract for most projects spelling out the terms.

The problem with fixed price contracts is 'scope creep'. The client starts sneaking in things and they next thing you know you could get a better hourly rate by working in a 7-11. The key to containing scope creep is to have the deliverables spelled out explicitly and to make sure they understand that anything out of scope is not included in the price.

I just had a situation with a non profit where they wanted something that was out of scope. I said I'd add it in. They next thing I'm getting calls and emails demanding to know why it isn't done. "Hey guys, I'm doing this without pay.. I'm not going to drop everything to do it today".

Anyway, you have to be really careful with the agreements you make. Also, make sure that your proposals for fixed price contracts include sign off points that are tied to payments. In other words, you want to have a ratchet effect where once you get to certain points, the client signs off on it and you get your payment. You don't want to get near the end of the project and then have them change the fundamental layout.

If you go time and materials, you might want to give an estimate a little higher than you think you should. Scope creep is inevitable. Also, with T&M, I would suggest either billing against retainer or bi-weekly billing at the longest. A couple of reasons for that.. 1. you need the cash flow 2. The bills appear smaller (not one huge bill) 3. You should have a clause that states that work stops if payments are late.

Also, do the site on a development server. Don't post it to their live site until you either have all of the payments or the majority of the payments.

cg

[simonuk]

ahhh the dreaded "extras".

I have yet to work on a site where the client hasn't asked for extras which were not included in the price. I normally get them to sign off and pay for what was requested and then bill them hourly for the extras.

Also an excellent point about never uploading to their server. When I first started I lost 2,500 ukp because of exactly that and I never did it again. Always have a test server to show the work on!

[kneoteric_V]

Although not sacrosanct, pricing your service is the focal point of your prelude offer; I faced the identical dilemma few years back.

As Management Genii say, in the introductory stage, promotion and branding... meaning, work for peanuts until your belt is heavy. Once you enter into the growth stage, opt for sales/revenue maximization and not profit... more you do, more is your quantum profit. Slowly and gradually, add colors (quality) to your service for niche positioning. This time on, you may only choose heavy projects and/or healthier (with more profit margin) one's.

Good luck!

[draggar]

I've been creating web sites for the past few months for a few select clients. So far, the only money I've brought in was one reimbursement for a domain registration, and that's it. But, my clients also understand that I am still learning (it never ends!) and the sites may not look "awesome" and rank near the top with search engines near the beginning.

The sites are also constantly being revamped, updated, revamped, updated, changed, moved around, turned upside down, and I think one of them activated an infinite improbability drive, but who knows. I was a couch for a few minutes, but I'm better now. :)

This isn't something you want to quit your dayjob right off the bat especially if you're living on your own. I still have my full time job (ugh). If I started this 12-15 years ago (which I did but it didn't go anywhere) I could have because I was still living with mom and dad (heck, I'd be rich now, too, that was a great time to get into it!).

It won't make you an overnight millionaire (lottery tickets are better, or do the animation for a project like 'Yellow Submarine'), it's slow, and unpredictable, and a heck of a lot of work (and studying).