What do I charge?

[tbarbedo]

I recently obtained my first lead for maintaining a website. The work would include, updating images, links, posting new content, and other minor things.

I am also told that the customer wants the code of the website updated to comply with current standards.

The contact asked me to get back to them with the rates that I would charge.

I am sure I can handle the work with ease, however, I have no idea what to charge. Can someone please help me come up with some rates for this type of work?

Any help is greatly appreciated...

Thanks

[dbdev]

I charge $110 per hour based on 10+ years industry experience and a boat load of client testimonials. I don't do flat rate pricing anymore as I got burned a few times like that. There must be a finite point where your work is complete and extra is extra. I give my clients an estimated number of hours the job will take to complete but actual time worked is what is billed.

I don't know your level of experience or target industry or what's involved in maintaining your clients' sites but your time is definately worth a dollar per hour rate and serious clients have no issue accepting paying for work completed.

[aspdaddy]

Some factors I use to calculate costs:

-How much I want the contract/customer
-How much risk is in the contract/customer
-My own daily rates for each skill/area of work and estimates of time involved
-Competitor rates for similar work
-Discounts for payment terms that help

[MikeBrown]

I'm looking for similar info. Are their any industry standards to go by?

I've been building sites for myself for years and just recently started building them for others.

I have some template sites that I sell for around $1300 each and most of my custom sites are in the $2500 - $3500 range. I'm probably charging half the rate I should be.

I still have to come up with a decent proposal format and hourly rate to determine price per job.

[edited by: tedster at 5:53 am (utc) on Mar. 15, 2009]
[edit reason] I edited some specifics [/edit]

[edacsac]

Wow Mike! I'm also trying to figure out a pricing model, but there seems to be no standard. Most customers know the bottom of pricing and I have a hard time making more than a couple of bucks an hour overall. I haven't been able to sell a site for what it's worth in my time. If I price reasonable I don't get the job, let alone a 4 digit price.

[cmotor]

I am also not sure what to charge to build a client website.
But here's some information:

I do HTML, CSS, PAY PAL SHOPPING CART, JAVA SCRIPT IMPLEMENTATION OF STOCK SCRIPTS.

The client wants the following pages:

Index / Home Page
Site Map
Contact
Terms of Use
Ordering Policies
Return Policies
About Us
Wholesale Inquiries
Wholesale Pricelist
Retail Product Pages (5 product categories, each with 5-10 products)
Wholesale Product Pages (5 product categories, each with 5-10 products)
Each product page (both retail and wholesale) will have the following:
-Product image
-Product copy
-Links to other complimentary products reccommended
-Pay Pal shopping cart "add to cart" buttons with size and color options

The client is thinking about special membership accounts for wholesale customers so they can view wholesale information on pages (that would be invisible to others). I am persuading them against this as a special password protected entrance for wholesale customers to wholesale pages seems to be a more economical way to go. Your thoughts?

Customer wants to hire me on as a W-2 employee for this job. I would be working in their office 1-2 days a week with their team and the rest of the time I will be working from home.

They have product copy and images and a graphic desinger who will be part of the team. They will provide the about us information and service policy information, including privacy and TOS. We will be designing the layout as a team. I will be implementing it and handling the navigation system.

Any help as to what I should charge is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
C