What price do you charge?

[TheMenace]

Thank God we don't live in America then. You can't even say "Happy Christmas" over there anymore for fear of "offending" non-Christians.

In terms of your perceived pricing structure, enzo - it's really not that simple. Let's say it's a 20 page site. Is that a 20 template site with dynamic content? Are any of the pages dynamic or is it just a static site? What level of creative and technical expertise are we talking about here? In theory you could apply your prices to a web agency where a designer and developer fresh out of college are doing the job. Should you expect to pay the same to 2 experienced pro's of 10 years because the spec is rougly the same?

 

[enzo]

In terms of your perceived pricing structure, enzo - it's really not that simple

I disagree. No matter what the job it's bound to follow a similar set of simple rules ... just tweaked a little here and there depending on the job.

Should you expect to pay the same to 2 experienced pro's of 10 years because the spec is rougly the same?

In my opinion yes. If I was paying for a site I wouldn't like to pay extra just because the designer was a few years longer in the job.

 

[TheMenace]

I disagree. No matter what the job it's bound to follow a similar set of simple rules ... just tweaked a little here and there depending on the job.

Well yeah. I mean pricing should be transparent and clear on each job, regardless of who's doing it. What I mean is that the facets of each job can vary wildly; technologies used, functionality, etc.

In my opinion yes. If I was paying for a site I wouldn't like to pay extra just because the designer was a few years longer in the job.

What about quality of creative? Would you be prepared to pay for a better designer? Or is design just design? You get a designer to knock up something and it doesn't really matter as long as it does the job? I guess paying for quality or a more considered or original design is a subjective point.

 

[enzo]

What I mean is that the facets of each job can vary wildly; technologies used, functionality, etc.

yeah, fair enough.

What about quality of creative? Would you be prepared to pay for a better designer? Or is design just design? You get a designer to knock up something and it doesn't really matter as long as it does the job? I guess paying for quality or a more considered or original design is a subjective point.

I guess ithere's no hard and fast rule here. As long as the designer can provide you with what you want then maybe it's immaterial how much experience he/she has. More experienced isn't necessarily better. I know some experienced designers who turn out pure shite, but do it very efficiently because of their experience
On the other hand youth can bring fresh ideas, perhaps more creative thinking...

 

[webdream]

Hi all,

I read your thread with interest, and thought maybe I'd add my own (personal) comments.

At one time I stopped doing lower budget work, but since I have found that brochure sites can be done well for less than 1000 euros, and can be good business for the developer.

My experience:

Virtualy all enquiries from people looking for brochure type sites are a waste of time. Normaly the company looking for that type of budget site is going to be the least well equiped to provide you with content material or project participation. They are going to be harder work than the decent contracts and a lot less money... so leave them alone.

However, I do get the odd brochure enquiry which is worth following up. I personaly wouldn't meet with the client on that sort of budget & I certainly wouldn't drive to them.

There are small/startup companies that just wants to get a few pages online, get their domain & email etc. and the're going to be well pleased with what you can do for them in a few hours.

I don't have a problem with it. These people do come along, and if it suits me it can also be good business. I occasionaly turn out a brochure site in 8 - 16 hours work, and would charge 500 - 800 + hosting(94) + domain ... that seems okay to me.

The domain/hosting renewal applies to all clients, big or small.

If your smaller clients request updates or other attention that proves time consuming, hourly rates apply.

 

[Abby Lynch]

Hi guys.
First of all I would like to say hello to everyone as I'm new on this forum.
I would like to highlight that I am not a web designer but lately I have been doing an extended research about web design companies and their prices.
I would like to share my experience as a customer and not a developer.
Eventually I decided to go for that web design company that you have previously mentioned Ripe for a 795 web. The reason why I decided to go for them is because I haven’t a clue of all that technical wording and I didn't want to spend loads of time or money on a Home page + contact us + who we are? Website. I have had some crazy quotations for 10K ............. Are companies going mad these days???????? They told me that they were going to personalize a web design for me, they showed me two or three designs, I’ve picked up one of them and that was it. Done!
I hope that my posting will be useful for regular people like me without much internet or web knowledge.
Thanks a mil.
Abby

 

[Redfly]

Hi guys.
First of all I would like to say hello to everyone as I'm new on this forum.
I would like to highlight that I am not a web designer but lately I have been doing an extended research about web design companies and their prices.
I would like to share my experience as a customer and not a developer.
Eventually I decided to go for that web design company that you have previously mentioned Ripe for a 795 web. The reason why I decided to go for them is because I haven’t a clue of all that technical wording and I didn't want to spend loads of time or money on a Home page + contact us + who we are? Website. I have had some crazy quotations for 10K ............. Are companies going mad these days???????? They told me that they were going to personalize a web design for me, they showed me two or three designs, I’ve picked up one of them and that was it. Done!
I hope that my posting will be useful for regular people like me without much internet or web knowledge.
Thanks a mil.
Abby

Hi Abby,
Thanks for the reply and thanks for the feedback. I am delighted that you got what you wanted and you are happy. I think however that you are failing to see out point here.

First of all, you asked if web design companies are going mad at a 10,000 price tag. I could equally ask you if you are mad paying the price you paid seeing that ripe.ie simple resell templates available for $30-$50 on Web Templates, Flash Templates, Website Templates Design - Template Monster I am sure if you take a look there, you'll find your site and you'll also find that many other companies online are using the EXACT same design as your site. If you are happy with that, then I salute you. Thats your prerogative. If branding means nothing to you, that's cool too.

For most of our clients, branding is extremely important to them. It's also important to us.

I am not going to say anything about ripe, but I will say that the templates from templatemonster.com are extremely inaccessible, poorly designed and even more poorly coded. Again, if that means nothing to you, thats fine! And again, I salute you.

But to others, that's far from fine.

 

[TheMenace]

Ripe Web Design

Ireland's leading web design company supposedly. With an entire section on their site dedicated to bashing their competitors.

Most customers looking for a website simply require a quality site at a reasonable price. Unfortunately many designers today will provide their clients with an excellent service but their prices are totally unreasonable.

What I would like to know is whether or not Ripe's service includes standards compliance, accessibility, SEO, etc? Seeing as they're still delivering Flash intros as an integral part of their offering, I seriously doubt it.

Our prices are around 60 % cheaper than our competitors. The reason ripe can guarantee unbeatable prices to all our customers is due to the structures we have in place to speed up the entire design procedure. Many companies like to make web designing and a drawn out complicated affair. The longer the project drags on the more they charge.

Wow! What a dangerous and ignorant attitude. To have such a flippant disregard for the value of good design and your clients online brand. This is the kind of nonsense that this industry simply doesn't need. A half-page ad in the Irish Times costs a few grand. That's one ad for one day! Your website is your shopfront to the world. It can last for years and years until you decide to realign it. The design should be considered and represent your clients brand as best it can. It should be accessible and optimised to perform well on search engines amongst other considerations. This takes time and costs money. It's also generally quite cheap in comparison to other forms of advertising/CRM and corners should not be cut.

Selling Template Monster templates to your clients for €595 (or €795 with... wait for it... a Flash intro ) is not offering a professional service. It's below amateur. Still, there's a market for cheap, crappy websites so someone has to fill the void I guess. But one needs to be very, very careful when baiting the competition publicly because they can bury your argument with knowledge and experience.

Ripe price websites only €595…. Competitors price €2,200

Actually, generally I'll charge between €4,000 and €30,000 for a site - depending on what's involved. One price for all jobs says a lot about your company. Sorry, did I say your company? You don't work for Ripe, do you Abby?

 

[Abby Lynch]

Hi Dave, Thanks for your reply. I am just trying to share my experience as a customer. I'm just letting you know that I'm happy paying that for the service that I got. I am just a small business and can't afford to pay more than what I have paid. Everything seemed clear enough to me when they showed me the templates. Did I do anything wrong???

 

[enzo]

Did I do anything wrong???

No, I think the point the lads are making is that it's Ripe that have done wrong by misleading customers like you. If I can use an analogy here, a web site is like a car, what's under the hood is as important as what's on the outside. Ripe sites may look good but under the hood might be a very different story.

One thing I can't find on the Ripe site is their portfolio ... as a customer that's the first place I would look, to see what sort of work they have done. All Ripe appear to do is sell on others templates ... which you could have bought yourself for a fraction of the price.

 

[Abby Lynch]

Hi The Menace,

I don't care that they use templates. It makes no difference to me. I'm a Hair Stylist by the way. You see now you are getting too technical and a bit rude. There is nothing personal here I'm just saying with your own words:"for cheap, crappy websites" I wouldn't pay more than that. You're very suspicious...

 

[Abby Lynch]

Hi Enzo,
That's right I could have bought that for a very cheap price but then what do I do with that??? Useless to me. I wouldn't be able to use the template to do a site myself. I don't want to know what goes on under the hood! Thanks for your reply though and for trying to be helpful.

 

[Redfly]

Hi Dave, Thanks for your reply. I am just trying to share my experience as a customer. I'm just letting you know that I'm happy paying that for the service that I got. I am just a small business and can't afford to pay more than what I have paid. Everything seemed clear enough to me when they showed me the templates. Did I do anything wrong???

Thanks Abby for the reply. No, you did nothing wrong. Nothing at all. I am just curious. You mentioned:

The reason why I decided to go for them is because I haven’t a clue of all that technical wording and I didn't want to spend loads of time or money on a Home page + contact us + who we are? Website. I have had some crazy quotations for 10K ............. Are companies going mad these days?

To me, it sounds like you are the mad one. They just made an easy few hundred % markup. You just paid them about $700 an hour. Probably a little more. I dream of the day when I make that a day.

You also mentioned that you have been doing some EXTENDED research into web design companies. Of all this research, you didn't think to research how simple it would be to add your own contact and about text into a file and have the template serve it up for you? Honestly, I wouldn't have even charged you. Had you asked here, I'm sure we would have all helped you.

I am glad you are happy with your design. Really I am. I am just saying that we offer a completely different service.

What was the site ripe set up for you anyway? I'd love to see the template you bought.

 

[figment]

My price range would be in the 3-5k range depending on the creative requirements.

 

[Abby Lynch]

I wouldn't ask you anything even if you were doing it for free as you are too arrogant and rude. I really hope that you don't treat your customers like me. You offer a completely different service David (Redfly Studios). Anyway don't bother answering as I won't be coming back. It looks as if I'm not really welcome around here. Thanks to all the rest for your help.

 

[Redfly]

I wouldn't ask you anything even if you were doing it for free as you are too arrogant and rude. I really hope that you don't treat your customers like me. You offer a completely different service David (Redfly Studios). Anyway don't bother answering as I won't be coming back. It looks as if I'm not really welcome around here. Thanks to all the rest for your help.

Oh, Abby. I was not being rude at all! In fact I was applauding you coming here and giving us a review of Ripes service. I really am genuinely happy that you are. I do not see how I (Or the others) came off rude.

I was just wondering if you would care to share the site that you paid almost a grand for. Seeing they do not offer any SEO services I thought you might want to get some links back or something.

Seems you do not want to share your site, and that's cool. Just don't go off saying I am being rude when I am not. I treat all of my clients with the utmost respect.

 

[figment]

My price range would be in the 3-5k range depending on the creative requirements.

 

[enzo]

I don't want to know what goes on under the hood!

Ok, i'll put it this way, just like with a car you want what's under the hood to be in working order, you don't want it breaking down on you. A badly designed site will break down on some computers.

I take your point that you wouldn't know what to do with the template, it's just a pity you didn't know someone who knows more about web design who could help you.

No harm, put it down as a learning experience.

But do come back here in future if you want help, i'm sure there'll be lost willing to help you.

 

[TheMenace]

Hi The Menace,

I don't care that they use templates.

Okay fair enough. But it's the quality of the templates that worries me. It should worry you too as a paying client. The templates are inaccessible, not built using best practice, not future-proofed in any way, not optimised for search engines, etc.

You see now you are getting too technical and a bit rude.

Sorry for coming across rude. I certainly wasn't having a go at you - and I accept that you're a client and not someone working for Ripe trying to make a quick plug At the end of the day, it would be great if you could come away from this thread with a little more knowledge of what you should be expecting as a client. You should give Ripe a call and ask them why your site isn't accessible or optimised, as best as can be, for search engines. There are very minimum quality benchmarks that Web agecies should be striving for. Ripe is miles off the mark to the point of being utterly incompetent cowboys. Even for the money you paid, you should have expected a professional service. If Ripe can't deliver a professional service, then they should stop pretending they can... regardless of how cheap they are.

There is nothing personal here I'm just saying with your own words:"for cheap, crappy websites" I wouldn't pay more than that. You're very suspicious...

Not really Abby. I'm trying to be as transparent as I can. Like I said, you should have gotten more for the money you paid. Nobody should be selling professional web services, for any price, unless at least some effort has been made to make the site accessible, optimised and moderately secure.

I'm on your side!

 

[rsynnott]

Yeep, such prices. I'm increasingly irritated that the only commercial project I did (wrote a backend and did database migration for a largish property website) took months, nearly drove me mad (I didn't really have the time to be doing it at all, what with work and college) and paid 2,500 euro. In fairness, it was largely my own fault; I agreed to do it for a friend, who was doing the frontend, and didn't really look over just how large it was going to be at the time. Set me against the whole business for life, though.