How much to Charge?

[mr_kirbs]

Hi guys,

A friend of a friend has asked me to design a website for his electrical contractors business. The website will not be too complicated - basically a site that looks good....displaying information about his business, products and services, a contact page and a couple of flash movies - probably about 15 pages in all

I'm new to all this so was wondering what would be a fair price to charge without ripping him off and without underselling myself also.

I'm happy to do this as it will be good experience for me (I'm a student) but would like to get your opinions on what I should tell him as a cost guideline?

Thanks,

Brian

 

[paul]

Normally what works for me : Think about how long it will take, then add on another 33%-50% and then multiply it by your hourly rate.

So a 10 hour job, at €30/hour should cost between €400 - €450.

 

[Forbairt]

You'll also want to take into account Feature Creep ...
Sure the extra little change they want is only going to take 10 minutes ...

10 minutes work .. minute to upload to the site ... another few minutes to write an email to them .. another conversation on the phone about the change ... another little fix to that .. and so on .. suddenly 10 minutes extra work has become an hour.
(Granted its not always like that)

Pauls recommendation of 33-50% extra is something I find myself not doing sometimes and it works out really not worth it in some cases. (me doing the work without the extra 33 - 50% I should say)

Do up a spec of exactly what you're going giving them
Hosting ??? .. how much will it be for them next year ?
Domain name ??? ...
Support during the year ? ... setting up email addresses for them and so on ?
Graphic design ?? (looking at your current site while its functional its not the greatest in terms of design .. sorry to be harsh .. but you are looking at selling a service so it needs to be said)
HTML / CSS coding ?
Custom Coding / scripting ?
Will you be doing anything with SEO ? ... why isn't their site up there at number 1 ? (they'll ask this) .. getting it there isn't a matter of just dumping in the correct title on pages and a few meta tags. Its actually a LOT of work.


Here is a post I made over on boards with some sample figures thrown in for ease it was related to an IT support / Nixer thing so it might apply to you here as well for your other "work" you're doing on the side ..

boards.ie - View Single Post - Fixing computers on the side

Call out rate ...

its going to take you how long to get there ... its going to take you how long to get back ...

you're going to spend how long on the job ...

Do the usual calculations ... how much do you want to earn a year at this (think if it was your full time job)

(for ease say you want to earn 48K a year ... )

52 weeks in the year ... 4 weeks holidays ...

that means 48 weeks left ...

therefore you have to earn 1k a week on the job ...

a working week means 40 hours ...

1000 / 40 = hourly rate of 25 quid ...

Fixing up a printer = .. house call ...

20 minutes to get there ... 20 minutes to get back ... finding out problem with the printer .. downloaded drivers and so on (potentially) .. updating drivers and so on ... and you're looking at 2 hours work ... not to mention ... 1.5 hours parking ...

so your 50 quid rate in this case is quite appropriate ... given these figures .. maybe more

If you're making that amount then you'll have to pay VAT as well on the service you are offering ... take into consideration VAN costs (insurance / depreciation .. 20% first year and so on... fuel ) ... marketing ... lunch expenses (because you aren't at work) ... and so on. Business premises ... you may want an office ... mobile phone costs (can be damn expensive ringing people having those 10 minutes conversations at your expense) / business cards ... ads in the papers ...

Say you want to take a networking course or something ( add on 1 - 2 grand for this)

48k isn't so much anymore

Tools / equipment / (laptop for diagnoses) / multi-meters / replacement parts costs.

Unfortunately the majority of people don't think of all these things

I also realise you're doing this as a Nixer so to speak ... but think long term ...

 

[mr_kirbs]

thanks guys

Thanks for that guys....will come up with something based on that!

Point taken about the design on the site Forbairt - tbh I am not really selling that much. I do a bit of work on the side of my college work mostly nixers for friends and friends of friends just to get experience as much as earn money....the website I have set up is to gain experience of seo and attempt to master google and not really to get outside clients. But your point is fair and I will give it a professional look when i get a chance.

Thanks,

Brian

 

[Forbairt]

if design isn't your strong point .. then you can potentially find someone to do a design for you .. there is a barter forum on here ... but that'd depend on your skill set ...

Also .. if you were to charge 400 quid for a website for someone else ... you could look at various sites and getting a custom template done up for your site ...

you have to spend a bit on marketing yourself ... and well your website is potentially your biggest marketing tool when it comes to web design (though word of mouth could be good as well if you do a good job)

 

[TheMenace]

This crops up on message boards all the time and they're very much 'how long is a piece of string'-type questions! Some Web designers aren't worth minimum wage considering the dog's dinner they make of websites (they can actually *lose* a company business) and some designers can command over €100 per hour.

I would say that if you don't really have much experience then a nominal fee to tide yourself over until you have a portfolio of strong and improving work should do.