What price do you charge?

[jsweb]

Ah reading a nice post and then seeing the words Template Monster makes me freak out . Especially when it comes to their eCommerce collections for Zen Cart, OsCommerce and CRE.

While some of their designs are in fact very good (well done to their designers out there); the end deliverable of templates is a big NO NO!

For example with ZenCart, OsCommerse when making templates it is so important to use override directories and only put relevant files into those override folders allowing upgrades to occur in the future. Yet the deliverable you get from TM comes with an override folder containing every core file possible which just makes it near impossible to upgrade and keep up to date in the future. (that's if it works to start with!)

We've experienced this time after time when customers have come to us asking for support because they initially purchaed a cheap TM template thinking that they could just upload and their existing site would look nice. Unfortunately what they find is that money has been spent and their store doesnt work or they can't upgrade.

I cant really comment on their static websites. Is it provided in full CSS?

Ending on a possitive, then as long as they provide a source PSD then this could be very useful.

Take care

Jamie @JSWeb

P.S. On the off topic note, Notepad ++ is very good!

 

[trunkMonkey]

Thank you chaps for a very interesting read.

This is one aspect of web design that has eluded most designers.
From my point of view, I agree with RedFly a site is an expensive thing to create and that can only be understood by the designer them self.

The problem for most designers is you can’t hold in your hand what we do.

It’s almost impossible for the customer to understand the time and effort you spend studying just to create the best site for them.
I have a number of customers that are on their 3rd and 4th site and they never look elsewhere for a designer. Its hard work building that trust!

Yes you get very difficult customers but in recent years I am finding that I point this type of customer to other designers. Not because they are difficult but because they will never understand (no matter how hard you try) just what’s involved in building a valid website.

 

[nearlythere]

oo interesting thread.

i didn't realise the spec was for a static site of 20-30 pages. what a nightmare to produce and update. eek. i would charge more, in fact, for a static site than a CMS built site. i want the client to be in charge of the content.

ew... just thinking of all the back and forths from the days of static HTML. ('oh and on this page, we decided to go with Y image instead of X, and change to wording of our mission statement, oh and the price of B product has changed) yikes!

you can keep your maintenance contract, i want to move along to the next project, and let the client handle the content.

 

[neweb]

oo interesting thread.

i didn't realise the spec was for a static site of 20-30 pages. what a nightmare to produce and update. eek. i would charge more, in fact, for a static site than a CMS built site. i want the client to be in charge of the content.

ew... just thinking of all the back and forths from the days of static HTML. ('oh and on this page, we decided to go with Y image instead of X, and change to wording of our mission statement, oh and the price of B product has changed) yikes!

you can keep your maintenance contract, i want to move along to the next project, and let the client handle the content.

I agree,
It’s a nightmare trying to give clients what they want, especially as they don’t know themselves.

I think the client wants you to just keep designing over and over again just to see if they like it.

I don’t think the client truly appreciates the effort involved in developing a site. I have developed lots of sites that where w3c valid only to have them ripped apart over and over again by the client. So much so that they are no longer w3c valid.

Pricing a site has always been hard as you have to factor this in.

 

[fantastvik]

this is my 6th year as a designer. now i have become a lil choosey about my work and the standard package with which i work starts at $1599 yeah that includes

cleint specification reading
Hosting
Design
XHTML/CSS Coding (standard compliant)
Setup
content formatting (content is given by client)
Standard Search Engine Optimisation

 

[neweb]

this is my 6th year as a designer. now i have become a lil choosey about my work and the standard package with which i work starts at $1599 yeah that includes

cleint specification reading
Hosting
Design
XHTML/CSS Coding (standard compliant)
Setup
content formatting (content is given by client)
Standard Search Engine Optimisation

This is something that has always puzzled me!
How can you give a set price on something when you don’t know what needs to be done?

For example:
You might get one customer who wants 2 pages or another who wants 10.
You might get a very difficult customer who wants to change pages constantly.
What if the client wants 10 images per page or half a book on each page.

I have seen lots of prices on the internet for 2 pages for X amount 10 pages for X amount. I have even seen e-commerce for 1999.00 dollars

Because web design is do dynamic it's almost imposable to give a single price.

That’s like saying you will sell a car for 10,000.00 euro with the following features:

• 4 Wheels
• Engine
• Windows
• Steering wheel

This could be anything from a Ferrari to a Mini. God help you if the customer wants the Ferrari

 

[fantastvik]

see, the rates in this industry depends entirely on the amount of experience you have. the kind of work you can show to the client.
it is indeed like selling a car, but reputation of a designer certainly plays an important role. if you are selling a car for $100,000 then you can be sure of that it is indeed a higher, faster and more swanky brand

 

[neweb]

see, the rates in this industry depends entirely on the amount of experience you have. the kind of work you can show to the client.

Well I'm not so sure about that! There are people in the industry for years and have turned out bad work while you could have someone only in the industry for a couple of years who are turning out great work.

Personally I price on what the client wants and how long or what's involved in getting to what they want.

Where you run into problems is when the clients doesn't know what they want or keeps changing the goal post's


I price on time, the longer it takes the more you pay.

 

[jennyrusks]

This is a great thread and still very much as relevant as when it was started.

However, what I would like to know is, what the hell is a brake pad???

 

[davidbehan]

Hi Jenny. It seems to be a popular topic alright. I'm hoping to give a talk at BarCamp Cork about selling websites. Basically everything from initial call, meetings (incl. body language), pricing, proposals, contracts, closing the deal, etc. Maybe you and others here would be interested in it? It's on the 1st November. More details at BarCamp Cork II.

Rgds,

Dave

 

[jennyrusks]

Hi Dave

Yes, that sounds like a must not miss talk. You've already been very helpful to me in the past when we talked about this but I still agonise over pricing. Sometimes I think I should see a hypnotherapist because I still actually go red when I give clients a price in a face to face situation. (Seriously). And I think that makes me look like a complete amateur even though I'm confident about my design work.

It is without doubt my least favourite part of running a business.

thanks

Jennifer

 

[davidbehan]

Well, hopefully you can make it down for it. We're going for dinner the night before (see Pre Barcamp Cork dinner) too so we could have another informal chat if you go to that. I'll be talking about the whole sales process from start to finish and explain my process and what I found works and what doesn't work.

Hopefully it will help people! Hope to see you at it but you know you can give me a ring anytime too.

Rgds, Dave

 

[Axwell]

Hi Dave,

Just wondering will there be a podcast available of your talk, I won't be able to attend but id love to hear what you have to say on the whole process. Even if there wasnt one on the site maybe you could organise to record one yourself and stick it up on your site or something?

Cheers.

 

[davidbehan]

I'll have a chat with the organisers to see if they will be recording the talks for a podcast. That's a good idea. Can't remember it being done before (except podcamp probably). Will keep you updated.

Rgds, Dave

 

[Axwell]

Hi Dave,

I used to work for DIT and when we had seminars we used to do it, the likes of Bernie Goldbach would be at it speaking so we would set up recordings, you can just get an adaptor for an ipod and do your own anyways if they dont. As i cant make it id just like to hear your own talk to be honest to hear what you have to say.

Cheers

 

[dropbop]

The time it takes to get and process all the info from the client can take alot of your man hour time. Building the site is the easy bit.

Alot of people dont realise the amount of research, telephone calls, emails and meetings that can take place. This time needs to be paid for too, its not just the design of the site itself.

Its hard to say exactly what to charge, it all depends on how much Preperation work is involved. I could charge anything from 500 to 5000, it all depends.

DB

 

[link8r]

Good point. If you look at many products, the price we pay is mostly made up of the cost of the process of selling the product to us. Take bottles of water in a supermarket - theres no way a bottle of carbonated water costs as much as a bottle of coke - its the space it takes up and the manual labour involved in selling it. Same as a car ... Toyotas come into Ireland at an average of €4k per bonnet but sell at €20k - the cost of people, forecourts, capital (invested in the business), overheads all make up more than the manufacturing cost.

I see Dave Davis' post from RedFly about not charging less than 5k and I see RedCardinals sober posting about why paying more than €2k for a brochue site. I guess the difference is in RedFly are hiring the best to push the boundaries of the web. These resources require the best environment and don't come cheaply - they can move to any company at a minutes notice - if you buy them for a brochure site, you have to pay the cost of having those resources.

One big problem in Ireland is that people treat buying a website like buying a product. Like it's off the shelf. Even if you buy a template site, the customisation of it is a service. You can't compare a RedFly site to a Mike Byrne@ennis.com site - even if it has the same requirements - the same way you can't claim a jacket from penneys should cost the same as it does if it ships from Prada because it is a jacket (fits the requirement bill)

 

[shaneod]

If you provide a good service, by that i mean taking the time to meet clients, figure out their business properly and who the site is aimed at as well as providing mock ups and revisions and then figuring out what the best solution is for their site rather then just lashing out any old ****e then i wouldn't be unnerved by those company's charging peanuts.

I recently saw some company offering CMS sites for under 400 euro, with free hosting and domain name for a year ... seriously, race to the bottom or what, they simply can't be giving a good service for that price, i'd imagine there's a lot of Ctrl C + CrtL V into templates going on there with little or no regard for their clients company or their target audience. I'd imagine very few of their customers get much from their sites which is a shame.

In general tho i find people are realising that they need more then just some two bit website thrown to gether by someone who dosent care.

A bit of investment means a site can get some TLC in the process and you know what you get if you pay peanuts! ... or you will find out sooner or later.

 

[conor]

that is a very general question.

what i get paid depends on how much work i do, but usually i get between 100 and 500. I am a beginner web designer and thats why i get paid so little compared to more advanced devolopers.

 

[dropbop]

Conor, I think your not charging enough to be honest. Its ok if your just doing it part time, looking to make a few euros for the weekend or to help with paying off loans, but if you do web design full time then you should be charging a bit more.

Take the last site you did, try and add up all the hours and expenses it took. Inlude hours, telephone calls, and meetings, processing images received from the client....everythng!

Work out an hourly rate.. maybe €15 to €25 for a beginner, then see if the total is more than €500, i bet it will be.

A lot of beginners spend hours in the evening doing sites for others, sometimes not getting any sleep! and then charging very little. In my opinion if you put in the work and effort and your client is happy with the finished product, you should be getting what you deserve, And thats getting paid properly for your long hours.

Well, thats my opinion anyway