What do you charge a local client for a 5 page website?

A local pizza shop will have an enormous amount of marketing challenges due to being massively out-spent by national brands. A 5 page website ain't gonna do squat for them, except possibly appease the owner's ego.

Thus, I would give them the website for absolutely nothing - on the condition they enter a 1 year social media, SEO and coupon marketing plan that I manage for them.

If they do not want to do that, then I would convince them that a website is NOT what they need right now, but instead a well optimized Google+ Page and FB Fan page. I would charge $250-$500, with the thought of basically using the work for a portfolio/training/reference.

I agree 100% with Marty S. I would offer them the site for free and them upsell them on the backend.
I never really charge for such small jobs like a 5 page site.
It undermines my business and my integrity.
When my hours start racking up is when I kindly say pay me.

I will disagree with what was said above for a few reasons.

1. Adding it as a bonus to a package is great (when done right). But that means you have to sell them on the package. Selling the smaller item as a way in is easier most of the time. Notice how many people use the small sale like the WSO to bring you into the funnel? There is a reason all the big names do this..... it works.

2. Since it is "free" it loses value in their eyes. You want to build up the value of everything you offer. Free can be dangerous but it depends on how and what you are selling. It can work as a bonus like I mentioned and others have suggested but you have to sell them completely on the other idea than offer it as added value.

3. How big of a website does everyone think a pizza place needs? Yeah if you want to do online ordering (which could be an upsell) it will take a lot but most mom and pop pizza places only need a few pages with one of those being a digital menu. Offer the solution that works not the ultimate solution.

As for a basic 5 page site. Depending on what you do I would say it should sell for $500 to $2,000 plus reasonable monthly maintenance. That kind of pricing is fair to both businesses.

Now depending on what solutions you can provide to your clients you can offer any number of other services. The site is your way in. Your way to build the relationship needed for them to trust you. What else you offer could be anything from SEO to direct mail coupon campaigns. The key is are you helping them get more customers and also helping them make more money from their current customers by getting them to order more often? If one or both of these are true and your provide a good ROI they would be silly to not listen to you and take you up on other offers.

Wow not only la land but COMPLETE rip off. Once the customer realizes that you are going to over charge them for a 5 page site, you will lose credibility FAST!

I can build a 5 page site in IDUNNO like 1 hour or less. Completely original design, ready for social interaction ect. You mean to tell me your time is worth $500/hr?

I work with some large design companies all over my local area, Im talking big well known names that are constantly interacting with local businesses face to face and NEVER would one of them charge $500 -$2000 an hour. You might as well call the client a moron to their face.

Im just saying I refuse to straight rip someone off because they are not hip to the IM lingo.

LOL... @ JohnRussell

If I buy the oil and filter can I come by your shop and have your guys change it out for free?
It wont take you but a few minutes.

Good question John,

No, I feel I see things very clearly, I have a picture from both sides, online and off.

I'm just saying businss owners are not retarded, and yes you can promise them the moon and the stars, but sales are hard to come by because that is where the real world is...
So when the moon and the stars never comes because you can't provide it, no one can, then what do you do?

Dan, I am the provider of all the local web development in and around my area.

Anthem,

My perspective is not screwed up, all the hype about what marketing is really all about is screwed up...

My attitude is not bad, it is realistic, there is nothing wrong with not looking through rose colored glasses.

DigiChik,

I appreciate your input. I really do. I deal with alot of different people all day every day. First I deal with the regular customers for cars. Our cars are always sold at an affordable price, but when you have people coming in saying the lost their jobs, they can barely put food on the table, you see they have kids and you see a family struggle. It hits home. Then I deal with customers that don't care how much it takes to get their car fixed, because well it is their lively hood. Even these people are never over charged, because we care about our customers, even in their darkest moments, afraid they will not make it to work, not having money to buy another car, we do not pump them for more. We give them a price they can manage, and that pays for our time and parts. Then I deal with many web design owners. These people are great, they care about their customers and they want to provide them the best. They charge a nice price, and when my time and effort is put to the task I am rewarded greatly.

I am simply saying to charge someone 2k for a 5 page site seems a little greedy to me. Considering there are only a million tools that can get a site built in a short while. That customer that you plan on banking big on, is trying to keep their doors open... I would rather showcase my skills, get the client a nice website, and then tell them all the cool stuff they can achieve with their sites. IE upsell them on ecommerce packages, interactive communities, marketing services ect.

wow Anthem, what state?
What type of brick and mortar biz do you run?

LOL... Ok Dan and Max, let's see you sell a 5 page site to a local business owner for 2k. Document it and I will believe it.

When you insult their intelligence, apologize for me ok?

DigiChik, we are not talking about SEO services... We are talking about a 5 page website. Most likely built from wordpress, with a home page, contact us, services page ect.

Wow. Both sides of the coin in this thread.

I lean towards studying the business and the market and offering
the services that will bring them the best return on their marketing dollars.

For a lot of pizza joints it might be just mobile and Google+, and images or video for Google page domination for city, state. One in my neck of the woods is fancier, seats about 150, and has live music every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, so they work
website, Facebook, print advertising...

I also lean towards charging enough to make your business viable. Which means separating your income from the business and charging enough to cover your business expenses, insurance, marketing advertising, taxes... as well as pay yourself well.
(I say this for the benefit of newer offliners cause I don't think that stuff is covered enough.)

Of course your rates are a qualifier so you are not doing the impossible and difficult, and missing out on serving other clients, as well as serving all clients very well.

Dan

Some are discussing apples and others oranges - for profit and not for profit.

If you're interested in advice targeted towards for profit enterprise, read Aaron's replies.

If you're not running a for profit businesses, as some have indicated by their posts, ignore the advice being shared by the successful and continue to disburse your charitable giving as you see fit. Though... it'd probably be more charitable of you to refer businesses to a for profit firm that has the knowledge and profit driven incentive to give the businesses a better return on their investment and save yourself an hour.

Note: I don't have a problem with loss-leaders. I don't even have a problem with someone stating that a fair price for THEIR work is free or below market value. I do have a problem when those that think free/cheap is fair compensation for THEIR work, voicing their silly opinions about firms that choose to let their clients and the market determine their pricing.

I think that the smart decision would be to split test which appeals most to pizza shops. For example, offer 10 businesses the 5 page site with Google places optimization, and some SEO and a years maintenance for $499 and offer 10 the 5 page site for $99 with a monthly maintenance fee and optional Google places optimization and SEO as extras. Without experience I'd totally estimate that the 2nd could be more profitable and sellable to smaller businesses who might not want all the options.
I was a small business owner and I got a few free consultations and made everything myself after I got a 1.5 all inclusive pitch.
Like I said it might vary with the business, I think marketing the awesomeo 1500 could be profitable if the business is doing very well and the website isn't too good and does not have optimized Google places or SEO.
I hope this helps someone

You guys have to understand if I buy milk for $3/L and the next poster buys it for $10/L (example) then you have to understand there is a difference.

Also demand does not make the price, the demand can be very high and the offer high as well yet the value stays high in many cases. The people and their mentality combined with their locations, which is influenced by internet activity, has a big role to play in the price tag.

I have undersold my services in the past and suffered badly for it.

In desperate times I have charged clients as little as £480 or $750 for a Joomla CMS site. Based on my daily rate of £160 or $750 per day that work out at only 3 days work. There is no way on earth a Joomla site with even just 5 pages of content takes only 3 days. But I have needed the money and wanted to guarantee the job.

In most cases I have spent much much longer than 3 days on the job.

I will now only settle for my daily rate multiplied by a genuine number of days to complete which is usually between 5 and 10 days depending on if it is a Wordpress, HTML, CMS etc

Clients will take advantage of you at every given opportunity. Even if you are doing a website at a real low price they will expect more and more and more from you.

"can you just do this, can you just do that" etc etc

Even though I still need the work and the money I realise that there is often too much work and stress involved to settle for anything less than my going rate. You can end up working for peanuts if you're not careful.

Unless I am charging a minimum of £800 ($1200) I will not entertain building anybody a website and if anybody wants to pay less than that then let them go to Wix or similar site builders and do it themselves.

We offer a 3-page deal for $195 and that's all a local pizza shop or sandwich shop would need. That price is based on the fact that they agree to an annual hosting plan which is set at $120 for the year and throw in a year of domain name registration for free.

Local shops will not try and compete with national brands, and they shouldn't, therefore, we simply optimize the website during creation and offer a maintenance package that includes monthly LOCAL seo as well social media promo for a nominal fee depending on frequency of their social media postings. That fee can be as low as $100 and as high as $1,000.

See.. the interesting thing here is that I have sold websites to clients in the past for around $200 and that helped sky rocket my profits, conversions, etc.

In January of 2011 I offered my services below average and ended up making around $17,000 in a matter of days (not excluding expenses or anything).

These website were all about 5 pages, keyword researched, optimized, included images, and graphics/header/design, etc. and took an average of around 45 minutes to 1 1/2 hour per build.

I don't feel like I was underpaid for those projects because there were so many, but if it were on a single client basis where I only had a few clients every few weeks/months, then I can see why a higher price would make more sense.

Just wanted to share my already existing experience with charging a low price (in what most consider low but I found as very rewarding and profitable).

Never be afraid to charge what your product is worth. Be realistic, but also remember nothing of value is for free.

I think the confusion in this thread is that Justin is selling niche sites for people who want to market affiliate offers and adsense. These are totally different than local biz websites and can be made much quicker.

He wanted opinions originally on what a 5pg local site goes for because that is not his area of expertise. Then all the debating about value and what to charge started.

As much as you can plus $50, is the correct price to anything that does not have a tangible value.

it depends on what their goals are, but i would go any lower than 750.

If I'm going to do a simple 5-page site with minimal content, I'll typically charge between $600-$800, dependant on the clients needs as well as upsells.

From there I'll try and get them to let me pimp out their FB page (usually $250), logo development, etc. The website is just the beginning!

Good god I have to jump in. (excuse my english, im french)

I also agree that you can't make quality site for 250$. If you do, you are losing money because you are putting way more than just an hour into this (if you actually offer any kind of value) AND you are hurting your business by lowering the value of your services.

Lets say I call 3 roofers to replace my shingles. First one estimate the job at 3'250$, second one at 4'000 and third one at 1'250$... Now tell me which one has lost all his credibility? The third one. Who's gonna get the job? The first one.

Selling websites for 250$ or even 500$ is a major waste of time to everyone involved in the project. You create a so-so website and make close to no money (like I said, considering you are actually bringing REAL value to your customer, thus many hours on the project), the customer get a so-so website. No marketing plan. No value. No nothing.

In my case, I can put hours just to decide what colors and graphics Im gonna use... Writing compelling stuff takes another couple of hours, you dont go and outsource this stuff for 5$ on fiverr...NO WAY! Adding calls to action and maybe videos, another couple of hours... this list goes on and on till the end of the project. No marketing plan included yet and im already 10-15 hours in this project.

Some people are cheap and will never pay 1'500-2'000-3'500-+++ for a website. I like to leave these people for the bottom feeders. I dont have time for these. The big spenders will leave you alone while the cheap ones will call you every couple of days to ask the same questions over and over again like you owed them the world for a mere 250$.

Anyways, I tend not to sell any websites and try to rent them instead. Ask a monthly fee and if they ever leave, you rent to competitors....which is why they keep paying their monthly fees lol.. (or per leads fees)

I'm loving the feedback, but really.. who says a low price has to offer low quality?

Many people actually work harder when paid less...


Did I say, "Hey I offer complete crap"? Nope...

I said I offer what the business owner wants and they are happy at the end of the day. Who loses? The scammer that is coming around the corner expecting to do far less for $2,000?

If you want to focus on money, so be it. That's okay. I'm totally okay with someone giving good work and charging higher for it.

All I'm saying is that I'm okay with doing what I do. And at the end of the day the business owner has far more leads than they were averaging. What's wrong with that?

Oh wait... I guess I'm not making a lot of money from it.. so I must be a terrible person :\

NOTE: I'm not saying I would charge exactly $200 for every single website I ever designed.. of course I've charged more. I have local clients who pay me $50 - $75 an hour for multiple hours a week to help them then market the website and advance it even further. But really if a business just wants to get on the web that's what they come to me for.

The discussion is apples and oranges because there are those here who make a living doing this and have vast amounts of real life experience in the time and effort involved in making a site (that includes getting a client...) and those that have theories or dabble in this business.

When you're solving a serious problem for someone, it doesn't matter how much or little time it takes for you to fix it. Not to them.

How much would you pay a doctor to help you at the moment when you're having a heart attack?

Anything.

Most of the talk in this thread has been about commoditizing websites. As if they are Florida oranges. Or something you should trade your hours for dollars to make.

NO.

What is the value of this machine that has the purpose of turning visitors into hot prospects, or buyers?

That is the question.

The rest is window-dressing. How may pages? What colors? Who cares?

What is the value of this machine to the buyer?

Ask them what kind of traffic they expect to get. If they don't know, figure this out in front of them. Get them to agree on a daily visitor figure. Make sure your 'gut check' likes this number.

Now ask them what they conservatively expect as conversions. Again, gut check. Getting them to give you a number, or having them agree to an adjustment up or down, is a lot easier than you stating one.

If they say it, it's true. If you say it, you have to defend it.

Third, as them what their average revenue per customer is. Use their terminology (guest check average, patient, client, etc.).

Have them multiply the two together: conversion # x average $$ per client = total daily revenue for the site.

# X 365 = for the year...that's about as far out as people can visualize. Of course they won't get a redesign for 3 or 4 years probably, but this makes the number pretty big.

Then ask them what they'd expect to invest to get this result.

Getting them to give you the numbers is a lot easier than you pushing numbers at them. ("How do you do this? Prove it to me." Now you're in trouble.)

I'll bet you find you've been leaving money on the table for years.


Q: Kanigan, sounds great but have you done this? A: I've sold custom database-driven applications to businesses, colleges, universities, government and non-profit organizations...and my price has been arrived at to the customer's satisfaction with this method, every time. Sometimes I get to use a multi-year revenue stream, and that really makes it happen. Every competitor is doing the old 'trade hours for dollars' thing and this totally stands out.)

I once met a man who told me he had a connection to import chocolate a nickel a piece. He ordered thousands, created a high end packaging for the chocolates and put it in his high end store for around $10 a piece (came in a pack of 12, he sold chocolate for $100+!)

The point is not whether the client is being "ripped-off", or whether their is a value in your service, the point is HOW MUCH VALUE DOES THE BUYER PERCEIVE A PRODUCT/SERVICE HAS. It's the unfortunate truth of capitalism. The reason why women are willing to pay $500 for a purse that's worth 15 bucks in raw material and labour. I once read Loius Vuitton burns extra purses because they refuse to put them on sale price.

I love to help my clients grow their business. If you are doing that, you should get your fair share. Dealing with clients is a hassle, so reduce your client base and charge them MORE and do MORE for them. You can be picky and choose to decline low-ball offers. You're being greedy for not seeing the value you get from scarcity in your service, and being greedy will only get you less money. Be smart.

I would charge a minimum of $500. At the same time, how much potential do you see in a client? If they were a fortune 500 CEO, hell I would even work a full year free for them to get favors. Have that business like mentality where you have to settle for less at first and reap the rewards later.

I would charge them for the pizza website for $375 plus an assurance of 30% increase on sales for their business, otherwise it's free.

Oh my......

This gif fits pretty well in this thread

2k for a website that will market your business 24/7/365 a year (assuming hosting is included, etc)

OR

2k for a full page ad in your local magazine for one issue...

Ummm...... do I need to spell this out?

If clients don't want to pay a good price for a solid website - send them to Wix.
If you charge 500 bucks for a website (don't care how many pages), go ahead and do it. I will be waiting for your client to call me one year later asking for a quote on a "real" website that brings them business. I'll have a big grin on my face

To MOMTRADER - Do you think that is ok for a business to mark up a vehicle thousands of dollars to resell it and make a profit? The car is bought, detailed, then sat on the lot.... really thats worth thousands of dollars? even hundreds? Do you think it's fair to buy a 100$ part for a vehicle, spend 4 hours replacing the part, and charge the customer 400$? Is the mechanics time really worth all of that money? Is a good lawyer REALLY worth 200$ an hour? 300$ an hour? I bet he is if you need him bad enough.

People invest money in things they NEED, no matter the cost. Businesses NEED business. Websites CREATE business.... If a 500$ website brings NO BUSINESS, then the website is worth NOTHING. If a website brings in 30k a year, then the website is worth 30k a year.

THIS IS EARTH. WELCOME TO IT.

If your not confident in selling high ticket items it's definitely better to offer a low upfront fee for the website itself and making your money with monthly hosting and SEO packages to create yourself a nice residual income.

To better objectify the pricing of a site, perhaps what the client can currently afford is relevant. And perhaps breaking down the work into components, and pricing each component fairly would help. If it's only a 5 page site, one can tell the business that "package 1" is cheap, but there is a definite roof to how much traffic it will get, or how much upkeep is worth it based on the limits of the site, etc.

You could then talk about a "package 2" that is more of a traffic-generator, but not as robust as it could be, in order to be more affordable. Again, if this is broken down into segments it should be easier to justify both in selling it upfront, and in hindsight if the site doesn't perform as perfectly as the seller desired.

Twenty properly SEOed articles and 200 quality backlinks, for example, is objectively worth something above zero, even if they do not sustain ongoing traffic after a year for whatever reason. If you've done $200 worth of such work on a site, you wouldn't want a company to call you a 'ripoff' just because it didn't give them the $2000 in value they were expecting.

So it pays to present 2-3 packages to each company, say $100-200 per 5 page site, $500-$1000 for a 'basic' traffic generating site, and $1500-$2000 on up for a deluxe site with maximum traffic potential. Explain the actual value for each in terms of the base labor, included features, and in the projected earnings, then let them choose. This way there's enough disclosure and options provided to cover your pricing scheme, and to give the business realistic expectations about the value.

I just did a website for $10,000 cash and one for $3900 cash, and another for $1100 dollars worth of food. These prices included several months of backlinking and a Google + page. Just depends on, not just the niche, but the business owner and his level of knowledge about the true value of internet real estate. If someone wants a website I educate them on the value of SEO and backlinking straight away, if they don't see it my way, then ya $500 is fine, but the truth is where's the value in that?

I'll be creating websites that actually convert into real customers using my previous skills in Adwords marketing and landing pages. I honestly believe what I have to offer is easily worth at least $3000, and will be charging this to clients. I will let you guys know if it works. I've very carefully crafted a sales pitch toward the angle of making money (with proof if I have to. In particular ... there are certain clients that I know 100% I can get them results, I'm prepared to spend $20 of my own dollars for advertising and create a simple landing page (modifying a similar site) as a test for their business and using 30 to 60 minutes of my time and give them a 'FREE' client, just so they can see it works. Sure I might get taken advantage of by a few people, but what is a $200 loss potentially and 2 hours of my time (or a paid worker in India @ $10/hr) if I get ripped off by a few people for a $3000 gain for the smart person that sees that it works and I can upsell further services to.

I will let you guys know how my experiment goes.

I haven't posted in a long while due to lack of time mainly but this thread is forcing me to add my 2 cents... So I've found some time...

1. Quit pricing web site design like you're pricing lollipops being sold down the street from your clients' houses. Web sites are not lollipops. They are business and often cash generating tools, price them as such. If a web site you build has the potential to earn a company 10's of millions of dollars are you really dumb enough to price your work so low you can hardly feed for a week on the pay you're getting from it? I have a deal with a client now where I've just had his web site done for $1,250, that's about a third of what I initially charged him. The slow economy really hit his relatively high powered company a little harder than he'd anticipated so he really couldn't afford to pay my real fee of almost $4,000 and 25% of total earnings from that site for at least a year, but he was desperate to have his web site done immediately. I knew some jack a** would come along and build him crap for like $300-$500 and he would still need me to come back and do the job again much better later so I pretty much told him as much. Here's what I did. I dropped my price to just over $1,000 as mentioned but didn't stop there, I basically said "Since you can't afford to pay what I really am worth for this job, I'll do you a deal, I'll take $1,250 up front now NOT ONE CENT LESS and 15% of your monthly earnings from that site for at least the first year, we can renegotiate up or down after that based on performance". I'd done my research and found that his monthly earnings could easily be up to $4,000 - $20,000 and even more per month (he sells advertising space in print and now wants to take it online as well). I offered to work on helping the site make money with my skills as a veteran web marketer of course and had the web site built TO SELL based on the level of conversion rate optimization, publicity and marketing I was going to be doing over the short and long term. Bottom line, I could have caved and said to myself "This guy will just give this to some newbie or desperate or clueless 'web designer' for a few bucks if I don't drop my price to sh** so lets just get this deal done for whatever he can pay, I'll even do it free if he kisses my a** just right!" But I didn't cave in. He did. My potential earnings are now $7,000+ - $36,000 (or even more!) from the site over at least a year. And I'll be working on that site only once a week for only a few hours per day (i.e. 2-5 hours max per day once a week). Oh by the way, I also got him to throw in a modern fully equipped office space right in his office block in a choice part of town (I get to use the address free of charge rent free, cheeky I know and I get free quality publicity thrown in by having an article a month published in his high profile local newspaper currently only distributed to high networth individuals in the city, plus I got him to agree to a small monthly fee of around $340 just for me coming in once weekly too. I'd say I got a far better deal than if I had just caved in at $300 - $500 JUST TO CLOSE THE SALE.

2. Yes it is possible to build a "web site" in less than 45 minutes or even 15 minutes if you're flash gordon, but those kinds of sites are MOST UNlikely to be world class, premium quality, 100% totally absolutely bespoke, killer, conversion-powered, conversion rate optimized, seriously cash-generating-in-mind-developed web sites. They are kinda like lollipops, and yes can and should be priced like the crap they are for crap pay.

3. Do the kind of sites in no. 2 above to get your feet wet, to get some fast cash rolling in, fast, to give to those who seriously will NEVER be able to afford or care to pay for or ever need the opposite of these types of sites. Don't however make a career out of this market, I doubt you'll ever enjoy it or profit greatly from it over the long term, but even if you do, what do you want to tell your great grand kids you used to do once upon a time, sell crap for a living or add quality to the world of marketing and increase to the bottom line of your clients balance sheets, with a nice mansion for yourself to show for it (hopefully Think about this very seriously even though it is said here tongue in cheek.

4. Choose your level of maturity in this business, if you're a lollipop seller, know it, admit it and tell your clients that's what you do. If you're a master consultant and/or service provider or wish to be, then make up your mind and work hard to become that. Trust me when you've worked to get to that level you will NEVER price yourself at the rate of a cup of coffee or... a lollipop

5. Do what you like. The world is big enough to let the smart guys find the smart clients who spend their money smartly in order to generate a smart income as well as to accommodate the guys who are PLAYING at doing business with their own web sites and the chaps happy to provide their sweat and expertise for a song.

I've spent years trying to convince people to see the light about pricing because it helps them, me and the market to thrive. But I find that some people will never leave the rat race mindset behind and will waste my time and that of other serious folks trying to convince themselves and other poor saps to stay where they are. I'm not one to give up easily, but this particular argument is getting old so I'm not really expecting to change too many minds, just a few savvy enough to really "hear" what I'm saying.

Best of luck,

Kunle Olomofe

The problem almost all of you have is that you're caught up in price instead of delivering results. When you truly care about the business and company you're helping, you will succeed. When price points and how to not leave money on the table becomes your focus, I believe you are doomed.

Truly take an interest in others, and you will achieve success you never imagined. The best way to getting people to care about you and your business is to show that you care about theirs. People get interested in you, when you show interest in them.

Charge $499 one time fee and then a $49/month for hosting an maintenance.

Wow. This thread explains a lot. I posted an ad on Craigslist a while back, advertising web design service to local businesses. I found businesses looking for a $1500 website but wanting to pay $99 or less. Now I think I'm starting to understand why.

This thread has been quite the eye opener! Now I know for sure that these crazy ads on Gumtree selling 5 page websites for £99 aren't just scam ads!

Back in the day you had to buy a camera, camcorder, phone, cd player, tv, vcr, computer, compass, calculator, calendar, pen/papper, clock, map, etc.

Now all you need is a smart phone for a low price.. heck you don't even need a data plan as long as you can access WiFi.

Things get easier.. it's how we progress. And in turn prices tend to go down. And that's okay..

This thread is a perfect example why it started to suck to get into Offline Marketing.

There are a lot of service minded people around which don't know how to Market - seriously.

All the talk about pricing means squad if you don't start to look at it from the customers perspective.

WHAT IS IT WORTH FOR A CLIENT TO HAVE A OFFLINE MARKETING SYSTEM IN PLACE?

That's the question which has to be answered (in FIGURES) and based on the business it can be that the setup (of the system, not the site alone) is valued at $700.- or maybe it's valued at 2k or even more depending on competition and complexity. As Marthy stated, maybe you charge nothing for a good monthly contract or you barter something valuable.

There is no flat fee which covers all.

And I personally refuse to build websites without to setup a Marketing system for direct response marketing results - it doesn't get your client any results.

So if you just build him a 5 page website which get him 1 additional pizza sale a week, then even $150.- is too much for the site IMO.

Stop to sell services and sell solutions which have a clear goal - then you can charge 15 - 20% from what you can add to a businesses bottom line per month.

And always go for recurring contracts, this is a must for keeping your business healthy.

G.

I remember a story which might give some of you a clue to all this.

There was once a manufacturer which had a product line paralyzed based on a mechanical problem causing him a loss of 1k a day.

He called the first 24h services to have a look at it - the guy charged him a measly $500 bucks upfront to come over. The factory owner was thrilled to get a cheap fix.

After about 5 hours of looking and trying the guy gave up and walked away, unable to fix the problem to get the line running.

He anyhow walked away with the 500 dollars they agreed on and the line stand still for another day costing another 1k for the factory owner (actually 1.5k together with the service fee).

The Factory owner called the second service guy which asked him 2k, but only if he would be able to get the line working - "That's damn expensive.." he thought, but great "I have to pay nothing upfront - there's no risk for me" - so he asked the guy to come over.

The guy came, looked at the machine, tweaked here and there a bit and in about 10 minutes he got the line working again.

The business owner was baffled and asked - "Man, you ask an outrageous 2k from me to come over and fix my line in 10 minutes - how comes you charge so much for this?"

The answer was...

"Because I know how to fix it".

Moral of the story.

Your worth what you know and can do for others.

G.

LOL, love it. And the GlenGary Glen Ross speech is one of my favorites and he got nominated or won something for that speech and its the only scene he's in in the movie, which I also watched after seeing the speech on youtube.

Here's some worthwhile advice. There's a program called "Action Selling". There's a short book that is by the same guy that is called "Selling Your Price". (There's a whole series of books that are great on the action selling program.)

In these books it talks about how everything now days is a commodity. Our products can be bought somewhere else cheaper, our services can be bought somewhere else cheaper, everything is a commodity in a global market.

We all have competitors in India and Russia and in most of the world that lives off of less than a few bucks a day. We charge so much for our time because we live in the wealthiest most opportunity filled country in the world. We HAVE to charge what we charge because it is very expensive to live in America.

Is my time worth $500 an hour? YES! I hate making less than $200 an hour, and usually pis and moan to my wife and friends about having to do it. I believe YOUR time is worth $500 an hour if you can solve the kinds of problems that are worth solving for $500 an hour. I've paid attorneys $360 an hour for patent work. I've paid Jiffy Lube $45 for the 10 minutes it took them to change my oil.

We don't just build websites, we solve problems. If you paid $120,000 dollars for a website like Tyson Foods just did last year to a company in my city, you'd probably feel ripped off, but Tyson Foods doesn't. Probably because that website was a heck of a deal in my opinion.

Websites are a commodity. I can build a great one in a day or so. But the problems that the website solves are a solution that is more valuable than the website. And the traffic to the website is worth paying lots for too.

You will NEVER keep a satisfied customer if you charge $2000 for a 5 page website when someone in china can do it for $20. But if you know what problems your customer is wanting to solve, and you solve them, that solution is worth WHATEVER that customer is willing to pay. That's what the free market system is all about. Market value is determined by the BUYER, not the seller, and ONLY after they buyer PAYS the seller.

The big deal is that the Value is not the value to the seller, its the value to the buyer. The sellers idea of value in the case of a website comes from the time and effort invested in the creation of it. But you're also missing the point if you think that the value to the buyer is determined by sales figures. Most businesses can't tell you what their break even point is, let alone how much money their website makes them. Value to the buyer could be branding, a cool look and feel, or something as simple as the owner in a video walk on in the lower right corner. It all depends on what the buyer is looking for.

That's my opinion.

PS I've charged $4000 for 2 lines of code. And I've done entire optimized ecommerce sites that brought in sales for clients for free, and I own 2 offline businesses one doing websites for small businesses and one doing tree removal so I know what's going on in the economy too.

it's depends on client. but i think anything between $500 to $1000 is good as per complication of website and things client required. best way is checkout competitors services and price first and check their portfolio and if you can do better than that charge some good amount like $1500 or so.

Have three Proposal mock ups included for them to choose from each on a different budget.
Let them choose and ask you questions. Price range should go from as low as $550 usd up to $2300 usd. it is a numbers game really. - It is up to them and their budget, once they know the facts make sure that if they choose the low cost budget, they agree with you on expanding or improving their website ever 3 - 6 months.
For example adding new services, like credit card processing or a coupons system, etc.

This has worked best for me for over 10 years now people want to see mock ups! and numbers beow them that's all you need when it is about selling websites.

Have great day!

Maurice

Sorry for my interruption, but I have really learned alot just spending time to read every single response of this thread.

Anyways, carry on.

I cannot sleep reading this thread, thanks to all for the posts i learned a lot seriously

I think some of you guys should read this - Breaking the Time Barrier - in terms of putting a price on your services.

This thread is just so enlightening as to peoples perspective on what to charge and as I see it...

The question is generic and never really expounds on the purpose of the web site. There is more then one purpose to have a web site and since that wasn't really revealed every ones answer is going to be based on their own understanding of what "THEY" think a web site should be used for.

Lets not get into the many different ways a website can actually be built which can vary the cost greatly to deliver it.

Personally I like to deliver sites that are custom designed graphically and that is a large part of the cost's in many cases because it's a brand we are dealing with.

I had a client that we did a site for and after we showed them the wire frames, they ended up re-branding the whole company because the concept art if you, will was outstanding and they wanted to elevate there image to the new look.

And just to bring a little perspective I charge a minimum of $900 for a custom designed landing page. Yes landing page as in a single html page.

I will jump into the pile for the fumble and say I would charge $850...lol But I outsource that work sooooo...

My take on it is a little different and simple
"Charge whatever you want, it's your business!"
Around the world and probably right in the other neighbourhood, people sell the same things for different prices...why?...because you are dealing with different people with a different set of needs. Find out what he wants....estimate your time accordingly...and value the project based on your time and expertise of course

I would charge for this thread.

Took some time to go thru all the posts, but was definately worth it.

Creating a website by customizing a premium theme: $500 is enough.
Similar method plus local SEO: $1500 is enough.

Creating a website from scratch: $1500 is enough.
Similar method plus local SEO: 2500 is enough.

@DABK
There is also another market you are missing, and that market is kind wholesale. I am using the word carelessly as selling 30 sites a month is clearly anything but wholesale. The point is I want lots of customers, and for that reason I charge them a price that is reasonable to build my clients a good looking website that represents their brand and values. Now starting prices of 500 are not good enough for the time that I am offering, and I hate up selling instead of offering a complete solution, but it is a start that has to be taken and compromised with because it works. But you should always create different channels to market different niche and provide different solutions. But I am speaking through a more national perspective, if you are local and can do face to face you should obviously be charging more.

Old thread but lots of good tips I still can't sell my products all I can market is a popular free products. People just refuse to buy whatever I do.

I'd like to note that my prices and time have increased with experience. I'm finding that there are a lot of businesses out there that will not spend below a certain amount. They already have that number in their head.

For example I offer one service for $1,500/mo but I went to someone without mentioning that amount and they were willing to pay $1,600/mo for half the work.

It's interesting how my mind has changed over the course of time but it's definitely a great learning experience and I thank all of your for the criticism

For all of you who doubt that a simple Wordpress website could be worth $2000.......I work as a sales and marketing manager for a small manufacturing company. We have paid web developers for several different websites over the years and the last 2 sites have been Wordpress websites. We have paid anywhere from $2,000 to $3,000 for these plus hourly fees for customization and hosting.

Now I have learned to build these sites on my own but I am still the only one in the office who has a clue how to do it and a few years ago we were tickled pink to pay that amount for our websites. We saw the value in a good website no matter if it was a theme or custom so it was an easy decision to pull the trigger.

If your customers won't pay $500-$2,000 for a website that they will have for several years and potential make thousands of dollars from, either you are not showing them value or you are working with the wrong clientele.

I would probably charge around $650-$700+ depending on the apps and other things they need. The reason I would charge that is because my preferred rate is $65 per hour and I put around 10-12 hours into it, and again, it depends on their specific needs. Direct question=direct answer, just saying...

How much you charge is not really important.

What is important is how much value you deliver.

If you make a business more profits than what they pay you in
fees then you've delivered a valuable service.

Talking about how much to charge for a 5 page website is completely
the wrong mindset.

What you want to be thinking about is how you can make that pizza
shop a boatload of extra sales and profits.

eg. Get existing customers onto an email list so you can send out offers
at will (especially for the more quiet times of the week).

When you do special deals make sure a high percentage of them are for
high net profit lines so the business is making a great profit even when
they're offering a great deal.

Just 2 ideas.

If you do that math you'll quickly work out 2 ideas like that can be worth
many thousands of dollars in extra profit over a month so charging a decent
fee upfront and a decent ongoing fee is not a problem.

On the other hand if all you're thinking is how much can you charge for a 5
page website you're doing the business an incredible disservice.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

Like some others who posted on here, I tend to do a package type price. What is assumed is that the pizza business is going to sign up, but what is not discussed is the conversion optimization of the web design company. I have been doing this a lot of years, and used many different methods, and simply setting rates and performing the work seems to perform better than the other models.

I have charged 1000's of dollars for websites in the past, but it all depends on how much the perspective client can be educated on the things they need to make their business grow, and that is part of accessing the client's needs.

The reality is some clients just want a brochure website with nothing else, and at the end of the day, you can ramp up the most awesome models for sales, but if you don't have conversions because you have not properly accessed what the clients wants after educating them, your business is doomed, and no awesome method on sales will save you.