How do you set pricing for website design?

12 replies
  • WEB DESIGN
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I generally build websites in Wordpress and I have always charged a very modest fee based on how much work I imagine the job will be. I am frequently wrong and work too hard for too little money.

I have a potential client who wants his site converted from Weebly to Wordpress. His current site has at least 150 pages, a good number of which are galleries as he's in the jewelry business.

I don't know if I should charge based on the number of pages, or what? This one will be a big job, but I'm hoping some of the warriors here might be able to provide some useful guidance or suggestions for fair and appropriate pricing of web design. Note, I do all my websites with Wordpress.
#design #pricing #set #website
  • Profile picture of the author PanditaC
    Don't under-sell yourself. You need to take into account both the value of your time, and the value of the site to him. Does it generate a lot of business? Either way migrating 150 pages will be a huge job, so calculate how long you think it will take you (if you always underestimate this, then double it at least), and figure how much money you need for that amount of time. For example, 2 weeks at $35 p/hr (which is pretty low for web work), and a 40 hour work week would be $2800 USD, if the company is large and can the site is more valuable to them, then be sure to take that into account & adjust accordingly. If it an eCommerce site that hosts the majority of their business, then take that the earning potential into account as well.
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    • Profile picture of the author JoshSaub
      Thanks Pandita,

      I fully agree with your suggestions and have been reasonably committed to charging what I know is fair whether I get the job or lose it. I need to be willing to let the jobs go if they aren't going to be fair to me.

      Part of what I wonder is should I even be charging by page, is that standard? I was thinking $500 for the install/configuration and $100 per page (in general), but in cases where there are hundreds of pages, what do I do?
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      • Profile picture of the author PanditaC
        Oh yes, a common way of setting it up is a set price for a set number of pages (5-10 is pretty standard), then a certain amount extra per page over when there is a massive amount of pages, like bulk pricing. Lets say 100 per/page for the first 10, then 75 per page over or something to that respect.
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  • Profile picture of the author ronrule
    Originally Posted by JoshSaub View Post

    I generally build websites in Wordpress and I have always charged a very modest fee based on how much work I imagine the job will be. I am frequently wrong and work too hard for too little money.

    I have a potential client who wants his site converted from Weebly to Wordpress. His current site has at least 150 pages, a good number of which are galleries as he's in the jewelry business.

    I don't know if I should charge based on the number of pages, or what? This one will be a big job, but I'm hoping some of the warriors here might be able to provide some useful guidance or suggestions for fair and appropriate pricing of web design. Note, I do all my websites with Wordpress.
    Stop charging for your time and start charging for your knowledge.

    They aren't coming to you because they know how to do it already and just want to pay for your labor... they are coming to you because they don't know how to do it themselves. That's the real value you bring.

    If you were to hire my firm, even a basic Wordpress site would be in the $4,000 - $7,000 range. It's not priced based on number of pages or the visual appeal of the design, it's priced based on the knowledge of different industries, user experience, and "brand essence" - not the number of hours it takes to do it.

    The biggest thing is just to not be afraid to ask for the money. Many web designers think they need to be low-priced, I've seen guys doing sites under $1,000 that they could be getting $5k for. Don't fall into that hourly mentality trap. Your value is what you KNOW how to do, not just doing it.
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    • Profile picture of the author JoshSaub
      Thanks for the perspective. You guys are right and I know it. Just need to get more comfortable offering my services (my knowledge) for the prices I know are actually fair. It really isn't the few hours it may take me to build a site. It's the thousands of hours I've spent learning how to build a site in those a few hours.
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  • Profile picture of the author Stevewoody82
    Oh this is so true,

    I want to tell you a story.

    Just over a year ago I was building websites for fun when a friend said they needed a website, I said £50 ... That turned into a 12 page flash website which was terrible but they paid 800 total, only because he was a good friend.

    I then started learning more, still building in HTML and not even dynamically, one site I needed to change a menu on nearly 50 pages

    Through all these lessons I thought how can I charge when people can just download a template, I build 3 websites for FREE, destroyed all 3 relationship, got into debt avoiding paid work because I didn't value myself and had a breakdown.

    Someone once asked me what my hourly rate was, I told them £10 he told me to make it £200 and I laughed.

    I learnt some more determined to better myself but went back to driving lorries and building websites for fun. Much happier and progress was great.

    I landed a job in London earning better money to build a website over three months. This is where it started.

    I valued my time at x per hour and thought I was doing great because he was paying me well.

    What I dint know is he was outsourcing me at £200 an hour. I've never looked back

    I now charge per project, regardless if it takes a day or a month. I know the power of a good brief and unless they are prepared to do the plan in detail them I'm not touching it.

    DON'T EVER UNDERVALUE YOURSELF

    Think what you are worth then at least double it, my biggest lesson was learning to say no and not being scared to sack a client
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    Your website is the window to your business . Don't fill it with cheap crap !

    What I don't know about Wordpress either isn't worth knowing or hasn't been invented ;)

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  • Profile picture of the author Stevewoody82
    Reminds me of an analogy

    Wisdom is useful knowledge that is gained through experience which reminds me of a story told by one of my mentors, Tony Robbins. If you haven’t attended any of his live events, I highly recommend it because the tapes and audios do not do him justice to what he delivers on stage.



    Years ago all the machines and conveyor belts stopped working at a distribution center.

    This was disastrous to business for 2 reasons:

    1) All packages get shipped out all over the world

    2)They guarantee that it will be there when you need it the next day.

    Reputation and hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars were on the line. So they called a technician to come in to see if he can fix it.

    The technician comes in and glances at the facility and goes to the center beam and turns one screw a quarter inch. And like magic everything starts working again.

    Now the founder, Fred Smith was ecstatic and asked technician, “what do I owe you?”

    The technician said “$10,000.”

    Fred replied “What $10,000? You were only here for less than 5 minutes.”

    Technician replied back “Yes, it’s $10,000.”

    Fred asked “Can I see an itemized receipt?

    “Sure, give me a napkin.” said the technician and wrote an itemized receipt on the napkin.

    Fred Smith looked at the napkin, nodded his head and smiled and went straight to his office safe and got him $10,000 in cash.

    On the napkin it stated: Turning Screw $1, Knowing Which Screw to Turn $9999
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    Your website is the window to your business . Don't fill it with cheap crap !

    What I don't know about Wordpress either isn't worth knowing or hasn't been invented ;)

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  • Profile picture of the author Michael71
    Ah well...

    I am very knowledged regarding HTML/CSS and frontend performance optimizing (making websites loading FAST).

    I know companies that charge a LOT when they just put some "crap computer" before your own webserver to cache/gzip files and stuff.

    But when I am telling someone it is $997 per site they say "What? Too much... not in my budget."...

    At the end they are losing visitors/clients that would have paid for their offers/services on their sites... but they lost these sales because their webserver did serve a blank page.

    Now tell me... saving $997 is worth much more then having paying and happy clients?

    Go with other companies that charge $4000+ per year... they do not optimize your website, they just use some simple tricks that I do ON TOP of optimizing your website.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sleepy Head
    I build websites as well and have a team too. But times have changed, India and some of my Filipino countrymen are lowering their standards for their services. There was this one time I spoke to a client proposing our services to him. He turned me down and said that he could hire one person from India or Philippines that would just do it all for him for a lower price. The standards set for pricing are different when you are on different countries.
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    • Profile picture of the author Michael71
      But the quality sucks... bad HTML/CSS, copied and pasted from everywhere.

      You get what you pay for.

      Originally Posted by Sleepy Head View Post

      I build websites as well and have a team too. But times have changed, India and some of my Filipino countrymen are lowering their standards for their services. There was this one time I spoke to a client proposing our services to him. He turned me down and said that he could hire one person from India or Philippines that would just do it all for him for a lower price. The standards set for pricing are different when you are on different countries.
      Signature

      HTML/CSS/jQuery/ZURB Foundation/Twitter Bootstrap/Wordpress/Frontend Performance Optimizing
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      Need HTML/CSS help? Skype: microcosmic - Test Your Responsive Design - InternetCookies.eu

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      • Profile picture of the author SqueezePageEngine
        Great suggestions here! I've been very guilty of underselling myself for Wordpress services as well. I've found that when you undersell, you're typically going to underestimate the amount of time it will take and STILL get paid much less than you deserve for the project. I would rather get a "no that's too much" than spend 30 hours on a $300 project that I just accepted to get work.

        I've read studies that show that companies would rather pay more for smaller businesses to perform work, than less for larger companies that aren't as customer focused.

        For your specific situation, unless there's a way to import the images / pages, I would definitely charge accordingly. Take a look at each of the image pages and estimate in your head how long it would take per page, times it by 2, and then add it to your estimate for time including the rest of the site. This way you have a running (over)estimate of hours needed, with this information you can calculate a running total price ballpark. Then you could also do such as described earlier, saying $XX per page instead of laying down a large number to your client. (The total will be thousands I'm assuming?)

        Hope this helps some, take care!
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        • Profile picture of the author jbyte
          This is how I have been charging. Come up with an hourly rate you want to be paid, to cover bills, expenses and then some to enjoy. Figure out how long it will take to complete the job, then add 20%.

          That should be the minimum you accept for the job, anything less and you are not making money.
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