How much to charge for a design?

[odysseus]

Like many people here, I am a totally self taught webmaster. It's not uncommon to be approached by friends of friends and such and be asked how much it would cost for me to make them a website. I always reply that I am not taking any customers right now, sorry. This is mainly because I am admittedly lacking in knowledge on how to charge people. However, more and more people are asking me lately, and if the money's right, I'd be all for it.

For those of you who also do mainstream stuff, how do you determine your prices? After years of just looking for my per signup or revshare percent, I'm not sure how to determine what an actual website design is worth, and I also don't want to sell myself short. Any tips or recommended reading would be very much appreciated. Thanks!

[sunfunbill]

Hi there odysseus! What's been going on? That's a good question, I am sure many here have been asked to do a page or two, only to have no idea what to charge. Seems like it can be all over depending on who you ask.

One thing I do know is your pretty good with design and graphics, so whatever you find out charge a good full fair price!

[Hammer]

Tell them ten grand and if they don't make a face, you're golden. If they do, come down to two.

The truth is that the question is impossible to answer without knowing what kind of site and how involved the work.

[odysseus]

Thanks for the kind words, Bill.

Hammer, you're right. I certainly didn't give enough information to get a decent answer. Say, for example, all HTML and CSS, with a focus on SEO, just for the sake of an easy example. No PHP, Javascript, Flash, script installation, etc... Graphical headers and logos created from scratch, and any photos re-sized and optimized for web. Say a 5 page website for a small business.

[porn punk]

Dude, you're a good designer;I saw your site. like, Hammer said you should start high and make them come down.

[Buddha]

Here in the Bay Area entry-level web designer rates begin around $30/hr if you are right out of High School with no college.

Maybe go to
www.cbsalary.com

Enter "web designer" or something similar with your city, state.

The next page is an ad. Scroll down to "No Thank You" and a selection of potential career titles will populate. That resource may give you a good idea of where to begin.

[mynameisjim]

Logos are generally separate from a websites since they have their own revisions.

I would say you could charge a small business around $2000 - $2700 for the logo and a 5 page brochure site that is high quality.

Just remember, spell everything out up front. For example, how many revisions. If you don't spell this out you will waste time doing little changes here and there which end up taking longer than building the whole site.

For example, with a logo I will specify 3 mock ups. The client will choose one. I'll tweak that one and present it. Then the client will get two rounds of revisions if they want. After that it costs extra for more changes or new mock ups.

Always get at least a third up front. The next third after the mock up or initial work is done. Then the final third upon completion.

Remember though, design work is 95% word of mouth so you don't want to gouge too bad when starting out, but make it worth your while.

[odysseus]

Thanks for the link, Buddha. Nice info there.

Jim, thank you for your comments. One thing I was afraid of was getting into a situation where I would be spending more time on revisions than I was really getting paid for. Specifying all that up front makes a lot of sense. 2000-2700 is a lot more than I figured. I really do need to make sure I don't sell myself short. I figured a couple hundred bucks might be a steep price. Quick searches on google bring up all kinds of "get a website for $199" type ads and such.

Porn Punk, thanks for the compliment. How's things going on your end?

[Hammer]

$10k was a joke but the $2k wasn't, same as Jim said. A couple hundred for a 5 page site plus a logo is nutty.

[odysseus]

Yeah, I figured 10k was a bit far fetched unless I had "Hammer Mojo" or something. Thinking about it a bit more 2k does sound fairly reasonable.

[mynameisjim]

10K is a bit high (Hammer was joking) but if you find a mark I bet you can get it. I had a pretty big florist as a client and before he came to me he spent $18,000 on a website which was awfull. I felt so bad for the guy.

If people think they can get a site for $199, you don't want them as clients. Not because of the low pay, but it means they don't respect what you do or your time and the project will be a nightmare, trust me.

[razor]

Figure out how much you currently make in a week and then divide that by 40(or whatever no of hrs you work to generate that income)

Use that a benchmark in quoting, if you currently get $200 per hour you don't really want to accept jobs that will generate $120 per hour , unless you have spare capacity.

I think $199 for a site is probably a template site.

[timelord]

Odysseus, nice to see you dude.

2K is a decent rate mate for what you described.

Once you build up a solid reputation you can treble that without much hassle.

[odysseus]

Thanks again for all the replies. I would've really been short changing myself it seems.