How much to charge for a website

Hi - I'm from the uk... Not been here for a while, but i'm back

I was wondering - if it was possible to provide a breakdown of one or more ways of how to charge for a website. What factors come into it? Do i individually for design and content? How do i go about charging for providing hosting and arranging payments and what not..? how do i charge for maintainence? What hapens if once their hosting runs out? Do i charge by the hourly rate or wud this be absurd depending on the hours? What about copyrighting? etc - the list of questions goes on..

The current page i'm designing is for a salon... I estimate 6-8 pages. The design is - not simplisitic, but not complex. It currently employs some very efficiently coded HTML, CSS, JavaScript and PHP. I used Photoshop CS2 for the graphics - and created all of them my self. The pages do not differ in look too much, ofcourse images do change, as does the content... The pages are things like welcome, news, products, price lists etc.. The page also contains 2 feedback forms users can send - one for enquiries, and one for requesting appointments - would i charge extra for these? If i had to make a rough estimate I would say I've spent in total about 48 hours

I've tried to provide as much info as possible but if anyone needs anymore please ask...

Hmm..well, there is no definate answer. I would think the generic answer would be "$40 an hour for web design if you dont have a huge portfolio". It also depends on your skill set and other things like that.

I wouldnt under sell yourself, because if they come back for more work later on and you have increased your prices, they might say "well you did this for me for only $X". For something that you say will only take you 48 hours, I would probably charge it as a total project.

Something else you can do is say you charge about $30 an hour, 4 hour minimum, or whatever else you think is fair.

As far as graphics and stuff, you can keep the copyright, and just license them to the person you're doing the site for for free use on their site only. Then everyone is happy.

Cheers for the reply.

Hmm, £20 an hour was a bit more than i was expecting... But then again I'm not very up on the business side.. Is this normal??

Also - copyrighting I've not actualy done this yet, what's the process like? Is it expensive? I'm also still confused about how to charge for hosting if they don't have any and what happens when their time runs out.... Maintainence too?

Not expensive: US $30.

However if you are hired to do a website for someone else, unless explicitly stated otherwise in your contract, the website is your client's property, not yours.

Company I used to work for would charge a flat fee for a fairly generic site with no bells and whistles, $500 plus like $25 a month for hosting. The more content you got the more money you payed. Typically the final price wouldn't be set until just before the contract was signed.

I'd probably start at a base of $30 per hour for labor. Give yourself an estimate of how many working hours you'll need to finish the project. Then add on for extra stuff like flash and dynamic code and stuff.

Example: Static 5 page site.
Building Look & Feel Template: 4 hours
Setting up each page: 4 hours
Adding Content: 2 hours
Testing and Validation: 4 hours
Publishing: 2 hours
Total Hours: 16
Base Pay: $480
Tack on server space, hosting and maintenance and there you go.

On copyright and contract: Our contracts made it clear that our code was proprietary and that they only owned the content of the site. Not the look and functionality. Thus we always had the right to use people's sites for advertising and such.

Cheers for the reply crownjewel82...

You just raised another thing I'd glossed over some how

Contracts!! Any idea if its possible to find some sort of sample contract - and what kinda lingo or neccessary stuff to include...? Online perhaps..?

To be completely honest, If you're gonna have a serious business, I'd spend the time to get a lawyer to help you with that. Maybe you have a relative or a friend who'd be willing to take a website in trade. Trading services is a great way to get a strong client base as well as get what you need when you're low on cash. Just make sure you draw up your costs before you go doing that so you get something worth it.

well at the moment, it just seems like a 1 off. I'm not planning on starting a business out of this - Yet.... I'm only student, and not had much time to explore the business side, so not really sure how serious to get with this thing either.

I'm just tryin to makesure I've got my self covered for future.. I wouldn't wana make the website to find I wouldn't be able to advertise it in my portfolio etc

If it's totally custom, the company I work for charges $3000 at the least. But that's for custom artworks, entirely dynamic content, easy admin system that they can use to update their site. I'd say it really would depend on how much effort was put into this site.

ah - i dont think the job is as big as that. theres not much need for dyanmic content, more of a brochure type website..

i was just wondering - what people thought of this contract:

http://dreammediasolutions.co.uk/sample_web_design_contract/

wud nething need adding or removing? It seems quite good but then, i'm not a solicitor...

You should probably bill out at an hourly rate. For future reference, when you're working on a project that the client can't watch you work, it's a good idea to log your hours and record what you've done in that time. Even if it's you fixing a mistake you should still write it down. Mistakes and changes are something that you should be paid for.

In terms of payment, you should try to go the hourly rate. Take what you feel your services are worth. But don't sell yourself short.

cool. pretty positive reply from people. all seems to be about not selling my self short, as opposed to not ripping people off...

good idea with the loggin of the hours I guess I shoulda done that from the start nevermind.

I think it depends upon different factors like type of design, special requirement, contents, SEO if any the time of completion of the project.