Help: what do I charge?!

Ok heres the thing. Ive been making websites for years now, but it hasnt been until recently that Ive been making money off it. So far its been little things, but through the help of a consultant, we have been finding real clients.

THe first time was a let-down. This company asked their consultant for some web-design guys to re-do their front end site. He contacted us and we all met with the companies' manager.

The company specializes in graphing, planning and printing out corperate building blueprints. They got several offices in Manhattan and Westchester. They use their site for their clients to log in and do their bussiness. Now the back end stuff worked great, but the front end stuff was UGLY and outdated. So we agreed that we would put together a mock-up site and send him an example.

After a weekend of grooling work we sent them the mock-up and they liked it. So they asked how much we would charge. So we thought about it and broke it down like this.

1) Their current site was 26 pages of absolute horror.
2) They had little to no content to send us (graphics would have to all be redone and custom)
3) They needed it done in a week.

So we came back at an offer of $100 per page plus $500 flat for the graphics. That would be about $3000 bucks (assuming they wanted 26 pages) plus the consultants fee who tacked on an extra $1000. So $4000 total.

THe guy nearly had a heart attack! So we dropped it $500 and the consultant dropped it $500. So we came up with a second offer of $3000 total. He still said it was way too much and we walked away.

It really sucked to lose it, but we got over it.

But now we got another potential client who runs a bussiness who sells historical documents. The documents range from $1000 bucks to $35,000 ........ however we dont know how much bussiness they actually make. They need their site redone and want to know prices. They do want an added search feature that I would have to learn to do first.

How much should we charge him? We dont want to lose this one too, but we dont want to under charge him either. Any advice would be great. Thanks in advance!

Sorry for typing a book :0)

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wow i charge 100 dollars, for a full site, but im not professional neither do i have much experience lol

Yeah man, I hear ya but I only charge a couple hundred for friends/family. You got a big comapny who makes tons of dough off their site, you cant just charge them pennies, especially when your doing all custom work. </MFP>

I suppose it depends on the complexity of the website. If it is essentially static content, and the customer provides all content, except for the graphics (which you have already quoted a price for), then maybe first page $100, then between $20 and $50 per page for the rest. Again, this all depends on whether the client wants to maintain the site him/her self afterwards. You need to think about how long the site would take to create, and roughly estimate total price based on the creation time.

I think, if you have just started earning money, then keep the amount down initially. You can charge up to 200 - 300 $ for your first few projects. As you gain reputation you will eventually increase your rates.

Rates would also depend on the type of website you are making. It can be static or dynamic. Then you also have to see what technologies you are using.

So there are many things that you have to keep in mind before charging. Remember to ask for complete specifications from the clients. Once you have recieved the specifiactions then decide how much you are gonna charge and add $50 to it (for negotiation purpose). I made the mistake when I started making websites. There demands keeps on growing!!!

I got you guys, and thank you for your input. The thing is Im splitting this $ with my partner AND the consultant. Thats why we gotta aim a bit higher just so I walk away with enough.

My main gripe is undercharging.......I could design a site for 500 bucks and be happy, but if the company is willing (and expecting) to pay $3000 then it becomes difficult. You know? I already knew there was no real straightforward answer to this question.....I guess its on a case to case basis!

.....

If you're not bringing in at least $5000/month per person I wouldn't call your business model viable. Between taxes and overhead costs you would be making about $35-$40K a year which, IMO, is just enough to keep the interest in doing it. If you've got the skills to pull off this kind of business you could do better working for a large company and not work nearly as hard. If you're doing sites for less than $5000 a pop you're working too hard for beer money - unless the sites you build are absolute crap.

Yeah well noted, but I have a full time job....this is just for side cash. Im not a bussiness in any way. I think my work is worth the money (opinion) ..... and im willing to make any customer happy even if I have to throw in some free hours. I just find it difficult to gauge what a customer expects to pay. Even if its for static HTML.

Heres my latest site.....its in Flash

www.salonjoli.com

I charge a flat price that never changes, although you can request a quote if you are not happy with the fee. I based these prices on a vote that I created on a very large content. I do custom graphics and everything else, and can also add provided content to the page for no extra fee. 1. For a non-commercial/personal/charity/money via donations etc. I would charge £15.00 a page. 2. For a company/commercial/business/money-making site etc. I would charge £30.00 a page. For all you in the US, that is 1. $22.50 2.$45.00 approximately although I can't ensure this due to current conversion rates and inflation and interest differences.

Re: www.salonjoli.com (sorry, this is slightly off topic) I have negative and positive opinions, but I've listed most of the negative opinions because hopefully they are most useful!
I have dial-up and it took ages to load...probably not a problem for you broadband users!
The lady on the top of the design kind of makes it look like a dating service.
I like the way the design is structured, specially the way the 'Joli' text seems to come out of the border.
The pattern above the 'i' in Joli - is it a flower? Maybe you could make it a bit clearer?
It's very smart. I read the text on 'home page' before the flash movie was complete, so if you were thinking of cutting the file size down then maybe you could shorten it?
You've spelt 'jewelry' wrong in the 'style' section (right hand side near rotating text). The text rotating behind the 'info' page text is a bit distracting. The opacity of the text on the bridal page could be increased. The yellowish photograph on the 'salon' page contrasts really well against the otherwise quite monotone (wrong word?) colour scheme - it certainly livens it up!

...back to the topic of this thread:


What do you mean by 'real' client? A client who isn't willing to pay $3000 for a professional website, are they a 'real' client?



And you have a consultant for side cash? Does your full-time job not pay enough? I think you charge too much, based upon the Flash site I can see you are competent, but a professional full-time web company will always get more kudos (i.e. cash) from a client.