As a Designer, how much do you charge these days?
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- zylernjax
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You don't need to give specifics on prices or exactly how you break them down. And if you're worried about competition then you shouldn't post. I won't give away my location, so I'm not too worried.
Generally, in my area, I offer websites aimed towards small - large businesses. Since I mainly advertise on Craigslist, I find a lot of people who want to low-ball me. It makes sense, I suppose. There are so many crappy web designers on there that use templates which look horrible, and offer their services at $200 - even if I could accurately convince a potential customer why going with them is a bad idea, they still don't want to budge on a higher price.
It's kind of funny; lately I have so many customers who are telling me that it would be easier if they just used a do-it-yourself website maker, and paid $120. Yet, I know that they don't want to, because they've come to me. Obviously it's a threat. So... after 3 years of doing freelance work, and with the economy getting even worse; where I used to charge $1,000 on average for a nice, fully completed website - I'm now only pushing out about $500, mayyybeee $700.
I used to charge per hour, but it scared the small mom and pops away. So, how do you charge/ handle clients/ set up your policies (half up front?, all by the hour, etc, etc)?
Do you work alone, or in a team? How many projects do you take on at once?
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- David Goode
- Preeminent Rocketeer
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- Web Designer and Host
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Hi there,
I treat every client as an individual and price accordingly. My average site is around €800+ but this is usually small businesses.
I do larger jobs that I know will be painful but they pay well at €3000 upwards.
I also freelance and some clients are on hourly rates while others are on price for the job. The toughest bit is getting them to understand that delays cause problems. Just because they don't have a timeframe doesn't mean that I can keep putting off other clients.
First time clients have to pay 50% deposit (non-refundable) and then further payments as each milestone is completed. Existing clients pay monthly, and even some of those are taking longer than usual to clear payments.
Just my cents
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- zylernjax
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Thanks for that insight! I, too, have learned to require a 50% deposit. The non-refundable aspect is new to me. I will look into incorporating that.
How can you tell how large the business is? A lot of times, someone will either say, "I'm starting this new business" (so I know they don't have much capital) - or they will say, "We've been in business x amount of years".
Besides those two aspects, do you Google their company? What steps do you take to figure out if they have the funds to warrant paying in the thousands? I mean, I try to give all of my clients the best I can - but some of them want a shopping cart, community, videos, slideshows, etc, etc for like $500. And when I turn down a job, I feel bad because I know that I can add those things in easily. Yet, I'd rather charge more for them.
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- Cliff Pfeifer
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- Website Developer
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What I do, and what has worked the best for me in terms of getting paid and keeping business coming in, is to charge on a retainer type basis. Give them an estimate of how many hours you think it will be, then have them pay up front in 10 hour chunks - or whatever. Then if they throw you a curve ball or try to add all sorts of extra stuff in there, you can say - "that will take 10 more hours, and I can start as soon as you pay". Get it all up front and you never get burned.
I used to do the deposit, and I still do in some cases, but retainer is the best way to make sure you get your money and don't get run into the ground with changes. Sometimes they stretch the project out for months, gathering content, making changes ECT, if you don't get the other half until the end you could be waiting a long time. Just my opinion. - The difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer.
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- David Goode
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- Web Designer and Host
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Hi there,
I will Google new clients but I get a lot of referrals too. I treat it as a business. I know what I need to earn as a minimum. I also know that I waste time with new products and making my own mistakes. This lets me calculate a realistic hourly rate and I try to stand by that rate.
In some cases I will drop my rate and on others I may negotiate a deal based on minimum cost with an agreed share of the takings if an ecommerce site. I am realising that sometimes it is important to say 'no' to some of the clients. Some will rethink their position while others go to freelancers in Asia and get frustrated when language becomes an issue and then they cannot get hold of the guy who has their money.
The whole web design thing is still a melting pot of schoolkids vs students vs seasoned pros. The prices reflect what you are getting.
Cheers
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- zylernjax
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- Wow, thanks Cliff and David! Your insight is very appreciated. As a young entrepreneur, calculating loss vs. earnings is a difficult feat. Especially calculating your own worth. You've both given me much to think over. I appreciate it!
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- Cliff Pfeifer
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- Website Developer
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I agree with David on everything. It's hard sometimes because every project has different needs and every client wants to work a different way. You just need to come up with a structure that ensures that you get paid for the hours you work, first and foremost, and gets the client what they need in a reasonable fashion - otherwise they won't come back for more.
Just a word of advice - how ever you do it, never put a live site up without getting the payment balance first. That is the fastest way to get burned. I speak from experience.
- The difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer.
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- zylernjax
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You are so right cliff!!
About 3 years ago, when I first really started designing websites for people, I trusted in people too much. I was hired by this guy who lived in San Diego and drove a Mercedes. At the time, I think I was only charging him about $400. But to me, that was a start! "Wow, $400 to do what I love?!"
So, anyways. He was really cool, and I worked quite diligently on his design for about a month. At this point I wasn't taking any money up front. I had some weird idea that I provided the service first, and then they paid me. Somewhere along the lines, towards the end... this really charming and nice guy suddenly accused me of changing my final price.
After a brief discussion on the phone, where I pointed out that I had not changed the price, and that it had always been $400, he backed-down, and apologized. The next day I went to log into the back of Joomla (his site) and I couldn't get in. And then I realized, I had given him the admin password so that he could become familiar with the backend.
I called him and called him. Nothing. He never replied to me. Over the course of a few weeks I began to notice subtle changes on the website. He was adding content and re-designing a few things. At this point, man... I was pissed off. I hadn't been paid, and he hijacked the website. So, doing the only thing that I really knew how to do, I DDoS'd the website through various proxies and dumby servers. I was successful. After I took the site down the first night, I waited a week. He had it back online, and I could tell that he was a bit nervous because he added a "security" badge on the header.
I continued to DDos that asshole until he took his site down.
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- JEM
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:arrowu:
50% down, non-refundable...
Develop it on your own server.
Client has no back end access ever during development.
Upon site completion, client signs off, pays the balance.
Then, and only then, after you get paid, you transfer the site to the client's domain and hand them the keys... - Thanks,
jim
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- Virya Technologies
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- Director, Virya Technologies
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Hi folks,
I run a Buddhist Right Livelihood business so our pricing structure is quite open and transparent. I trust my clients and although I have been burned a few times early in my career, these tended to be low-end clients wanting something for nothing, with very little value in the work that was done (who I rarely deal with now - I quote based on how much the job will cost and if I get a response of 'well I can get it for £200 from Bob down the pub' my response is generally 'OK, great - let me know how that goes for you' rather than drop my price, which I used to when I first started). Nowadays I don't have that problem at all, I don't think I've ever had a client not pay - we form a reciprocal relationship based on trust and openness which underpins our business and I think that really helps.
Our standard rate for all work we do is £60/hr +VAT and we estimate or quote based on the projected number of hours which the project will require from start to finish. If the project takes less hours to complete, we charge for the hours taken rather than what we estimated - we rarely go over the quoted time but if we predict this may be likely, we would inform the client prior to them accumulating the charges. We also have maintenance contracts based on the number of hours the client requires each month, paid monthly or annually, for which an invoice is automatically generated by ClearBooks with reminder emails sent at regular intervals.
We require a 50% deposit to start work on new projects or ad-hoc work like others have mentioned, with 25% due when the site goes live, and the remaining 25% one month following subject to client acceptance. We're slightly more flexible with this for clients we've already got a working relationship with but mostly we stick to this, it seems to work well. Sometimes on larger jobs we break things down into more specific key milestones which have a payment linked to them. We do have T&C's and each job has a contract and schedule of works specifying exactly what is required.
Not sure I necessarily agree with not allowing the client back end access during development, as we develop the site collaboratively with the client learning their way around the system, populating content and so forth during the process, it would be a hindrance for us to not allow them access. I can see why you might not want to as they could just grab a backup and be off with your work, but I can't go through life suspecting every client of being a thief now can I!
The profits from our commercial work (over and above the cost of expenses like running an office, paying salaries, subscriptions to sites, VAT bills etc) goes into providing significantly discounted rates for charities and not-for-profits - we do at least one job per month on a 'dana' or generosity basis which means the organisation pays what they can afford to pay. This has meant the equivalent of £16,000 worth of effective donations to charities by giving reduced price services.
It's a different way of doing business but it's worked thus far.
Ruth - Virya Technologies Ltd.
Virya Technologies - Suffolk Joomla User Group
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