How Much Should I Charge?

[Dario D.]

I was just wondering; Someone asked me to make a website for their small business, and said to choose how much to charge for it.

It's a simple site of about 15 pages (mostly informational - no advanced forms or anything), and it's going to be fairly artsy (like my other site: www.deefrag.com).

So, what I'd like to know is, how much would a professional charge for a site like this? It'll basically be another deefrag.com, but for a business that sells 2-Way Radios. Fairly simple and to-the-point, but very artsy. What does that go for?

Thanks.

 

[theparamount]

HTML and CSS only?

If its only informational then you better make it pretty artsy.

I'd say you get charged by hour and take 3 hours to complete a good CSS template then another 3 hours to write up the HTML which should be fairly simple.

200 bucks would be a good number I think.

 

[Dario D.]

It'll take about two days to do the art; don't forget...

Yeah, 200 is more or less what I was thinking, but is that standard for HTML and CSS only?

 

[theparamount]

Add in the art and charge em 250 ish. Seems reasonable.

Dunno if its standard.. thats just what I'd charge as a non-professional but working designer.

 

[sin]

$ 75 (not artsy like deefrag) but still decent looking

 

[allabout42]

$100 is a good price to charge in my opinion if it's just html/css.

 

[JYM]

Seeing how there is already a standard set (deefrag.com), they won't expect you to spend too long designing it. I would charge roughly $150 since all the pages will use the same design.

 

[Dario D.]

No, this is going to be made entirely from scratch.

 

[daboss]

the best way to estimate how much it would cost by the number of hours it takes for you do complete the job. for a freelance job and assuming that you do decent work, i'd go with $35 an hour.

you can charge more if you've got a reputation or can be backed up by reputable existing customers.

 

[theparamount]

So I'd say my first opinion 200 is reasonable IMO.

 

[MK3Design]

$250 +

 

[will7]

Don't ask us, we don't know your client. To be blunt, charge however much you think the client is willing or able to pay. Whether that be $200 or $200,000 is up to you and you only, you're the only person who has met the them.

Professionals vary vastly ... some will charge $1000- for most of their designs, others refuse to work for less than $10,000. It depends on two factors - you, and your client.

 

[Dario D.]

Okay, thanks all. I think it's reasonable in this situation to charge around $250, as it will take me some time, and it's coming out expensively good (probably worth a lot more than 250).

 

[will7]

If the project is worth a lot more than $250, then maybe you should try to push for more? Are you sure $250 is the client's absolute limit? If not, then try and hit the limit! Of course, don't blame me if it all goes wrong :p

 

[JYM]

If the project is worth a lot more than $250, then maybe you should try to push for more? Are you sure $250 is the client's absolute limit? If not, then try and hit the limit! Of course, don't blame me if it all goes wrong :p

Agreed, normally companies have a bigger budget so you can ask for more and not be afraid. After all, even if you give some insane price and they tell you what they really want to pay, you can negociate it down. What you cannot do is negociate up.

 

[pcoptimized]

Don't sell yourself short. Art work alone is worth good money. You're not just throwing a FP site up. You're doing custom work for your client. IMO, you have very good design talent from looking at your site.
I say take will7's advice. Ask them what their budget is and work with that. Also factor in the amount of time you think it will take you and weave in what you think is fair for your hourly rate. If you're client has chosen you, they like your work. They will be reasonable with what you charge. Personally, I think it should be more than $250. Unless you think you can get it down in a very short amount of time that will be to your satisfaction.

 

[Dario D.]

Hmm, yeah, I see what you mean.

When I first started trying to figure out a price, I was trying to factor my price around what I thought would be the going rate for one of those really pro-looking flash sites. I figured I'd charge about 20% of what someone would charge for a small flash site (which I can imagine would be thousands of dollars worth of hard work), since this would be a fraction of the effort.

This site will take me about a week to make, since the theme is entirely experimental and needs constant adjustment and redoing. And, considering who the client is, and that I need money right now, I think I can safely go higher than 250.

If I sold web-design as a service, I would charge about $700 for a site like the one I'm making, but since I don't, I won't go that high. Maybe soon I'll be able to.

I've been wondering if I could just make visual templates in Photoshop, that make use of simple CSS pages. Maybe if I learned CSS, I could just make website shells and sell them to small business who need something simple and flashy. I wouldn't mind spitting out a skin per day in Photohop, into a waiting CSS template. Does anyone have any recommendations on how to get something like that working? Could I theoretically just export a set of Photoshop slices into an awaiting website template?

 

[shanee86]

I had been getting guotes for one of my site's and cheapest I found was like $300 just for a psd file. So yea think you could charge more.

 

[Keral_Patel]

$300 to be on safer side.

Bcoz you never know thebuyer will ask for some changes in it or not.

And that would surely take your time.

 

[pcoptimized]

Could I theoretically just export a set of Photoshop slices into an awaiting website template?

Yes. Once you get the template in place, it's only a matter of swapping out the images and changing colors in your css file.