| What to charge for web-site design and maintenance?

What to charge for web-site design and maintenance?

binga_4980 asked:


I do little publishing and web jobs out of my home. Most of it is volunteer work for non-profits. I’ve never charged for a web-site. I agreed to do a small site as a favor to a friend of a co-worker.

It would be really simple. I’d just used page templates, they are aware that this is what I plan to do. There will be only a few pages, photo gallery and a quarterly newsletter. I don’t know what type of organization this is for, but from knowing the person it is for I’m assuming its something athletic, so I’m wondering if there will be the need to update scores or times at some frequency.

I want to go into my meeting with some idea of pricing guideline. How much for initial set-up? How many updates should I include or should I charge for updates each time or include it in a package?

I’m not looking for big bucks, like I said it’s simple. I’m not a professional but I do good, clean looking work and I’m easy-going with changes. I just want to be compenstated for my time. Would $250 for initial set-up be resonable and $50 for each newsletter update? The hosting fees and domain purchase would come out of that. I was thinking $20/hr for any other updates with a minimum of 1 hour charge.

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Comments

5 Responses to “What to charge for web-site design and maintenance?”

  1. Chad P on October 26th, 2011 4:08 pm

    $250 is too cheap IMO. $500 minimum setup and $50/hr minimum IMO.

  2. DeadMeth on October 29th, 2011 10:04 pm

    The average entry level rate for web design is $25. If you’re just doing this as a hobbyist and not for the money, $250 is alright, but you could double that and still have a very fair request.

    I’d say charge hourly for updates after the fact. If you don’t want to be tethered to updating, consider the integration of a CMS.

    Unless you’ve got a reseller package specifically for doing this, hosting should NOT come out of your payment, it should be a separate item on the invoice.

  3. Victor on October 31st, 2011 2:45 am

    I’d suggest $100 to $150 will be reasonable for a 5 page web site with a contact form. If you use site studio to set up web pages then you can set up a web site in few minutes. Depending on the time it requires to build each web site you can charge for each web site.

    You can also host web sites of your customers. Check
    You can host multiple web sites with one web hosting account.

  4. ejaeDesign on November 3rd, 2011 3:52 am

    Hi,

    I’ve been in the interactive field for the past dozen years or so (doesnt’ seem that long!) and I can answer on the our own experience and from working with dozens of other freelancers. Hope the following helps.

    Now on one hand what you charge for your website is what you feel comfortable with, whether it’s a favor, hobby, or a full fledged freelance “gig”.

    At our company (http://www.ejaedesign.com) most freelancers charge anywhere from $35 to $75 per hour depending on the experience level, and sometimes the “expertise” between somebody that charges $35 is not that different someone charging $75. However, professionalism and dependability is.

    I think the best answer I can give is not necessarily what you should charge today, but what can you do to start making informed decisions on what to charge tomorrow.

    Grab a free account at an online service like Toggl (http://www.toggl.com) and keep track of how many you’re spending on each project. Make sure to track it by task, even phone calls or emails.

    Then you’ll start to generate a database of your own speed vs. hours spent, and continue to be more and more accurate in future projects.

    For another great resource, take a look at this guide called “Don’t Just
    Roll the Dice” (http://blog.businessofsoftware.org/2009/10/dont-just-roll-the-dice-usefully-short-guide-to-software-pricing.html).

    Good luck!

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