Website design charges??!!

[ianonline]

Help!! How much?!!

I have recently built two websites for a friend of mine and wanted to ask for advice on charging for the sites. I didn't give a quote upfront because he's a friend, I need the work and didn't want to scare him off, how much do you think it should be? He also doesn't have much money. The hosting and domains for both have already been paid by him.

I can't give domain names as I'm a new user (but this isn't an advert!), the first website is lgrecruitment and it's a .biz website! The text and photos were provided although I produced the company logo and designed a company t-shirt for him. I produced all HTML, CSS, DHTML, a little PHP and I pasted in some Javascript. The site is about 18 pages. Anyone know what I should charge?

The other site is just five pages, is lgpromotions and is a co.uk website!Everything on the site (including photos) were produced by me. The text is mostly his but we came up with it together and I typed it up. The site doesn't look that professional in my opinion, but it's what he wanted.

Thanks for any help you can give,

Ian

 

[Whistle Ink]

I'd give you £100 for both sites - not because they are excellent in my opinion but just to make you feel a tiny bit better!

The promotions site is horrendous! Good attempt though by an amateur. If his work is really really good then this site lets him down and wouldn' positivley promote the business.

The other site was beareable.

You have proven that you can indeed build a site - who can't? Now you need to focus on learning good design and then what you can charge will be higher an justified!

Have a look at other websites, his competitors websites, see how they are doing it - get ideas from them. Compare their work to yours - ask yourself where does your website fit in with the rest? Is it a pretty good website or pretty crap?

Also if he doesn't have enough money then that might be a problem! Good design costs!

Good luck with it!

:smile:

 

[YEM]

Here is where you have gone wrong - you didn't quote up-front because it was a friend and you needed the work!!!!

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you often find that its your friends who take the 'micheal' when it comes to this kind of thing. If you want to run a successful business, you must quote for everything up-front, even to your friends - this way, both parties know what is expected and what they will receive.

You really have 2 options now:
If your friend is willing to pay, you need to work out your hourly rate by first working out what it costs you to run your studio (or home office). You need to take all of your overheads into consideration, including your equipment, any rent, bills, including telephone, internet costs etc etc. You can probably work this out as a monthly overhead cost, then divide by weeks/days to work out how much it costs you each day or week to be in business. Your hourly rate should then be at least the figure you work out (but if you want to start making money, it needs to be more than this cost).


If your friend is not willing to pay you and is being difficult, then you need to use this as a learning curve, forget payment and use the sites for your portfolio.

Good luck

 

[BlackBerryUK]

http://www.lgrecruitment.biz/ - looks alright..
maybe yellow is not the best choice.. but if they are happy with it..then its cool. the banner image looks squashed for some reason.. you will need to fix that.

to be honest for a site like this, you should charge him £300. simply because its functional.. it works, and there are links to every page on the site. The only thing that needs working on is the main homepage. thats where you will have a HIGH drop off rate i think. I also would get rid of the fading effect when you click to visit to another page. job seekers are always in a rush to look for more jobs, that gives a slow effect on the site..

good luck

ps: did you do a site map page?

 

[Astaroth]

Is web design your job or a hobby? If you do get paid for it/ intend to be paid in the future do you already have a portfolio.

To be honest if I asked a friend to do something for me and they agreed to without talking about costs I would not be impressed with them presenting me with any form of bill afterwards.

If you didnt agree cost up front and he is now willing to pay then accept what ever he is offering (and add the links to your portfolio if you need them)

 

[ewo]

I'd suggest you charge £79 each

 

[datahound]

I'm with Blackberry, 300 squid I tend to charge for a small business site. As he is a mate (and you need a bit more practice yet) tell him it's a buy one get one free offer. £300 for the pair.