What do you expect to pay for a website?

[holmewoodorg]

huh, what for?:|

For giving people an indication of how much you paid really helps at times that.

 

[andrewj]

I think there is a market segment for all kinds of price and quality. If you believe your work is worth the buck, then charge as much as you could. You will find takers at whatever price with time. you just need to stick around a bit i guess.

 

[Fuzzy]

For giving people an indication of how much you paid really helps at times that.

oh give over

 

[Chris Ashdown]

The way I see it is the very loose description "Build a website" what does it mean to most people.

To me it means building a e-commerce site from start to finish, i.e. totally original

To others it means getting a e-commerce package (be it in a box or freeware) and designing a front end template so it looks slightly different to the others using the same basic package but not offering any real enhancements, maybe just a few tweaks

To yet others it just means half a dozen static web pages

If you look at the designers own websites you get a good impression of their capabilities as the clever ones give great samples of their work whilst the also ran's just give a 50 word description to say the are a designer and no examples

For all of us it's just a great pity that both SEO expert and Designer are such diluted titles they get near the stage of being useless to describe the ability of the good ones

 

[Paul Norman]

So your sneaker site was designed for free. Well they are muppets then if they are working for free.

Nope. The Sneaker site was designed and built by a highly professional company, and represents a significant investment, because it is important to our business. In fact, key. We need it to gain vast numbers of visitors each day, which the company concerned have achieved.

We need it also to provide a back of house system to run our business, and to keep records.

 

[Paul Norman]

My point earlier was this. People claim that they wish to pay nothing for their websites, which is fair enough. But for their own business, they expect to charge.

Of course, you can download software and build a site for free. And you might even build a good one, if you learn enough about it.

But for a key investment in my business marketing, I need to go to professionals, and for that, I am willing to pay a price.

My view is that if your website is a key component of your marketing, you should go for the very best you can afford.

The challenge, raised here, is establishing what the very best is. My recommendation would be to talk extensively to your potential suppliers, and try to glean what they know, and what they have previously achieved. Build some rapport, some confidence.

 

[RedEvo]

I could provide a URL of a site and ask people to estimate the cost. What this misses is the journey to get to the finished product. I've been involved in sites where £2k-£3k would seem reasonable when looking at the finished product, yet I know the site took 200 man hours to achieve, meaning even at bargain basement freelancer rates it would be £5k, and at least double that at modest company rates.

Website development projects are rarely just a case of converting some words and pictures into pages of HTML. I think some people miss this.

d

 

[Loaded Studios]

At the end of the day, once they get there cheap job.......they will soon be knocking on our doors to get it fixed.

I say... you think we're exspensive, wait until you use the cheap option, always cost more in the long run.

 

[OpenSure]

We have the same sort of issue with hosting services and support, it takes investment in kit and human time to do properly. I feel a bit of a rant coming on but...

We provide what we think is an exceptionally good value package which we do because we are interested in the long term business with clients rather than one big win. Yet we still get people thinking we are expensive and that el-cheapo-£3-per-month-hosting is the benchmark.

Let's say it costs £40K+ (sal+ directly equip, insure, office costs etc) to employ a decent techie for a year. At £3 per month that means they need 1,100+ customers to meet their single employee costs, let alone the hosting + ancillary costs. How much quality of service can that £36pa actually offer? Then it still needs to fund investment in new technology, training, sales promotion and give a return to the business owners and taxman!

Do people with a business value it or assess their risk when it rests on just £36pa or less than one thousandth of a key persons time?

Most small businesses spend more on biscuits than hosting and web site design combined!

As much of what we all do appears so intangible, I doubt you can convince/educate such businesses of its value without your sales process being prohibitively long and expensive. Businesses need to find out for themselves how expensive cheap stuff can be. If they don't acquire a sense of relative value quickly they probably won't be in business for long!

We don't market ourselves on price, but in the end we tend to pick up a lot of business helping to sort out problems and resolve issues arising from 'cheap' services so perhaps it is they who do that expensive educational process for us ;-)

 

[xpresstelecoms]

we roughly look to pay abt £200 - £300. Don't know why some people ask such idiotic figures

 

[Baz Watkins]

we roughly look to pay abt £200 - £300. Don't know why some people ask such idiotic figures

So in relation to that price what do you expect to get for your £300?

When I started this thread it was a little out of frustration, but now I believe that you can't win with people who just don't value what web designers do, and yet if you equate a web designer to a similar skill set as that of a builder or mechanic i.e. we put things together to get a desired outcome, we can't charge the same price, as our value is somehow defined differently.

Also how much time do you expect to get for the £300 you pay, 20, 40, 50 hours. Let’s take that middle one as an example, £300 / 40 hours = £7.50 an hour, just over the new minimum wage, for a qualified professional? That price includes all the stuff we have to put up with, all the changes clients demand for no extra cost, or the sudden realisation that what they wanted is undoable and it is somehow your fault.

I offer web design, marketing, copywriting as well as other services, and yet I can't charge more than the minimum wage for these services. Don't make me laugh, business owners and individuals who deem £300 a fair price, wouldn't dream of reducing their prices or wages because I deemed them to high, they'd just tell me where to go.

The problem as I see it is that companies have over the last few years targeted customers with mass produced budget websites to such a degree, that the first 10 pages of Google will show again and again websites for a quid, or a hundred quid, or even free.

This gives a false idea of cost to the customer, and I believe it’s going to get worse. Now I'm all for preventing companies charging a overpriced premium for a standard service, that's not fair to the client, but when a prospective client expects to get a new website that looks and works the same as Amazon but the budget is £500 because a 16 year old decided that was all the needed to buy spot cream and glue, then they can walk off in my opinion.

Over the last 6 months I have agonised about what to charge, and the reasons for being cheap over not so cheap. I have started many such posts with the aim to get help from more experienced operators, but I have come to the conclusion that I don't care about to what the client expects to spend, this is my price, and that's it, I'm not as cheap as some, and I'm know here near as expensive as others.

One final thing, if you quote an hourly rate for your services, all the enquirer sees is say £25 x 40 hours x 48 weeks = £48k. Now we all know that unless the phone rings constantly you get nowhere near that value. You may well struggle to get £25k, which works out as the average UK salary, but the average UK salary isn't accurate, because the companies that pay the salaries have to spend upwards of 30% to 50% on top to cover insurance and work costs.

So going back to my original post question, but with a slight edit. Instead of ‘What do you expect to pay for a website?’, it should read ‘How come you expect to pay so little for a website?’.

Ok. Rant over.

 

[Esk247]

It's not black and white though.

Some people are after a bargain, fair enough, some people are just rude with their expectations and others have been stung before so are just not prepared to spend any more money on cowboy web designers.

I see it from both sides of the fence. I've designed/developed very basic web platforms for startups. HTML/CSS and a bit of Javascript..that's all..nothing fancy, no databases or CMS, just the basics to get people going. I only charged a few hundred for these sites but still I experienced the 'bargain hunter' and the 'silly expectations' customer as well as the 'but it cost me £2000 and it doesnt even display my logo properly' customer. << who has been stung before, I didnt charge him 2k.

Recently I paid for some web work for one of my businesses. £600 per month for 4 months and in the end..i did most of it myself because the customer services was non existent and the web designer went 'off on holiday' with an out of office auto responder for 2 weeks. Cheers mate!

The web designers world is being bashed by cowboys who are only after one thing, clients money, they promise the world and deliver sod all. Then they leave everyone else to face the consequences.

There really does need to be some sort of Web Designers Guild, only the best need apply. Even that would become corrupt though wouldn't it :|

 

[Normansmith]

They are fast becoming the Used Car salesmen of the 21st century. Bad press and poor quality from overseas as well as here in the UK. Large companies who have changed their names several times to "protect themselves" and who in fact are changing again this week ? Have done the industry no favours, but they have made a tidy sum, but the muck spreader has left a trail of smelly stuff.
Many of these companies have used the free website as the "USP" for their business model, then made millions form the tied contracts,extras, keyword promotions etc.
Not an easy sell, so look at a different approach, that values your skill appropriately.

 

[saffr0n]

With web designers you will always need to be patient. Especially if you are saving money and acting as the project manager.

I recently started a project for 2 e-commerce websites with extensive modifications such as price calulation features based on size input, complete redesign of every page, additional description boxes, category display page modifications to show variants price structure on-rollover and so on and onnnnn.
This cost me £11000. This is on the 'low' side to be honest.

Before this I paid £800 for a basic 'suitable-to-sell' website. (4-years ago)

So it really depends on what you ask for ... and who you get the work done with. Freelancers will come and go inbetween large projects. This is simply because they are human and they can have issues. If you deal with larger companies, they usually have cover for people who disappear.

If you have the time and know-how take control and be your project manager. Otherwise hire someone on contract and let them deal with the developers. This way you get a finished product without the stress in-between.

 

[JDX_John]

While I don't want to pay lots, to me I wonder what you guys can do for a low price like £200. What exactly does that get me? how many hours would you put in for that money? Just writing the content for my own website would cost way more than that if I charged myself my own rate.

 

[Faevilangel]

While I don't want to pay lots, to me I wonder what you guys can do for a low price like £200. What exactly does that get me? how many hours would you put in for that money? Just writing the content for my own website would cost way more than that if I charged myself my own rate.

£200 would get you from 2-8 hours of a freelancer and maybe an hour from an agency. You would probably get a 2/3 page website for that.

 

[Esk247]

£200...depends. Sometimes that would cover installation of a CMS/Package like Prestashop or whatever. Plus some other little bits and pieces.

But businesses rarely need just web designers these days..they need web developers. An ongoing partnership between the two, enabling constant updates, security checks, tech support etc.

 

[MASSEY]

£200 would get you from 2-8 hours of a freelancer and maybe an hour from an agency. You would probably get a 2/3 page website for that.

Didnt you originally design this site http://www.baobab-fruit.co.uk/ ?

 

[Faevilangel]

Didnt you originally design this site http://www.baobab-fruit.co.uk/ ?

I did do the original site

 

[DesignerNick]

There really does need to be some sort of Web Designers Guild, only the best need apply. Even that would become corrupt though wouldn't it :|

I vote for Blatter to run it

I agree and have posted before about something like this to show the serious companies / freelancers and the "mates son with a copy of frontpage" who can knock you up a website.

I often get people who don't value my time at all and do try to take the mick and 99% of the time these are people I have helped out and been a bit kind to in terms of my time and what I charge them. The clients I am strict with always value my time that little bit more.

One of the main things I have had a lot of lately are "Web Design Franchises" where people buy in and are suddenly a web designer. I have had a few clients in the past 2 weeks phone up to fix something that their "designer" couldn't which was a simple bit of HTML and PHP that is basic stuff and the client had been ripped off by this "big name" and went with them because of the "big name" that had been featured in the press so thought they would be good.

Another thing is these City Local type sites which offer a web site which will be top in Google within a week for £99. I get people calling asking if I can beat that as that is what they deem it to be worth.

So many people see Web Guys (SEO, Web Design, Web Dev) as cowboys nowadays without really knowing what they do / know because they got ripped off by trying to be cheap. It is like me going to buy a tyre for my car from a man in the back of a van to save some money and wondering why it had a puncture when I went to fit it and having to buy a new one anyway.

 

[MASSEY]

I did do the original site

Maybe i shouldn't of asked

 

[JDX_John]

Any kind of web design guild as described is unrealistic. Besides, bodies already exist for freelancers and contractors, such as PCG... but they don't have an exam only a membership fee.

 

[Esk247]

Any kind of web design guild as described is unrealistic. Besides, bodies already exist for freelancers and contractors, such as PCG... but they don't have an exam only a membership fee.

which is the problem..they become 'mafia' like organisations that only allow the highest paying members in to the 'club'.

normally, a business 'expert' would suggest that bad practices would lead these companies or individuals to be found out and eventually they would lose too much business to be able to continue..however..this just doesn't happen. In the same way as those abusing black hat techniques on Google, there are those out there who are making some serious cash from ripping people off...usually via contracts that are vastly over priced and offer little or no support what so ever.

It's all very well having a web design job done badly, if you pay peanuts, you hope for the best. But when i see people being charged £800 a month for a 2 page website..contracted up..the domain owned by the web designer, no way out at all..it just makes me so angry i feel like i want to throw a wobbly and go all red and moody looking.

 

[holmewoodorg]

ESK That was a great post. I salute you.

 

[holmewoodorg]

While I don't want to pay lots, to me I wonder what you guys can do for a low price like £200. What exactly does that get me? how many hours would you put in for that money? Just writing the content for my own website would cost way more than that if I charged myself my own rate.

For 200 pounds you would get about a days work from me which would be a basic 3 page site. My last bid was from a com pany that contacted me for a new redesign in a month for a CHARITY that was willing to pay 6k. If people are going to take the pre-verbial and say what do you charge for 200 pounds do you expect people to be happy. Grow up and stop winding people up.

 

[holmewoodorg]

Any kind of web design guild as described is unrealistic. Besides, bodies already exist for freelancers and contractors, such as PCG... but they don't have an exam only a membership fee.

Your site I have looked it up on the internet. You would have been better with mr site for 25 pounds a year and do it yourself if it is http://www.jdxsolutions.com/about.html that site is 2004 and pathetic.

 

[holmewoodorg]

So in relation to that price what do you expect to get for your £300?

When I started this thread it was a little out of frustration, but now I believe that you can't win with people who just don't value what web designers do, and yet if you equate a web designer to a similar skill set as that of a builder or mechanic i.e. we put things together to get a desired outcome, we can't charge the same price, as our value is somehow defined differently.

Also how much time do you expect to get for the £300 you pay, 20, 40, 50 hours. Let’s take that middle one as an example, £300 / 40 hours = £7.50 an hour, just over the new minimum wage, for a qualified professional? That price includes all the stuff we have to put up with, all the changes clients demand for no extra cost, or the sudden realisation that what they wanted is undoable and it is somehow your fault.

I offer web design, marketing, copywriting as well as other services, and yet I can't charge more than the minimum wage for these services. Don't make me laugh, business owners and individuals who deem £300 a fair price, wouldn't dream of reducing their prices or wages because I deemed them to high, they'd just tell me where to go.

The problem as I see it is that companies have over the last few years targeted customers with mass produced budget websites to such a degree, that the first 10 pages of Google will show again and again websites for a quid, or a hundred quid, or even free.

This gives a false idea of cost to the customer, and I believe it’s going to get worse. Now I'm all for preventing companies charging a overpriced premium for a standard service, that's not fair to the client, but when a prospective client expects to get a new website that looks and works the same as Amazon but the budget is £500 because a 16 year old decided that was all the needed to buy spot cream and glue, then they can walk off in my opinion.

Over the last 6 months I have agonised about what to charge, and the reasons for being cheap over not so cheap. I have started many such posts with the aim to get help from more experienced operators, but I have come to the conclusion that I don't care about to what the client expects to spend, this is my price, and that's it, I'm not as cheap as some, and I'm know here near as expensive as others.

One final thing, if you quote an hourly rate for your services, all the enquirer sees is say £25 x 40 hours x 48 weeks = £48k. Now we all know that unless the phone rings constantly you get nowhere near that value. You may well struggle to get £25k, which works out as the average UK salary, but the average UK salary isn't accurate, because the companies that pay the salaries have to spend upwards of 30% to 50% on top to cover insurance and work costs.

So going back to my original post question, but with a slight edit. Instead of ‘What do you expect to pay for a website?’, it should read ‘How come you expect to pay so little for a website?’.

Ok. Rant over.

Baz but have you seen the guys site though http://www.jdxsolutions.com he claims I would pay 200 pounds for that he designed it himself. A child of 10 could do better. The thing is baz you need to be good a web (thats me) and good at sales thats me as well then you are laughing, build yourself up then yoou charge 500 quid and a weeks work for a 5 page site.

 

[holmewoodorg]

While I don't want to pay lots, to me I wonder what you guys can do for a low price like £200. What exactly does that get me? how many hours would you put in for that money? Just writing the content for my own website would cost way more than that if I charged myself my own rate.

Another post by you jdx? http://www.4networking.biz/Forum/ViewTopic/95871

Titled is there anything good about my website. You do not want web designers to comment but are soliciting our ideas of us here and winding us up. And your comments on the other board are the same. Would you ask a member of the public if you thought you had a brain tumour john or a doctor.

 

[MASSEY]

For 200 pounds you would get about a days work from me which would be a basic 3 page site.

A bog standard 3 page html website? might as well get a free google site rather than pay 200 quid

 

[Chris Ashdown]

we roughly look to pay abt £200 - £300. Don't know why some people ask such idiotic figures

You may find out if you are unlucky enough to have your site go down, and loose even just part of a days sales

 

[JDX_John]

For 200 pounds you would get about a days work from me which would be a basic 3 page site. My last bid was from a com pany that contacted me for a new redesign in a month for a CHARITY that was willing to pay 6k. If people are going to take the pre-verbial and say what do you charge for 200 pounds do you expect people to be happy. Grow up and stop winding people up.

Nice as it is of you to post 4 consecutive replies attacking me, anyone that childish is patently not worth listening to.

You seem to struggle with reading because nowhere did I say I only wanted to spend £200. In fact I was asking how anyone can sell a decent product that cheap.

 

[JDX_John]

Baz but have you seen the guys site though http://www.jdxsolutions.com he claims I would pay 200 pounds for that

That's not true. Kindly edit your posts to remove the lies.

 

[holmewoodorg]

Sorry I am not taking nothing down. If you want to talk ring me and we will talk. As for lies what lies you designed a site. Your asking to pay 200 pounds for a website. You find someone who will do it for that price. To be honest I find you insulting.

 

[Faevilangel]

Sorry I am not taking nothing down. If you want to talk ring me and we will talk. As for lies what lies you designed a site. Your asking to pay 200 pounds for a website. You find someone who will do it for that price. To be honest I find you insulting.

He asked what would you expect for £200 NOT I want to pay £200. I get these questions a fair bit, what could I get for xx, and once you ask them what they really want and give a price for that, they normally go with that.

John is just being nosey and you're acting like a twit.

 

[Posilan]

Your asking to pay 200 pounds for a website. You find someone who will do it for that price. To be honest I find you insulting.

Well, to be fair, you are promoting a 4 page website (via the top right corner "peeloff" on your homepage) for only an extra £47. You find £247 fine, but £200 "insulting"? :|

Your own website also shows a headline price of "from" £77 per page, but after clicking on the link, all reference to that disappears showing a minimum price of £647...

Steve

 

[Paul Dean]

It's interesting that amongst the bile and personal attacks, visits to sites to slag fellow businessmen off, mis-reading of posts and downright idiocy displayed on this thread, no one has seriously defined what a website is or does.

For example, there will be a massive difference between a pretty framework into which a client's own words will be inserted, and a website that's designed to be fully functional from the start. By fully functional I mean a site which will have professionally written copy, onboard SEO, personalised graphic design and a framework designed to reflect the branding and ethos of the new owner's business.

And this ignores items such as shopping carts, autoresponders, video, audio or any one of a thousand other things which the "budget-conscious" buyer will expect are standard.

Of course it's possible to spend under £100 on a site, but which of the above components does anyone think will be missing from the above list?

That's a rhetorical question; they all will.

If anyone fancies costing out just one of these components then you'll get a broad understanding of where the money goes.

 

[holmewoodorg]

Well, to be fair, you are promoting a 4 page website (via the top right corner "peeloff" on your homepage) for only an extra £47. You find £247 fine, but £200 "insulting"? :|

Your own website also shows a headline price of "from" £77 per page, but after clicking on the link, all reference to that disappears showing a minimum price of £647...

Steve

http://www.btbusinesswebsolutions.co.uk/ 77 pounds you see. I run http://www.your-majesty.co.uk/ where yes they are more expensive and my agency site that on chrome you can see our offer http://www.web-design-bradford.co.uk/ 4 pages for 247 pounds. Thanks

 

[JDX_John]

you designed a site.

No I didn't. If you read properly the other thread (slightly stalky btw) I never defend my site or suggest it is better to do it myself.

Your asking to pay 200 pounds for a website.

Wrong again. I asked, with some suspicion, how anyone can produce anything good for such a LOW price.

To be honest I find you insulting.

Hilarious. You mis-read my posts, start a personal attack on me and I'm insulting you? Well since you're already insulted...

You show utter lack of professionalism, to start a personal attack on a total stranger.

You can't write properly (or read for that matter). Nevermind on the forum where such things can be excused, the very first line on your BT site has a glaring error. In fact, I'm struggling to find a sentence which doesn't have an error. It's a pretty big failing in a web-designer not to have excellent reading/writing skills. You want clients to trust you with their online presence?

Seriously, you are taking responsibility for http://www.btbusinesswebsolutions.co.uk/ and you're criticising my site? This is some kind of joke, right? Apart from the fact it's truly awful on every level, it's "Powered by Google Sites". Impressive stuff.

Come on, admit it. You're not a web-design business, you're a random guy doing web-design in his bedroom. Do you even have a registered company name?


There is one great piece of advice on your website: "Trust the professionals." I intend to, which is why I won't be looking to you for advice.

 

[Posilan]

http://www.btbusinesswebsolutions.co.uk/ 77 pounds you see. I run http://www.your-majesty.co.uk/ where yes they are more expensive and my agency site that on chrome you can see our offer http://www.web-design-bradford.co.uk/ 4 pages for 247 pounds. Thanks

Ah, thanks for that.

It was the website in your profile I looked at (http://www.web-design-bradford.co.uk/) which shows:

but after clicking on the button there there was no mention of it

Steve

 

[holmewoodorg]

JDX I CREATED THAT SITE IN 2 HOURS MY AWARD WINNING SITE IS AT WWW.YOUR-MAJESTY.CO.UK We intend to amuse and this forum is providing us with much fun.