BIG 3 Web Design & Development

Trojan

worc wrote: »

Maybe it's the way I've worded it but I'm not saying charge cost price at all - no chance! I'm just saying charge what it's worth to make a profit but not a fortune because those features don't deserve a fortune; and at the same time make sure the other work you do is protected by a solid contract.

I just don't see how that work would cost 3k - that's my only point. I don't think it's fair to lump the cost of a lost client onto other clients for those features to protect yourself. If it was €500 or €1000 or something I probably wouldn't have posted - but €3,000 of someones money for those features I just don't see it.

I charge my time at an hourly rate a lot of people find expensive (particularly my US based clients at the moment because of $:€ rates). But that's my choice, and I do lose some potential jobs because of it. But it's my choice to charge my time at what I think it's worth and my customers right to go with it or turn it down. I believe I provide good return on investment for my customers, and if they don't believe that then I have time to work on my other income generation projects.

Secondly, it's hard to read a short bullet point list and know just how much work is required. For example, I know some people do a PSD to WordPress theme for $150. Sound reasonable? Maybe if it's a simple single page design with Safari only testing.

But what if the resultant theme has multiple different page templates, design variants, if it's fully widgetised and has WP menu support, SEO friendly, cross-browser support required, etc. Support contracts, training, other resources. Totally different ball game.

Point being we don't know exactly what's what with that bullet point list of work - the question is does the total package provide good return on investment for the total cost.

You gave a breakdown where you've chosen the cheapest possible solution in every case, and assumed no customisation. Let me break it down a bit further and put in what I think are fair timings.

MODx Content Management System - could be replace CMS with Joomla/Wordpress nothing major here - Trojan: CMS install & setup - 30-60 minutes
Email Marketing System Set Up - Mailchimp easy peasy - Trojan: Email marketing setup - 30-60 minutes again depending on config
HTML Email Template Design & Build - Mailchimp again
D.I.Y. 'On Page' SEO Tool - will concede I have no idea about this one Trojan: could be a plugin, - 30-60 minutes again depending on config
Google Analytics Integration - Trojan: 20 minutes for basic setup, 60 minutes to setup Goals and UTMs and document it for client
Google Webmaster Tools Set Up - couple of minutes - Trojan: at least 15 minutes for basic setup including verification
Google Map with Directions - couple of minutes - Trojan: could be 15 minutes, could be an hour - depends how much work required
Social Media Links & Share Buttons - AddThis - Trojan: setting up Social Media profiles as well? If so 60-90 minutes, maybe more, if not, 30 mins
Blog with commenting, sharing & RSS - Wordpress standard - Trojan: don't forget to setup the blog placeholder page, customise the sidebars, install Recent Posts, Recent Comments, Subscribe to Comments and other plugins. But we're in MODx so who knows how long those take to do. 60-120 minutes not unreasonable?
Image Galleries & Image Editor - nothing particularily difficult here though of course no idea what image editor they provide - Trojan: can of worms. "nothing particularly difficult"? Hmmmm. I'd budget 45 minutes minimum if it's something fairly out of the box, but up to half a day if there's something tricky, and that's not including custom CSS. I don't know the platform so can't say
Animated menus and content areas - suppose time can be spent on this yeah maybe depedning on what is wanted by the client - Trojan: another "how long is a piece of string" task. Let's call it 4-6 hours.
Email Enquiry / Call Back Forms - WuFoo - Trojan: Client doesn't want 3rd party service or ongoing costs - we need to build 2 custom forms and skin them ourselves. Call back is easy, takes an hour. Email enquiry needs to get 12 different fields, 4 of them dropdowns with pre-supplied info. 3 hours.

And don't forget testing, client acceptance, work on snag list, sign off. Let's call that another 2 hours of developer time between the emails and work.

I tally my realistic version at just under 24 hours of work. If that's charged at €130 an hour we get €3087.50.

Where's €130 an hour go? Let's say the developer gets €70 an hour. The business takes €60 an hour which is divided up into: insurance, office space, health insurance, light, heat, donuts, network and equipment, development machines, profit margins. And don't forget bad debt and financing credit lines.

Unreasonable?

Giblet

worc wrote: »

Maybe it's the way I've worded it but I'm not saying charge cost price at all - no chance! I'm just saying charge what it's worth to make a profit but not a fortune because those features don't deserve a fortune; and at the same time make sure the other work you do is protected by a solid contract.

I just don't see how that work would cost 3k - that's my only point. I don't think it's fair to lump the cost of a lost client onto other clients for those features to protect yourself. If it was €500 or €1000 or something I probably wouldn't have posted - but €3,000 of someones money for those features I just don't see it.

Wait a second, if someone is asking for bespoke features and is willing to pay for them, then charge them to the hilt. If it's bespoke it's not a standard feature that can be implemented by some pokey eCommerce solution or whatnot. One of our clients pretty much redesigns their site every few months and adds tons of features which basically we charge them for and implement into our core (if applicable). We even offer these features as standards in new versions of code for other clients. They're paying for us to be on hand to do pretty much anything. These are companies with turnovers in the 100's of millions as well, so why not? It's a business after all.

worc

Trojan wrote: »

I tally my realistic version at just under 24 hours of work. If that's charged at €130 an hour we get €3087.50.

Where's €130 an hour go? Let's say the developer gets €70 an hour. The business takes €60 an hour which is divided up into: insurance, office space, health insurance, light, heat, donuts, network and equipment, development machines, profit margins. And don't forget bad debt and financing credit lines.

Unreasonable?

Cool, can't argue with that if €130 is your rate and you're taking the 23.75 hours max you've put down.

I still think that scrappage deal needs a "worth upto €3,000" though and more beef in the description so it's clearer what's included.

Thanks for taking the time to break it down like that.

worc

Giblet wrote: »

why not? It's a business after all.

Very good point - I think I have a different viewpoint on this but that doesn't mean my way is right.

Angelica1

None has named the big three yet! haha!

Placebo

Well Trojan has summed it up nicely. Just my two cents;
I wouldnt say im the may west at development but i do hold a Bsc in computer science and have done my fair share of front end/back end.
Every project is always unique, theres always that little something extra that packs on the hours, regardless of how good you are. If you created a contact form for 1 client, the next one will probably require a styled drop down combo box, or a different mobile number validation, figure that regex out.

Not sure where this notion of copy/paste - DONE is coming for, if someones asking for Wordpress/Blog then thats gonna require installing and skinning the silly thing to match the site. Adding in anti spam plugins etc

I find a lot of clients are now 'spoilt' and wrongly educated by previous 'hanky panky' designer/developers and often try bargain for lower rates and silly non required features, [you dont need a twitter !] - i avoid those 'clients' all together, not that i do freelance but i do get forwarded on some businesses looking for sites/work.

Its always a pain in the end. Keep your €3K.

anyway i think this discussion is a bit out of scope for the design aspect. People that charge flat rates for sites and have portfolios up = all their sites look the same. Depresses me.

Hollister11

Can't believe I only found this now,

Just bumping as I think it's a good thread for people to read, and maybe have had recent experiences with companies they would like to add,