Price range / rates

BmCon

Hi all.

I've been working on site design and development for years (my own sites) and have had loads of people ask me to build sites for them but have put most of them off, due to the price they think they should pay and because I just did not want to work for nothing.

I don't use open source and my question is, what the hell is the going rate for site design and development.

Here is a site I done for a karate club http://tinyurl.com/cdq83vz

lemon_remon

BmCon wrote: »

I don't use open source

That's not something to be proud of.

BmCon

lemon_remon wrote: »

That's not something to be proud of.

Well I don't built website with open source CMSs and then charge for setting up a system in a few hours.

I build the sites, why not be proud of that?

a fat guy

Well what was the price for that site?

A friend of mine in his second year of college did a website that had more work put into it than that one and I think he charged between fifty and a hundred quid. I'm assuming that you aren't doing anything else behind the scenes though, and could be wrong of course.

I've never made a site for anyone before myself, but I wouldn't bother making one unless it had some complexity behind it (database, tables, access controls, some form of interaction, you get the idea). It just wouldn't feel right charging someone money for something that you'd finish in your spare time. Maybe I'm just a sap though!

If I was going to make something for someone, it'd probably be in Rails and I'd charge them a few hundred quid. That would include sessions, a beautiful UI, and whatever else they'd end up wanting. There's plenty of complexity behind setting up such an application, so I know it would be money earned well. Then again, I've never made anything for anyone so my thoughts are probably unrealistic, and not helped by the fact that I'm still in college myself and dependent on my parents financially. I might sing a different tune if I had to make my own money.

DonkeyStyle \o/

BmCon wrote: »

what the hell is the going rate for site design and development.

There isn't one.
What ever your rate is, there are always going to be people who want something for nothing. People who probably don't even know why they want a website, but who've spotted what they believe is an opportunity (by "knowing someone") to attain something for nothing... what ever it happens to be.
IMO, they're "cute hoors" who want to take and give nothing back, let them eat shit.

BmCon

That site was built to the spec of the club.

That site is 100% custom code. With CMS. auto SEO. And auto server side code to do stuff in the background which the user does not see.

I hate when people build a website with open source CMS and then say they are website designers and developers.

I like you give the full backend with all websites. The custom server side code is where the cost comes to the customer. I don't think it is fair to the club to say what it cost them.

What is your friend URL of the site he done for 50-100 euro?

28064212

BmCon wrote: »

Well I don't built website with open source CMSs and then charge for setting up a system in a few hours.

I build the sites, why not be proud of that?

Because the customer will end up with a better site by using open source CMSs. Based on the front-end, the karate club site could have been done quicker, easier and better in, say, Wordpress than doing it from scratch

BmCon

DonkeyStyle \o/ wrote: »

There isn't one.
What ever your rate is, there are always going to be people who want something for nothing. People who probably don't even know why they want a website, but who've spotted what they believe is an opportunity (by "knowing someone") to attain something for nothing... what ever it happens to be.
IMO, they're "cute hoors" who want to take and give nothing back, let them eat shit.

Lol I like that

I had one girl wanted me to put her shop online with all products for 350 euro because I guy said that is what she should pay.

She will make money selling online form the site and only wanted to pay 350 euro :eek:

How much will it cost her to have a shop in her local town? I was giving her a means to sell all over the world.

BmCon

28064212 wrote: »

Because the customer will end up with a better site by using open source CMSs. Based on the front-end, the karate club site could have been done quicker, easier and better in, say, Wordpress than doing it from scratch

I believe there are a lot of people build sites with Wordpress who get the skins from India.
Then charge the customer for building the site, where intact they only setup the site on the server over a few hours.

This is why I am asking about the price rates and also I know I can do better. Thanks for the feedback.

PeakOutput

BmCon wrote: »

I believe there are a lot of people build sites with Wordpress who get the skins from India.
Then charge the customer for building the site, where intact they only setup the site on the server over a few hours.

I think you are looking at it in the wrong way. If the site you build from scratch does the same thing as the site from a template and OSCMS which one is worth more to the client? why does it matter which one took more man hours to complete?

If someone spends a week on a site like your karate one or a day or a couple of hours creating the same thing with open source tools who should get paid more?

Its the end product that counts. Having the skills and knowledge to know which tools to use and how to use them is what allows you create the end product in a reasonable period of time for a reasonable rate.

If you insist on handcoding everything from scratch every time you are not going to get very far imo. These open source projects are maintained by hundreds of thousands of people and used by hundreds of millions of people every day. What do you think you can do or can think of that they havn't? Why wouldn't you utilize the product that all that brain power and all that real world testing came up with?

just my 2cents its worth nothing

KonFusion

This has been discussed over in Design various times. 2 more recent threads are

here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=83662167

& here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056578766

As PeakOutput mentions, nothing wrong with open source. A CMS such as wordpress will allow your clients to update the site themselves, and imo is more valuable to the client for brochureware (such as the site you linked to) than something without a CMS.

The problem is not entirely with the customers, but with the market itself. These days the brochureware market is worth very little. No offence intended as I've not seen the rest of your work, but if you have indeed spent years doing web design and development I would have expected to see some better examples of work than what you have shown in that karate site. For instance the text on the homepage is partially unreadable as it is covered by the dragon.

As for the going rate, it can be from $5 from some guy on elance to 50 quid for some student to €2k and beyond (presuming we're talking about a basic brochure site).

At the moment, in Ireland, if you were to approach a well known (or even semi-well known) professional web firm and asked for a brochure style site, 5-6 pages, you will be given a figure ranging (upwards) from €2.5k to around 10-12k (yes some places charge that much, and sometimes more, for a standard brochure site).

Presumably you're self employed/freelance. I can't imagine you're making very much, though I am of course possibly wrong. Regardless; my advice would be to try and get a job at a firm/agency. This will give you an idea of the work that is out there, and what people are willing to pay for.

Markets change. You need to change with them.

BmCon

OS CMS is good but why are people given prices of 350 euro for an online shop where the customer will use the site to sell online. Are the people working in the industry mad?
If they are in school they are bringing down the value of an industry they will need when they are finished. Again I say, "are they mad?"


With meeting the customer and going trough the design, then setup of hosting, OS CMS, email, search engine submitting and so on. It would not pay anyone to do a site for 350 euro. Even if you are doing a site (full site and all the other which goes along with a website ) in one 8 hour day, you can only do 5 a week. Every week. Hmmmmm, I don't think so.

I worked in an industry which killed its self because the value was pushed so low that no one could live on what they were making. Don't forget 40 hours a week work should give you a life.
That's just my opinion, and I hope this industry stays a strong employer in Ireland.

lemon_remon

BmCon wrote: »

OS is good but why are people given prices of 350 euro for an online shop where the customer will use the site to sell online. Are the people working in the industry mad?
If they are in school they are bringing down the value of an industry they will need when they are finished. Again I say, "are they mad?"


With meeting the customer and going trough the design, then setup of hosting, OS CMS, email, search engine submitting and so on. It would not pay anyone to do a site for 350 euro. Even if you are doing a site (full site and all the other which goes along with a website ) in one 8 hour day, you can only do 5 a week. Every week. Hmmmmm, I don't think so.

I worked in an industry which killed its self because the value was pushed so low that no one could live on what they were making. Don't forget 40 hours a week work should give you a life.
That's just my opinion, and I hope this industry stays a strong employer in Ireland.

There's nothing wrong with using Open Source to save you time. People do it in professional software development all the time. Honestly, your site doesn't look great. You could build something with Bootstrap in a few hours that looks better and nobody would notice the difference, in fact they would most likely pay more for the site built with Bootstrap. The reason people aren't paying a lot to do simple brochure websites is because it's trivial. There's no skill involved, don't kid yourself.

BmCon

lemon_remon wrote: »

There's nothing wrong with using Open Source to save you time. People do it in professional software development all the time. Honestly, your site doesn't look great. You could build something with Bootstrap in a few hours that looks better and nobody would notice the difference, in fact they would most likely pay more for the site built with Bootstrap. The reason people aren't paying a lot to do simple brochure websites is because it's trivial. There's no skill involved, don't kid yourself.

Open source blocks of code or functions is not what I'm talking about.
It's the use of OS CMS.

Ok.. You option was A bit harsh! But!
Back that up and show me the work you have done; if you have any where you did not use OS CMS that would be better.
Or,
Why do you say it looks bad? I think it's looks great. That is what they wanted.

lemon_remon

BmCon wrote: »

Open source blocks of code or functions is not what I'm talking about.
It's the use of OS CMS.

Why? One you've thrown together yourself is likely to be riddled with security holes and vulnerabilities.

BmCon wrote: »

Ok.. You option was A bit harsh! But!
Back that up and show me the work you have done; if you have any where you did not use OS CMS that would be better.
Or,
Why do you say it looks bad? I think it's looks great. That is what they wanted.

Your customer does not care about what CMS you've used. They only they care about price and quality. Stop worrying about CMSs. Your website does not look modern. The gradient looks very amateurish. Have you ever seen a professional modern website with a gradient like that? Other things like the sitemap not working and it having a ".html.php" extension scream amateur. Looking at the CSS source, it's pretty clear you haven't much idea what you are doing, I wouldn't expect anyone to pay you for this work. Sorry if this is brutally honest.

I don't have any examples of my own, I work in backend stuff, however, in my opinion, even the Bootstrap examples look better. Why don't you start with something like that and work from there? Rolling out your own designs doesn't look like it's working.

BmCon

That's fine I can fix all that.

Now show me a site you worked on.... I'll but a bet on it that it's OS CMS with a template which only supports what I am saying.


By the way; the exstention of .html.php on the site map is for my use. There is an SEO bit of magic going on there. Server side.

returnNull

you might want to sort the lorum ipsom on that websites FAQ

KonFusion

OP is a troll :pac:

lemon_remon

BmCon wrote: »

Now show me a site you worked on.... I'll but a bet on it that it's OS CMS with a template which only supports what I am saying.

You're really over selling yourself here. Even your site does have its own custom "CMS" it really isn't all that impressive as there are about 5 pages on your site each with only one content section. There isn't even a side bar.

I already told you, I don't work on front ends. I'm interested more interested in algorithms and coding practice but even I can tell that your site doesn't look professional.

BmCon

returnNull wrote: »

you might want to sort the lorum ipsom on that websites FAQ

I have asked them for the content a few times, I forgot about the Loren ipsom on that page.
I'll remove it, thanks

BmCon

KonFusion wrote: »

OP is a troll :pac:

I see where you're coming from. I'm just defending myself.

BmCon

lemon_remon wrote: »

You're really over selling yourself here. Even your site does have its own custom "CMS" it really isn't all that impressive as there are about 5 pages on your site each with only one content section. There isn't even a side bar.

1. Selling yourself is the way to get work.
2. Pages. If the customer only has a small amount of info for the pages, well that is not my problem.
3. Sections. There will be more sections when they come up with the content.
4. Side bar. There is no need for a sidebar on the site. I could have a sidebar if it is needed

I already told you, I don't work on front ends. I'm interested more interested in algorithms and coding practice but even I can tell that your site doesn't look professional.

Maybe! But I can fix that.

I understand that you like open source code (which I like myself, why reinvent the wheel?) but that's not the issue.
It's the people calling themselves designers and developers who use open source CMSs like Wordpress which they setup for the customer and then tell the customer they built them a website.

I had a guy get me to do work for him because when he asked his website creator to do a custom banner/header on his site, the creator could not do it. He built the website with magenta and uploaded a skin, that's all, he charged 350 euro.

That is what gets under my skin.
So my OP was; what is the going rate because I think this industry is going down the toilet because of this.

Kidchameleon

OP maybe your "too good" for simple site development. Perhaps you would find more low level work more stimulating and profitable

While I prefer to develop from the ground up myself, there's no point reinventing the wheel either.

BmCon

Kidchameleon wrote: »

OP maybe your "too good" for simple site development. Perhaps you would find more low level work more stimulating and profitable

While I prefer to develop from the ground up myself, there's no point reinventing the wheel either.

Lol.... You're a ground up developer!
If someone said you wanted to charge them 2.5k for a website, I'd say if he can build a CMS, Database and website for the ground up then go for it.


I respect people like you.

croo

I hope you are writing your own database & web servers too!
It's better make sure it's done right and start from scratch. :rolleyes:

TonyStark

BmCon wrote: »

I had a guy get me to do work for him because when he asked his website creator to do a custom banner/header on his site, the creator could not do it. He built the website with magenta and uploaded a skin, that's all, he charged 350 euro. That is what gets under my skin. So my OP was; what is the going rate because I think this industry is going down the toilet because of this.

I think your question is:What is the going rate? Or what is my competitors going rate?

Factor in all your costs, software licenses, what you need to live on and there you have it.

Perhaps once you have spent a few months cobbling together a few bespoke sites with notepad you might appreciate the merit in what other people do in customizing opensource solutions that work well for clients.

You might also do well not to disrespect the various approaches of fellow designers and developers, whether you hold them in that regard is irrelevant.

Also, You might want to have a look at this: http://bit.ly/17dqlNL Some people seem to be using your original artwork from the Karate website without permission.......

ChRoMe

croo wrote: »

I hope you are writing your own database & web servers too!
It's better make sure it's done right and start from scratch. :rolleyes:

Bonus points for everything written in assembler

tricky D

You are doing yourself no favours with some of the approaches, attitudes and practices you are taking. You should seriously re-evaluate those and listen to those with established experience and skills if you are to make good progress from your current position which is less than satisfactory.

BmCon wrote: »

Back that up and show me the work you have done; if you have any where you did not use OS CMS that would be better.

BmCon wrote: »

Now show me a site you worked on.... I'll but a bet on it that it's OS CMS with a template which only supports what I am saying.

Lose this confrontational attitude, it does you no favours.

BmCon

tricky D wrote: »

You are doing yourself no favours with some of the approaches, attitudes and practices you are taking. You should seriously re-evaluate those and listen to those with established experience and skills if you are to make good progress from your current position which is less than satisfactory.





Lose this confrontational attitude, it does you no favours.

OK guys... My bad.

TrueDub

ChRoMe wrote: »

Bonus points for everything written in assembler

Assembler? Pah! Real programmers code in machine code, without an IDE!

croo

ChRoMe wrote: »

Bonus points for everything written in assembler

these conversations always remind me of...

PeakOutput

BmCon wrote: »

That's fine I can fix all that.

Now show me a site you worked on.... I'll but a bet on it that it's OS CMS with a template which only supports what I am saying.


By the way; the exstention of .html.php on the site map is for my use. There is an SEO bit of magic going on there. Server side.

Can you give one advantage to hand coding the cms from scratch and can you give one (different) disadvantage of using an os cms for a relatively simple brochure, ecommerce or blog site?

BmCon

PeakOutput wrote: »

Can you give one advantage to hand coding the cms from scratch and can you give one (different) disadvantage of using an os cms for a relatively simple brochure, ecommerce or blog site?

You are only building it once, then you copy. You can then sell as a custom CMS for a greater value. If you are capable of building the database, CMS and front end then you can also do the custom work if needed. So the benefit is more value at point of sale.

I will give you the OP CMS is great for the ecommers and blogs. Due to the time saved, But the value to you as web builder/creator/design business is very low because of OP CMS.
I had an customer tell me they could get there (brochure) site done for 150 euro.
I done that site for just under 1k. They gave me the job because the guy could not do the custom work they wanted.

My OP was based on what the value is to get a website done. It looks like OS CMS have taken the value out of your work, I dont mean to upset anyone so please don't shoot me

I fixed the karate club site, still a little to do. There is a browser issue doing my head in. IE vs FireFox.

The Corinthian

BmCon wrote: »

I've been working on site design and development for years (my own sites) and have had loads of people ask me to build sites for them but have put most of them off, due to the price they think they should pay and because I just did not want to work for nothing.

I've been largely out of the Irish market for a few years, but I've been told that hourly rates have dropped for development; I believe that someone skilled - either an expert in a specific CMS or an actual developer (someone who can code as opposed to hack some code and just use CMS's) can charge up to about €50 p.h., while some of the bottom feeders at the bottom of the food chain will charge a de facto rate as low as €5 - I say de facto because they don't have one; they give fixed prices and underestimate the work involved.

How this translates in terms of a site depends on the developer and their process. Some use a CMS and do everything in four hours then charge for two days. Others don't really keep time. Some are faster than others.

A basic brochureware site will realistically cost anything between €200 and about €1,000, from what I've been told. If you're going for the cheap option though, you're playing supplier roulette; you might have a real bargain or a disaster.

Of course, having been out of Ireland for a while, I could be wrong about the above rates.

BmCon wrote: »

I build the sites, why not be proud of that?

I know exactly what you mean about building it yourself - I also feel that is something to be proud of.

Unfortunately, that's not how the market works and there's little point reinventing the wheel and then charging your client to reinvent the wheel, especially when it prices you out of the market. I do very little brochureware work any more and if I do, I generally steer (using scary quotes) the client against bespoke CMS's. Those days are gone, or more correctly, not commercially viable.

Of your site, outsource your design and information architecture. Like me, you're a coder, not a pixel-pusher and it shows. The market stopped supporting Jacks-of-all-trades a long time ago.

Better still, get out of the brochureware market; there's no money in it. Doing Web applications, mobile work or other IT solutions pay far better.

BmCon wrote: »

I had one girl wanted me to put her shop online with all products for 350 euro because I guy said that is what she should pay.

Then wish her the best of luck and make sure that you let her know, politely, that for that budget she's likely to end up back at square one in a few months when she realizes her bargain site is not the bargain she'd hoped for. Then wave good-bye.

Clients like that are either acting out of lack of knowledge or because they're horse-traders. If the former, you'll likely hear from her again in six months as she'll remember your polite warning after the bottom feeder she eventually engages leaves her with a pig's ear.

If the latter, hope you never hear from them again. They will squeeze as much value out of you as they can and then almost always fail to pay the final invoice.

PeakOutput wrote: »

Can you give one advantage to hand coding the cms from scratch and can you give one (different) disadvantage of using an os cms for a relatively simple brochure, ecommerce or blog site?

Repeat business

Lots of WordPress, Joomla and Drupal experts out there. Only one expert in the CMS you wrote yourself.

Of course, that's one advantage for the developer, not really the client...

DonkeyStyle \o/

Well, one thing I'll say for a custom CMS... if you have a brochure site that's going to be left to rot, it's less maintenance. Get lazy about patching/updating Wordpress and you'll have viagra ads inside about two months of neglect.
I think popular CMS'es experience the same problem as Windows has had, having this huge install-base offers a big pay-off for someone who can find a security hole to exploit, so all eyes are on it, and attacks can be automated.
I get the argument that something is battle hardened from being banged on so much, but for some obscure brochure website, I think it makes sense to keep it off the random vulnerable website radar. Especially if you don't need all the features of a big bloaty CMS, say if you have one 'news' page that needs regular updates.

Trojan

DonkeyStyle \o/ wrote: »

Well, one thing I'll say for a custom CMS... if you have a brochure site that's going to be left to rot, it's less maintenance. Get lazy about patching/updating Wordpress and you'll have viagra ads inside about two months of neglect.

I agree with that, and I think there are a couple more advantages to a custom CMS (I particularly The Corinthian's developer lock-in one ).

However, to counter this particular point (and it's a good one), one thing I've done in the past is build a brochureware site up in WordPress (insert your favourite CMS) and then index the entire site as a static HTML site, and put the static version online.

That gives you the best of both worlds (security and user friendliness) with the cost of being a bit more hassle to set up.