Cost of hiring a full time Web Designer

rob316

Hi

I'm wondering what a full time Web Designer would expect starting salary wise if I hired one at my company. Basically want to them to develop and maintain an ecommerce store for the company, I was thinking about 25- 30k then review on performance or am I way out. I want someone in house full time not a 3rd party I'm adamant on that.

thanks

Graham

You don't say where about in the country you are, what technologies you need or what experience level you're looking for. All of which could have a dramatic effect on the salary.

For what it's worth unless you're looking for a junior, I reckon you're around €10k - €20k short.

Mrs OBumble

Do your in-house financial people have knowledge about the e-Commerce challenges? Are you willing to pay for a designer who's also a developer? Do you have a budget for hosting, software etc?

Asking a web-designer to build and deliver an eCommerce site is a bit like asking an architect to build a house. They can do a design that looks good, and guide you thru getting planning. They might even be able to do the construction, if you buy them some tools. But there's a fair chance that they'll have problems installing the plumbing, and you'd still have to pay someone to sign off (and likely fix up) the electrics.

intheclouds

Well unless you will be offering training then you are looking for someone with experience. Designer does not equal developer either so you may be looking at 2 people.

How quickly do you expect them to get the site up and running? What technologies will you be using?

Maybe if you check out the job websites and get an idea of salaries offered for what you desire in your area?

M.T.D

Research, designing, developing, maintaining, updating (adding new products etc) are at least 3 different jobs also with different price tags.
You might be able to get someone in your budget to do the updating and possibly maintenance after some training.

Make sure you have done your research first, with regards target market, the kind of experience your users will want to have online, that the design and functions help sell the company and the products.

Get the site designed by a designer

Get the development done by a developer with emphasis on ease of maintenance and updating.

Then get your employee to take over looking after the site.

smash

rob316 wrote: »

I'm wondering what a full time Web Designer would expect starting salary wise if I hired one at my company. Basically want to them to develop and maintain an ecommerce store for the company

This isn't the job of a designer, it's the job of a developer.

rob316 wrote: »

I was thinking about 25- 30k then review on performance or am I way out.

You're way out unless you want a junior.

If you go down the route of hiring a junior, I'm sure you could purchase a theme from envato and they could plug it in for you and take care of updates.

devildriver

rob316 wrote: »

Hi

I'm wondering what a full time Web Designer would expect starting salary wise if I hired one at my company. Basically want to them to develop and maintain an ecommerce store for the company, I was thinking about 25- 30k then review on performance or am I way out. I want someone in house full time not a 3rd party I'm adamant on that.

thanks

As you can see from the answers above it's not quite as easy as just picking a number. Outside of the cost is there really a good reason to have a designer/developer as a full time employee?

Is the store or product range that big that it requires a 9-5 workload to manage it?

If the business does warrant full time staff to manage the site then you are sort of in a chicken and egg situation. Until the site is built then you don't have any criteria for selecting the best person to manage it (CMS used, technology, languages etc). And until you work with somebody to build the site you won't know which is the best platform, CMS, ecommerce system etc for your needs.

rob316

Sharp answers folks, appreciate the bluntness and honesty. I've got some homework to do, if a mod wants to close this go ahead.

satguy

Back in the day, you had a site built for you, then hired a full time webmaster to get it up and running, and then to keep it running and updated...

All site related matters went to your webmaster,, it is not just uploading pics and prices for items for sale,, there is other stuff that must be done,, mostly Google SEO stuff, Privacy Policy,,Cookie Policy,, Google AdSense Management,, SERP,, Cross Browser Compatibility,, Mobile Compatibility,, Payment Processing,,, The list is endless,,

40K and one day a week working from home should do it, if you hire a new starter (Young),, 50K for a experienced guy, still with one day working from home..

smash

satguy wrote: »

Google SEO stuff, Google AdSense Management, SERP

Digital marketing

satguy wrote: »

Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy

Copy-writing / legal matters

satguy wrote: »

Cross Browser Compatibility, Mobile Compatibility

Design and dev considerations

satguy wrote: »

Payment Processing

Usually just a plug and play API.

edward2222

Why not try to outsource your website to a web design firm?

Hiring someone is a big risk especially if you want them to be working in house.

Junior web developers ranges from 15k-20k...

While firms usually ranges only 1k-5k per project.

custom web design is actually a good one.

Just a suggestion though, not forcing you to follow .

smash

edward2222 wrote: »

custom web design is actually a good one.

Just a suggestion though, not forcing you to follow .

That site is bloody awful.

Graham

edward2222 wrote: »

Why not try to outsource your website to a web design firm?

Hiring someone is a big risk especially if you want them to be working in house.

Junior web developers ranges from 15k-20k...

While firms usually ranges only 1k-5k per project.

custom web design is actually a good one.

Just a suggestion though, not forcing you to follow .

Off shoring is a huge risk, especially if you're non-technical and/or have no experience specifying or managing technical projects.

edward2222

smash wrote: »

That site is bloody awful.

Lol!

Your harsh, well, I think they're service is great

edward2222

Graham wrote: »

Off shoring is a huge risk, especially if you're non-technical and/or have no experience specifying or managing technical projects.

For me its quite a good idea to outsource your project
especially if you have no experience in doing it.

Why?

Because outsourcing firms assist's you on what to do,
they have the experience than most individuals do, and most of all
you can trust them.

Well, I'm saying this because I have a friend who want to have a website,
but have no idea on how to build it, nor he has any experience in building one.

So, he hired two web programmers to create a simple shopping website for him (without payment system needed) Just displaying and updating his products

You guess..

He was scammed.

Thats why, for me, I'll go with the outsourcing instead.

professore

Get a company to design and develop the site. Use a CMS. Then have them train someone in house to keep it updated.

That person doesn't need to be technical, if they can use Facebook and are not the type that are allergic to computers they will be fine. We've done that lots of times with good results.

devildriver

edward2222 wrote: »

For me its quite a good idea to outsource your project
especially if you have no experience in doing it.

Why?

Because outsourcing firms assist's you on what to do,
they have the experience than most individuals do, and most of all
you can trust them.

Well, I'm saying this because I have a friend who want to have a website,
but have no idea on how to build it, nor he has any experience in building one.

So, he hired two web programmers to create a simple shopping website for him (without payment system needed) Just displaying and updating his products

You guess..

He was scammed.

Thats why, for me, I'll go with the outsourcing instead.

Not quite sure if this person is trolling or just having a laugh. In any case this post has no facts, usable advice or any merit whatsoever.

Trojan

Here's a rule of thumb.

If your business is going to be totally focused around your website, then you should have someone working in-house on development.

If your business has a website as an important marketing and sales channel, but it is not the linchpin of the business, then you might be better served financially and focus-wise by having it built by a 3rd party supplier. You could then have in house staff working on content, social and maintenance, but not feature development.

smash

Trojan wrote: »

Here's a rule of thumb.

If your business is going to be totally focused around your website, then you should have someone working in-house on development.

Well that's not true at all. You should have someone in house who can use your CMS and have a dev company contracted and available for dev/maintenance work when required.

Trojan

smash wrote: »

Well that's not true at all. You should have someone in house who can use your CMS and have a dev company contracted and available for dev/maintenance work when required.

We'll have to disagree on this. If your business is totally focused around your website, then you have to have someone working in-house on development. In early days, that's one of the business owners/founders, later they'll probably move to a more sales role as they bring in more tech staff.

Mrs OBumble

Having some ONE who can do anything is very risky.

It's ok if you're a one-woman-company. But any larger than that, then single-point-of-knowledge / failure is not recommended.

smash

Trojan wrote: »

We'll have to disagree on this. If your business is totally focused around your website, then you have to have someone working in-house on development.

Again, this isn't true. There are many many retailers who operate solely with a web presence and they do not have on-site development staff managing their site.

edward2222

devildriver wrote: »

Not quite sure if this person is trolling or just having a laugh. In any case this post has no facts, usable advice or any merit whatsoever.

Well, I don't need to provide facts for you to believe me

All I've said is based on my experience, and I'm
sorry if you cant see any merit on it :cool:

devildriver

edward2222 wrote: »

Well, I don't need to provide facts for you to believe me

Well facts and detail are always useful when providing advice to somebody.

edward2222 wrote: »

All I've said is based on my experience, and I'm
sorry if you cant see any merit on it :cool:

That's fine but making blanket statements about the entire global web development community based on a single second-hand story that your friend experienced doesn't really contribute anything to the thread.

edward2222

devildriver wrote: »

That's fine but making blanket statements about the entire global web development community based on a single second-hand story that your friend experienced doesn't really contribute anything to the thread.

Well....

Sometimes we dont need to provide details and facts
when advising somebody in the forum, we share ideas and
experience in this great community, and I dont think providing
detailed explanation on your idea/opinion is necessary

Yes, providing facts and details helps a lot..

But its not required

By the way...

Do you really think that your contributing on this thread?

If your answer is

"yes I am" ...

Then I think its time to let my

face meet my palm..:rolleyes:

Graham

edward2222 wrote: »

Well....

Sometimes we dont need to provide details and facts
when advising somebody in the forum, we share ideas and
experience in this great community, and I dont think providing
detailed explanation on your idea/opinion is necessary

Sometimes it's reasonable to be sceptical.

Your friends experience of off-shoring work sounds remarkably positive. That's not normally the case particularly for relatively new off-shorers.
Your friend used an unknown website with no company details, no mention of a physical presence.
Said website appears to be nothing more than a sales pitch with little to no evidence of any work completed anywhere.
Said website looks like it was designed and updated about 10 years ago.

Even after attempting to research the company, there's next to no information other than a few mentions of spam and a couple of links to suggest they're based in the Philippines and not California as their phone number would suggest.

None of that it to suggest you or your friend are being dishonest about anything but you can hardly be surprised when people ask questions.

lawred2

rob316 wrote: »

Hi

I'm wondering what a full time Web Designer would expect starting salary wise if I hired one at my company. Basically want to them to develop and maintain an ecommerce store for the company, I was thinking about 25- 30k then review on performance or am I way out. I want someone in house full time not a 3rd party I'm adamant on that.

thanks

You can double that for a reasonably competent person

At least triple it if you want quality

Why don't you look at short to medium term contracts?

Or tender out the job to a freelance developer site..

Web Graphic Designer

Unless your moving an awful lot of products, it sounds like you just need a bog standard 'Web Administrator'.

Get the site designed by a competent company, but state (in contract) that it must have a flexible content management aspect, and furthermore easy availability of training (as needed) and a handover event (pre-launch) with good documentation. So that anyone from a defined group of you (with just basic web knowledge) can upload a new product as needed in future.

SEO, social marketing and such like is more dependent on good usability & coding standards during the build, rather than post-launch pimping.