Webmaster Pricing

§corpion

Just wondering if any of you could offer some advice as to how much I should charge a client for running their Site.

It will involve updating various sections on a monthly basis and weekly updates to their product database & links page.

I'd appreciate any advice from other pro-webmasters with similar client requirements.

Thanks!

damnyanks

Your best bet is to use a hourly pay rate. If you agree on a lump sum for every month you may end up doing a **** load of work or nothing at all.

flamegrill

id agree with damnyanks - you inform they client that you will charge on an hourly bassis and bill them once a month for your services. A ncie round number like €30 an hour would be nice. I'm not sure about the going rate. I charge about €20 an hour for my services which are quite broad. from hosting - to design (im crap but like come on), hardware setup/purchasing - in house email solutions where there is a permanent net connection and where there is not. So pick a price and stick it to your client.

§corpion

Cheers for the tips but you see there's always plenty of work and in my proposal I said if I found the quantity of work to be too much then I'd charge extra.

Ideally I need to charge a monthly rate. The client in this situation also happens to be a mate with a struggling small business and I don't want to over charge!

We want to get away from him paying me in small lump sums for work I do here and there.

I was thinking of maybe EUR 300 per month for the monthy/weekly updates and EUR 100 for any new section of the site to be developed.

Obviously I would be charging more for the monthly updates as more sections require updating.

The Eur 300 covers the updating of about 8 pages so there's quite a bit of work!

Your thoughts?

killian

I'd say the safest and fairest way to go is to charge an hourly rate, this does not have to be a lot as you obviously want to do the decent thing but going this way will ensure that you are not taken advantage of and that your client will have to seriously prioritise their wish list to things they really need as opposed to stuff they may like.

The Corinthian

Originally posted by killian
I'd say the safest and fairest way to go is to charge an hourly rate, this does not have to be a lot as you obviously want to do the decent thing but going this way will ensure that you are not taken advantage of and that your client will have to seriously prioritise their wish list to things they really need as opposed to stuff they may like.

I agree. Unless strictly defined, these updates could become enhancements quite rapidly.

So set your rate at what you wrecken it will talke you to do the updating you're expecting and tell your client this rate and monthly estimate. Covers you both.

nahdoic

If you are really looking to save this guy money and you obviously don't want to be getting underpaid for the number of hours you put into it. Then set up the site so the owner can easily update it himself. No matter how clueless a person is about the web they can still manage to go to a bookmarked web address, enter a username and password and type up a little new article for the site - some people can even manage using a form to upload a picture too. Heck if they're really good you can show them how to scan in or take their own pics. And if they're exceptional clients they'll be able to go other websites themselves and get permission to use their pics.

Web developers should not waste their time typing up and re-editing someone else's content, when the client has a far better grasp of the material than you - as it is their specialised trade they're talking about - not yours. And you can set up the textarea to be parsed, so if the client follows a few simple rules they can easily add formatting like bold, italics, links. You can even make the program check the links your client enters to make sure they are indeed valid and working addresses. The pictures they upload can be easily cropped and then automatically generated into compressed large and thumbnail pics.

And there is definitely, absolutely no reason, whatsoever that you should be updating the product database yourself. Set it up so the client can do that too. You'll be sorry if you don't! Yeah we've changed the price of that product. Oh that product is only available between June and July. Oh can we change that description - that picture isn't the best can we use a different one. Oops, that was from last years catalogue, we don't stock that anymore. We're still putting together the text for the database, can you come back in a few weeks? We're not really sure what products to put up, and what ones not to. We're still deciding. Can we put these one's up provisionally but then change them at a moments notice? Your client will be happier, you'll be MUCH happier and finished WEEKS earlier, clients' customers will be happier. Honest to god I think some clients would still be deciding how much they want to charge if I didn't set it up like that.

So maybe you could charge €149 a month, for general site maintenance and showing the client how to do it themselves (could that be interpreted badly or is it just me?). If you need any help with setting something like that up give me a shout. Lots of options out there and I've developed a lot of my own tried and tested classes that will just slot in with any new website to do all that and more easily.

§corpion

Thanks again for your suggestions and perhaps an hourly rate is something I should really consider.

I am very experienced in programming customised back end management systems for displaying and updating product databases etc, but I'm not going to go to the trouble on this occasion it would take up too much of my time and my client couldn't afford it.

So, all above options exhausted, I will be maintaining the site myself for the forseeable future. My client doesn't want to do it himself as he feels I do a much better job overall.

Essentially, I want to leave myself in a position whereby I'm making money regularly and not just designing and receiving irregular lump sums.

A 'Webadmin' role if you will.

So you'd recommend EUR 149 per month for this role? Hmm, I don't know. I feel it's worth a little more..? Maybe 200 - 250?

The Corinthian

Originally posted by §corpion
So you'd recommend EUR 149 per month for this role? Hmm, I don't know. I feel it's worth a little more..? Maybe 200 - 250?

Whatever the market will bare and is worthwhile for youreself. Start with a rate which is worthwile for yourself and then give two or more estimates to the client - one (lower) you know they'll go for, and another that they may well not (presently). This means you'll get the work (call it 'Phase 1') and it will be worth your while, with your foot in the door for more work that they may not have gone for at first.

Winters

I usually price by what they want and hours. I have say €10 per page with extra for asp scripting, database connections etc. And then add €100 or so onto the price for time spent.