Mrs JB, freelance graphic designer, mainly been doing print, but has recently been learning about building websites – this is her first attempt:

http://www.draw-the-line.co.uk

anyway, a local NHS organisation that deals with drugs issues with women that she did some work for on their Annual report etc have asked her to re-do their website – it’s only basic, static pages, and she’ll be able to do it, but she hasn’t got a clue how much to charge.

so, what does a simple website cost these days?

My only comment is that website she has done has no SEO stuff on it – even basics (not talking mega bucks) – just titles, content alt’s and spider ‘readable’ and google friendly.

A mate of mine charges £500 for basic couple of days work jobs, upwards.

Dont forget to factor in alterations etc – my experience of doing them ‘in house’ for my employer is that they always want alterations and improvements – and thats gonna ‘cost’ of you have a flat rate.

I’d allow a couple of days to talk to them and get a basic theme together and then about half a day per page after that and then charge out at standard daily rate.

what will take time is if you’re hard codign text etc in the body of the page – it’ll change repeatedly.

Might be worth agreeign some sort of maintenance rate for any future changes/additions otherwise you’ll end up doing them for nowt as ‘it’s only and hours work’ but 20 of them add up to a lot of free time.

agree with matt – that’s technically a very simple site.

How long wqill it take? How much does she want to earn

(desired yearly salary / desired number of working days) * number of days to build site = Cost to client

e.g. I want to earn 26k per year. There are 263 working days per year, so I need to charge £100 per day. It will take me 10 days to build the site and complete all the ancillary stuff like talking to user and making sure the specification is correct, manageing the relase etc, therefore I must charge £1000.

Of course, that doesn;t accound for overheads like insurance, sickness, holidays pay etc etc etc

nbt – we pay £250-£400 a day for web design work in Brighton (depending on who’s doing it and how much they’ll haggle).

My only comment is that website she has done has no SEO stuff on it – even basics (not talking mega bucks) – just titles, content alt’s and spider ‘readable’ and google friendly.

They’re also needed to make it accessible, and it could well be illegal without them. For an NHS organisation, that would surely be a big issue?

cheers chaps – all good stuff – I’ll pass on the feedback to the missus.

Jimbo

About £500 for say 4-5 static pages, but its not some shoddy workmanship.

But it really depends on content, time and other tings!

wwaswas, It’s only an example, I get charged out at £650 a day. Wish I saw half of it, I’d be a damn sight richer than I am now 🙁 🙁

fair do’s most of the pople we deal with are freelance so are preapred to accept a bit less due to local working and low overheads.

Nae text for the blind folk
Mystery navigation – the open sign
searchy stuff like what they said.
The arty writing is hard to read and its 3 clicks to find out what you are selling.

looks nice though.

cbike – thanks for the feedback, but regarding the question, do you know how much it costs to get a website built?

£25 per hour If they want a fixed price for the job get her to estimate how much time it will take to do the first draft and to maybe to attend a meeting to get their feed back. So if she thought it was 5 days with maybe time for a kick off meeting and a review meeting then £1000 and state that any editing required following initial submission would be charged at £25/hour. Also state that she would charge 40p/mile for any travel incurred too/from meetings and in the event that she has to stay over then invoice at cost plus 15%.

Not a web designer but have done contract work for water industry engineering at those rates for last 6 years. Think that it’s a reasonable cost for a professional service

Cautionary note… if you fix the price, you fix the spec. Do not allow any changes of requirements once you’ve begun work. Otherwise scope will creep, and you won’t deliver what they’ve asked for. Any requirements that are added during the project go into a ‘phase 2’.

There’s a triangle of cost, time and requirements. You can only ever fix two of them.

Eg, if you fix the cost and the time, then the requirements must to trimmed to fit. If you fix the requirements and the time then the cost generally goes up. If you fix the cost and the requirements then it takes however long it takes.

We generally fix the cost and the requirements and give an estimate of time. And it’s just that, and estimate not a guaranteed delivery date.

I can’t comment on prices because I’m in blue-chip territory and charge 1k a day, but there are plenty of ways to charge of it. Cost per day, cost per page, total cost etc. We do cost per person per day because our ‘sites’ are really web applications and you can’t really count the pages.

I am a freelance designer also and I get asked to do the occasional website, actually it is becoming more common as more people see the work I have done.

Cost wise I charge between £1,000 and £2,000 for a smallish site, but I generally do all the design work, copy and coding myself so that is quite cheap.

As a comparison I used to do some design work for a fancy web agency and they would not touch anything below £7k, so there is a broad range of pricing, if they are NHS I doubt they are expecting a cheap job, a good way is to ask them what their budget is and say what you can do for that.

Generally speaking websites are not as profitable as design work as they take a long time and the hourly rate sucks if you calculate it out and as stated above the scope always creeps – people seem to think that “just getting it to do that” should only take a couple of clicks and five mins of your time.. But in these days you take what you can get.

Like the look of the website your good lady has put together, clean and crisp looking – nice.

WGA

The site looks good, but functionally she has a lot to learn, which is fine because she is just starting out, however you can’t charge top dollar without the experience to back it up. She doesn’t want to get in over her head. I would do the first few websites at a discounted rate until she finds her feet. That way you won’t get angry clients when you don’t deliver the perfect end product. All the same, good luck with it.

My concern with “discount” pricing is getting your price back up for follow up work. I know it’s different but I have been in engineering sales for a few years. The danger is you sell your first job to a new client at a discount and they will never remember that was the situation. They’ll just keep stating, well last time it was only blah blah blah. Depends how much you need work/money. The problem in the present climate is being scared of asking an honest price in case of not getting work. I would advise not to undersell yourself unless you’re desperate.

If you do discount then I would make sure that your written quotation states very clearly the “ture” price and the level of discount being offered for this job. Again make sure that your invoice does the same, e.g. blah blah for work done as per quotation ####### £X,000, First Order Discount £X00(0), Nett cost (£X,000 – £X00(0)) to be paid as stated in quotation. And make sure that in any coversations that discuss costs/work that you refer to the quote and the discount being offered and why.

all excellent advice – much appreciated people – Mrs JB is on the case with her calculator!