I've recently begun getting out into the world of web design and development, started a blog earlier this year which has seen decent traffic,( or what I believe is decent) and gotten acquainted with some associates and a few affiliates.
My first major job working with a certain company is coming up, and I'm still a little new at what to really tell them when it comes to pricing.
Basically, I've noticed some bloggers/web-designers have charged around $100-$200 USD for some single page sites, while others have charged up to $700 USD for a 3+ page site not including site content. -I think. ~_~
What I'm really trying to say is...how do I know what the going rate is? What should I really charge? I've looked at some other designer's, but I'm still unsure.
Here's what I'll most likely be doing:
-Making a one page HTML/CSS/Java page with links, banners, etc...
-Customizing and managing a Twitter for the company
-Creating a Blog, doing the HTML/CSS work needed, managing it
-Possibly manage other network sites?
What would work like this cost for a web designer? Because I was thinking about $200 USD set up of blog, with about $15 USD per 2 posts per day, haven't come up with cost to maintain..., and then I don't even know what to charge for the other 2-3 other things that I mentioned above...
Can someone tell me if I'm charging enough or too little? I don't have more than 2 days to really get an idea.
Web Designers, what have you charged before? What's a going rate? What do you literally think would be a good price for some of the things I mentioned above...cause I'm lost, and I want to make sure I don't waste my time for not enough money, but I really want to take the job.
Any info or help will be incredibly helpful.
~yours truly, HK
Hey. I'm no programmer or anything and just here by curiosity on it. My sister once wanted a web developer for her little store. They pretty much did what you said you'd most likely be doing, minus the blog/twitter part, though they also "worked" on a pre built online store thing done in PHP, I think it was. Converting the price to dollars, they charged about $1000 for all that. You'd think if they're not much of programmers they'd atleast make pretty graphics, but the banners/background didn't even fit too well together.. So yeah, you probably can make a bit more than what you're thinking.
> What I'm really trying to say is...how do I know what the going rate is?
Whatever you're willing to work for.
As an independent contractor, here's how I figure it out:
Every two hours of production takes about six hours of non-billable time going to meetings, talking on the phone, writing emails, making schedules, writing contracts and invoices, following up on deadbeats, etc. I generally figure 75%-80% of effort is overhead- I've been doing this for twenty years, so I figure the low end of that, but you're new, so I'd start by figuring 80%-85%. That means that you need to figure 6.5 hours non-billable.
So I have two hours a day to work. That means that I need to charge 125$/hr if I want to make 62K$/yr (about 30$/hr). After paying my accountant, and taxes, I end up taking home about 40K$/yr.
I then take my estimated hours, multiply by my billable rate, and give the result to the potential customer.
If the number is too high, then you need more experience (so that you can do more in less time). In the meantime you lower your rate (55K$/yr billed after taxes means 35K$/yr means about 107$/hr; at 95$/hr you're only taking home 30K$/yr!).
If you're not an independent contractor, you might work for a company that has an efficient sales force. A competent sales force can lower than initial 75% that I use, which means more of my time is spent producing, which means I take more home at the end of the year, while my billable time goes down, which lowers the cost to the customer.
A friend of mine in that situation bills at 55$/hr, but produces almost 5 hours daily, so as a result he makes the company 70K$/yr, and he takes home 56K$/yr.