Website cost?

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steveyoung

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Jul 31, 2007
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I don’t know if this question is anything I can get help with here but I thought I’d post it anyway because I need some guidance.

I have a friend who was elected sheriff of the largest county in my state. He had no website, so I offered to produce a three page site for him at no cost. The site is completed and now he wants me to expand it to a 42-page site and do all the necessary updates to the site throughout the year.

I admit, I am NOT a website designer. I only produce free websites for close friends and myself. However, apparently over the years I have developed a modest talent. He says the site I did for him is better than any others he has looked at and wants me to tell him how much I will charge to do the job. He says he will then go to the Quorum Court and request the funding for the website. My problem is that I have no clue what it would be worth. I figure it would mean at LEAST an hours work every workday and that is AFTER the site’s 42 pages are finished but I don’t know what to charge him. Can anyone here help me? If not, where would you go to get a good answer?
 


I did freelance webdesign in high school. I charged $15/hr. I preferred to charge by the hour but I had a few clients who insisted on a quote. So when did a quote I estimated how much time I thought it would take me to build the site, multiplied that by two, and then multiplied that by $15/hr.

The moral of the story is that you are going to spend a lot more time on the site than you think. Additions/changes will need to be made, they will have new ideas they want you to implement that they didn't have originally, and shit will just happen. You may over charge the client, but thats one of the downsides of going with a quote vs hourly wage.

Now I charged $15 an hour because I was in high school and didn't realize how much more I could have gotten. Most of my cleints came from "professional" web designers who were worse than me, charging anywhere from $100 - $200/hour.

I'm not saying you should charge that much but just realize the whole thing is a scam. Nobody understands how easy web design is. I still do work for a few clients and they constantly ask me if I can have simple text edits done by the end of the month... Thinking I'm going to have to spend an entire day working my voodoo magic on their precious site to change 3 words.

Also, if hes going to get funding and its not going to come out of his pocket, you might feel better charging more. Just my thoughts.
 
$50-$75 / page for the site (42 x 50 = $2100) .... $125 for 4 hours of updating a month, hourly fee of $40/hour after that.

New politicians need sites every election, this would not be the worst niche to make a name for yourself. Get the link to your self promotion site, this site will end up having a lot of link juice since he's the county sheriff.
 
What erect said.

..and I still hate your avatar erect.

::emp::
 
Here around St. Louis, I freelance my PHP and other server code for a designer. He pays me $90.00/hour for my 'backend work.' He pays himself the same for the design stuff and he gets it all day long! Guys, don't sell yourself short thinking you won't get the job. If you need the money that bad, find something else to do in the meantime. As soon as you do it for $25.00 that will become 'YOUR PRICE' whenever they tell their friends or other potential customers about you.

If you're good. You can get 'YOUR PRICE'.
 
I agree, go after it. This is a prime opportunity to make some serious jack for a website. Name YOUR PRICE and don't let it be cheap mmm k?
 
I would contact at least 3 different local web design companies for free quotes on this project (you'll be shocked at the price range of quotes) ... take the average price and tell him you'll do it for 10% less.

I did this with a basic 5 pg, straight HTML page and no company would do it for less than $1500.
 
around chicago at least web firms will charge about 1k for a small restaurant website.
i used to be in web design and that was a common client to pick up in school, so I was always trying to shoot lower than that.

if you're certain the work will be infrequent, the $50 an hour markup is ok. Don't be afraid to shoot high because he'll come back with a number if he really needs you.

make sure he doesn't know of any competition. don't tell him that you have friends in the business. i've had people sneak around me before. it sucks.
 
I've charged $80 in the past for people who were just clients. For friends/family I usually work out a flat fee and am usually pretty lenient in the actual work/cost ratio.
 
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