How much should I charge for designing a website?

[stavroshamster]

Hi All,

I have been asked to design my wife's cousin's boyfriend's website.
He a really good semi-pro photographer and is looking to set-up fully professionally.
The website would probably have 4 or 5 frontend pages: Homepage, a section for wedding photos (with logins for users to see their photos), a section for other photographic work, a section for sound recording which he also does a bit of, and a contact details/enquiries page. It won't involve anything too flashy but there will probably be some sort of flash-based slideshow type thing (something opensource from t'interweb, not something I have done myself).

He says he will pay me. Trouble is I have no idea what to charge. Any ideas? I want to give mate's rates but at the same time could really do with the cash!

Thanks!

[Jay]

never work for family or friends, its never worth it!

[gss03]

never work for family or friends, its never worth it!

I second that motion.
You'll never hear the end of the job if you take on a family member's job.

Best to lead him to a design house that will do it for him and support it over the long term.

[GoNz0]

i second that motion.
You'll never hear the end of the job if you take on a family member's job.

Best to lead him to a design house that will do it for him and support it over the long term.

qft

[=assassin=]

If you're looking to get into web design and could do with something in your portfolio of work, you could even do it for free I suppose, and then you'd have no reason to keep supporting in the future. It depends what stage you are at; are you already employed as a web dev? Or a student after some experience?

[Dragonclaw]

Don't listen to the above first few comments.

If you want to do it then go for it. Lay down some ground rules with him first. Show him it is a business venture not a family favour.

As for pricing, shop around. Get in touch with some design places and ask what they would charge then decide what you would think would be a fair price.

[HSK]

We charge £65 + vat per hour design/development time at work. But keep in mind that pricing is within a business.

Freelances usually charge less.

Don't worry about how many pages etc your doing, and trying to fix price to that - work out how many hours you think it will take realistically, and put a price to the hourly rate, and then the total.

[Saracen]

He's in a visual arena, and getting his site to look good and showcase his work is not going to be easy unless you're sure you know what you're doing, and can either code i yourself (which he won't want to pay for if you charge realistically) or unless you know what tools (be they open source or commercial) you intend to use. And usually, even then, getting to really look good isn't a trivial exercise.

I wouldn't go quite as far as saying never work for friends or family, but unless you want to be offering perpetual unlimited support and ongoing development, be very careful how you go about it.

If you're charging for it, do it in a professional way. Get his requirements in a clear, written document, get it agreed and signed off, and make it very clear that your quote is for what you've agreed, and not for the extra work every time he changes his mind, because that will cost extra.

As many have said, friends and family can be a nightmare, because once you start doing it, and doing "just this little thing" free, it can be very hard to stop without upsetting family or losing friends. Hence the written spec.

But also be aware that if you're doing this and charging for it, you'll be in a contract. What happened if you mess it up? Are you prepared to fix problems? Do you know what you may be legally committed to? Who gets copyright? Who updates site content? Who provides any initial copy - are you writing it or is it provided? Who provides hosting ..... and ensures that any facilities (like MySQL, for example) that are needed are supported? And so on.


My assessment .... unless you're going to charge a decent whack, you'll be letting yourself in for a lot of work and hassle for not much money, and if you are charging a decent whack, he'll likely expect professional, polished results ... which ain't easy to achieve.

If you're doing this because the cash would be useful, be careful what you let yourself in for. And personally, I'd want to know more about what you're going to be expected to produce before I'd be prepared to give a price, if it were me. If he's expecting a few static pages and a slideshow, that's one thing, but if he wants something to with a fancy photo database and login to restrict access, then be sure you know what you're going to use to achieve that, and that the package (free or otherwise) will do what you want before you quote.

[scaryjim]

I write website for my family and friends. I never charge them (well, except for one, and he understands business properly!). That way, they can't demand my time unreasonably, because I *do* have other clients who pay me and I make it clear that they come first.

I mostly do this for portfolio purposes, and also as a kind of "live" testbed (terrible practice, I know!) - i.e. I turn round to my dad and say "I had this great idea I think I can do, do you want it on your site?" - this gives me motivation for actually writing things instead of just thinking about them.

In this instance, I'd definitely say "I can knock you something up, but it'll take a while and I can't spend too much time on it". Tell him you won't take any money for it, and point out that he might be better off using a professional web design company and paying them as he'll then have legal (contract) protection and a lot more clout in terms of getting stuff done.

Of course, if you're hugely confident that your web design skills can match the quality of his photography and you have enough spare time to guarantee a high quality finished product, you could charge, but make sure it's on a proper business footing, draw up a contract, and charge appropriately - for the site you're describing with flash galleries, private client areas etc you're talking in the high hundreds (I would imagine "professional" quotes starting at ~ £1000). And as everyone else has said, get proper specifications before agreeing on a price, or you'll end up letting yourself in for a lot more than you're getting paid for...

[Singh400]

I'm in the camp of don't work for family/friends. They seem to think your support is on tap and for free.

And if you do work for family/friends lay down some ground rules, and explain that you run a chargable service.

[GheeTsar]

I did a few websites for friends in the past for free - no problems at all. A day's work, a few pointers on how to keep it up to date and that was about it.

That said, some websites can be a pain. Ask him what sort of websites he likes already and what he wants out of it (exacting standards needed). You can then give him an idea of whether it is something you could do in your spare time, for a bit of cash or whether it would be something he needs to go elsewhere for.

As for price - by what you describe I'd probably imagine you could ask for about £500 for that commercially, but only if you can do it really professionally.

[TheAnimus]

I'm in the camp of don't work for family/friends. They seem to think your support is on tap and for free.

And if you do work for family/friends lay down some ground rules, and explain that you run a chargable service.

This is the problem.

Family and friends often forget that your time is valuable. For instance it was cheaper to me to buy my mum a new laptop, than take a day off work to figure out what was wrong with the 4yr old thing.

She seamed very hurt that I didn't want to fix it, but after hearing that dad had 'checked to see what was wrong' I quickly assumed I was going to have a lot of fixing to do!

[yamangman]

Take all the advice you're getting with a pinch of salt however. A degree less formality could well make a good impression at the level of business we're talking here. There's nothing wrong with your clients going away with an impression of personal and considerate service.

[narz]

Depends what kind of relationship you have with the person, if you are not that close .. its unlikely he will bug you constantly if its free.

Just charge £100 and set the expectations! You got any of your work available online?

[Saracen]

Take all the advice you're getting with a pinch of salt however. A degree less formality could well make a good impression at the level of business we're talking here. There's nothing wrong with your clients going away with an impression of personal and considerate service.

Perhaps, but it's also about expectations.

If it's business, then it has to stack up for both sides, and it won't if one side has unrealistic expectations, and even more so if they don't appreciate that the "little changes" they want add up to a lot of time, or worse yet, a redesign of some part of a project. If, for instance they don't understand that they get what they ask for and that that doesn't include 5 years of free tech support, upgrades and enhancements, then they're likely to be surprised and perhaps offended when you try to point that out later. IMHO, it's better to be clear up-front. That way, nobody has a right to feel bitter if they get disappointed later, because it'll be in the agreement .... assuming you get it right. Fair has to be fair both ways.

I'd guess that many of us advocating caution are doing so on the basis if "been there, done that, still got the scars". I certainly am.

[pp05]

I would say unless this is going to be an easy project where you think you can produce a really good professional website for him - its probably advisable you recommend someone else to do it for him.

This way - you still look like the person to turn to/refer other people to for their website needs without too much investment beyond commenting here or there on minor issues if that.

Hi All,

I have been asked to design my wife's cousin's boyfriend's website.
He a really good semi-pro photographer and is looking to set-up fully professionally.
The website would probably have 4 or 5 frontend pages: Homepage, a section for wedding photos (with logins for users to see their photos), a section for other photographic work, a section for sound recording which he also does a bit of, and a contact details/enquiries page. It won't involve anything too flashy but there will probably be some sort of flash-based slideshow type thing (something opensource from t'interweb, not something I have done myself).

He says he will pay me. Trouble is I have no idea what to charge. Any ideas? I want to give mate's rates but at the same time could really do with the cash!

Thanks!