How much to charge for a website?

[Stoo]

I've been asked by a chap at work to build him a new website, he said he'd give me whatever the going rate is, but I really have no idea what the going rate is at the moment?

It's not going to be anything too big, just a semi pro photographic site, with a few categorised thumbnail galleries, and an email price enquiry form..

Any ideas?

[mad_allan]

Ok,

The site will be used for mainly photographic purposes correct?
I presume he will also want a main index page and contact pages etc..?
What gallery will you be using. Coppermine, Gallery or will you handcraft one?
Will the site be HTML, XHTML?

Let me know the full design layout and I will give you an estimate of what I would charge!

[Stoo]

Main Index contains a couple of images (thumbs +popup) and About & Contact Me pages

The main index will link to a categories page, which will then link to a thumbnail gallery with each photo displaying a small information line and pricing information for that particular photograph, along with a purchase enquiry link/form.

Then there would be an administration side so the client could easily upload new categories, amend photo details etc

I'd probably handcraft the thumbnail gallery based on something I've coded before, with the site being constructed with xhtml/php/css

[mad_allan]

I'd be looking to charge around £500 icluding hosting, support, etc..

[Moby-Dick]

Good hosting would be about £100-£150. The rest of it is your time really. £20/hour isn't an unreasonable charge.

If you are wanting to charge a package fee, somewhere between £500 and £750 ( to include a years support ) would be reasonable

[ajbrun]

That's a lot of money for a website. Is web designing quite a well paid job then? Would it be a good thing to get into?

[Jonny M]

You can only charge high prices if you are very good, if you are chucking something together with FrontPage then you won't be able to ask for those prices.

[ajbrun]

Yeah I know that. I was meaning for a proper full time job after being at uni for 3/4 years. I'm currently on my 1st year of a computing course at Leeds Met. There are many options that I can do on that course - databases, programming, and web design are a few. I was just wondering what it was like as a job.

Are you generally self employed, or work for a company, or could it be both?
Do you work from home?

When I say "you", I don't mean one particular person, just "could you....".

[Stoo]

About £500 sounds about right

[mad_allan]

Yeah I know that. I was meaning for a proper full time job after being at uni for 3/4 years. I'm currently on my 1st year of a computing course at Leeds Met. There are many options that I can do on that course - databases, programming, and web design are a few. I was just wondering what it was like as a job.

Are you generally self employed, or work for a company, or could it be both?
Do you work from home?

When I say "you", I don't mean one particular person, just "could you....".

Adrian - You have to be very skilled in web design to be commanding good money. There are so many ins and outs, it takes a long time to get used to all the programming methods. There is HTNL, XHTML, CSS, JAVA,PHP, ASP, etc...

It is a good job to get into but very very competitive. My best friend is a reseller of webhosting and gets me a few jobs as I work full time too. The latest site I created was for a full .asp site and I made over £3000 on this job alone. So yes it can be both (full time and this as a side job).

[ajbrun]

OK, thanks. I just wanted an idea of what people thought of the job. Right now, I'm not really sure what I want to do. I'll just go through the modules at uni, see which I like and speacialise on them.

[5cupa]

last website i did was 8 pages and i charged £1400. but this included original graphics I designed and produced which should have been £1400 on there own tbh

[TiG]

Ajbrun, web design still imo has a stigma of being rather the bottom end of programming, just check out the web sites, web developers are paid more like 25-30K and C++ developers 35k+.

Having said that do what you enjoy and you'll do well whatever you decide to do

TiG

[Zak33]

£500 sounda a bit cheap.

I'd go with £500 for a basic setup, fully functioning BUT with options for other stuff included at extra charges...like a menu of options.

That way you are offering the "one stop shop"that everyone is looking for.

Plus it gives you future potential....and while YOU know about it....he doesn't.

SO make sure you keep avenues open to the design and layout....things he can use in the future

[Nemeliza]

£500 bare minimum...whats ur time worth to you and how long would it take you do do this?

[5cupa]

also think about what the website is worth to the company. is it there main PR tool ? if so up the price