November 15, 2005

• Three dollars and seventeen cents. Trust me on this.
• Does that include flash animation?
• Add $1 for every minute spent procrastinating reading MoFi and playing video games. Subtract $0.25 for every minute spent working on the actual project.
• I'm not a web developer, but for freelance work, I'd charge an 2x what you'd expect to be paid for the same number of hours in a full-time job.
• I've been told that $30 - $40 per hour is reasonable. But in addition to wanting to confirm that, I was also curious about how everyone manages the project. Like do you tell the client you'll deliver X number of pages, or X amount of hours, or - ? Do you require all the images upfront or charge extra to make them ?
• one word to remember- contingency. what you expect to happen is rarely how things work out. figure out the scope of the project, i.e. page count, production and creative work required, and decide if you want to charge based on deliverables or time spent. either way, chances are you will end up doing 150% of what you expected, so charge accordingly.
• 42 minutes of hot hot webmonkey love under your desk. Gawd...has petebest been living under a rock or what?
• Drugs. Get paid in drugs.
• Toke.
• Raise your hand if you need moneyjane to help out with your website.
• Oh! Hand. Right, sorry, misread that.
• Make sure you write up a contract detailing what work is involved and the limitations thereof, what is deliverable, how you'll be paid and when (on delivery, half now half when completed, et al), the terms of agreement (exactly what is expected from both parties, and also liability stuff. Even if you're friends (actually, especially if you're friends) with them, it never hurts to have something to refer back to if there are ever any questions. Oh yeah, and cost. $40-$65 / hour, depending on the scope of work and how well you know the other party. Or, if you already know the scope of work and have worked out exactly how much is involved with the client, you could charge a lump sum fee (but I would also base that on a per hour charge).
• Working for moneyjane would equal for me = starvation. Pleasant starvation, but...
• You do websites? I need a website... To answer your question though, I'd say about £7.50... Anyway, drop me a line, we'll talk...
• I'm a web programmer, as opposed to a designer, so I'm not sure how applicable my comments are. As f8xmulder indicates, I tend to charge in the same bracket, depending a little bit on the project. Given that I have enough experience to fairly accurately predict the amount of work involved, I tend to go with an agreed amount, based on my hourly rate and the time I expect the project to take, with a little bit extra factored in for project creep. I ask for payment at clearly defined stages (generally broken down into 25% allotments), rather than at project completion, because some projects, sadly, are never truly completed (largely due to poorly defined expectations at the client end). Again, as f8xmulder suggests, do your best to get some clear agreed definition of what constitutes completion of the project, but be prepared that you and your client may disagree at what point that stage is achieved. Break this down to exactly what pages / features / content will need to be provided to satisfy completion. A useful first step in the design process is to ask your client to identify several sites he / she / they like, and to describe what elements they most find attractive about them. That can save you a lot of time and your client a lot of money in short-cutting the design proposal stage. Hope it goes well!
• Working for moneyjane would equal for me = starvation. Lol, I doubt moneyjane would have any difficulty charging me for services rendered, so I doubt I'd have difficulty doing the same. I'm a sucker for a cup of coffee and a good conversation, though.
• I charge $50 to start. But then, I don't do web work a lot anymore, and had about 6 years of "professional" experience, for what it's worth. If you're relatively new to the game, $25-30 an hour is reasonable. However, be very conscientious about not charging time to a project when you're learning a new skill, unless the client knows that you have to learn something specific and relatively uncommon to complete their work, and know that they are subsidizing your learning for the sake of their product.
• Good advice, thanks all. I asked for: 10 sites they like 5 they don't And got 1 site they like back. So - I think I'll ask for $35/hr and now begins the process of figuring out everything they want. I'm pretty confident that they do not. Any suggestions on a "standard" navigation scheme? Site Map, About Us, Contact, etc? I remember once a blueprint that "every" site should follow - something along the lines of domain.com/contact.html or something like that.
• Any suggestions on a "standard" navigation scheme? Site Map, About Us, Contact, etc? I remember once a blueprint that "every" site should follow - something along the lines of domain.com/contact.html or something like that. I think this is somewhat guided by the content / purpose of the site. Obviously things like "Home", "About", "Contact" (maybe "FAQ", "Forum", "Support" etc, if any of them are applicable) go without saying. By the way, this site (or one like it; there are other, similar collections, but this is the best I've discovered so far) should probably be in every web designer's bookmarks.
• cool, thanks planetthoughtful. I kinda wish webmonkey were still updated - and at the same time I'm glad it isn't.
• Also, while your client is probably paying for a unique design, you might get some mileage / inspiration from Open Source Web Design. I've never really spent a lot of time looking through their templates, but I know it went off the air recently and a large number of people on Slashdot.org freaked out about it, so I'm assuming some people think it's a great help in kickstarting the design of a new site.
• You might want to look into some sort of CMS, instead of building it from scratch. There are often plenty of easily customizable templates floating around, and if you're planning on updating it for them later (or if they want to do it themselves) this will make life much easier. Check here for various demos. I hear drupal is good.