[BNM] Fwd: How much do you charge for a web site?

[Nick Taylor]

> I am being increasing asked to make small (20 page or less) static
websites.
>
> How much do you charge for such a beast ?

Don't know, but in my experience the bulk of the work you'll wind up doing
isn't in building the website itself, but involved with becoming the
de-facto support person from day-one until they need a new website... and
you gratefully pass the baton to some other bright-eyed kid. For me, hosting
sites for friends has been a hard habit to break and a long, long journey of
extracation.

Personally although the costs (ignoring the above) of building a simple site
may be less than 1k, I tend not to do anything under 1k - unless I'm being
subcontracted to by another developer.... because the lower the budget, the
less planning they will have done and the more time you'll spend on the
phone chasing them for copy etc. I did a 1k contract for a local brewery
(and who could resist that?) and it took over a year for them to get their
copy together... by which time I'd gotten too busy with other stuff and
artfully oozed out from under the responsibility. They were nice people so I
didn't charge them for anything - but I shudder to think what the net loss
was in terms of my chargeable time.

That said, there are doubtless people and companies who have learned how to
manage the smaller punter. Not me though. I'm not really clever enough for
the simple stuff - too easy to push around etc.

I'd almost consider taking smaller jobs to a local agency who hire
freelancers and saying - "I've got this job but I'm a geek -  I'm not as
good at customer liasson as you - would you consider hiring me to do it?".
It's a fair bet that their cut won't be as much as the time you'll lose
dealing with rogue support calls etc.

And they'll have a better idea of what to charge.



n









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NICK TAYLOR :: nick at tangerineworks.com
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