How much should a web developer charge?

Diddums

Diddums

Diddums

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I'm not talking about big guns kind of guy, just someone who's helping the local businesses to set up a website and maintain it. Someone who's not that clued up yet but knows how to install a CMS and tailor it to the business' requirements.

I'm now confident enough to start running a small business (Might not go ahead with it yet, just exploring options at the mo) with a reseller package, setting up sites for small businesses around my area and charging a small monthly fee for hosting and maybe an hour or two a month for updates and whatnot.

What would you expect to pay someone like this? I'm thinking maybe £20 a month for the site & hosting, £150 to set the site up and £30 an hour for changes and updates and whatnot.

I have zero idea what this usually goes for so any input is greatly appreciated :)
 
Personally I wouldn't work for less than 300 quid a day for any kind of skilled IT/software development work. The 150 seems far too low, but if you could get a decent number of people paying the 20 a month you might make some OK money. Depends if it's your main income or not really.
 
How long do you estimate it will take you to set up? Add 50% and then multiply by an hourly rate you feel roughly reflects your current skills and the quality of work you intend to deliver.
 
What are you hosting it on? A virtual server or a dedicated one?

Surely you want to know what the costs of such a server would be first, then base your hosting costs on that amount.

£150 is silly cheap.

By installing a CMS I assume you mean WordPress?
 
It won't be a primary source of income, I have a normal job but this is something on the side which I enjoy as well, so if I can start a little something like this and maybe build it up over time it may develop into a bigger idea or I may lose interest and sell the work I have to someone else. This is purely to test the waters and see how it goes.

More money is nicer but I don't feel I'm in the position to be charging £300 a day yet, maybe when I've got more experience and more of a portfolio.
 
anticonscience said:
What are you hosting it on? A virtual server or a dedicated one?

Surely you want to know what the costs of such a server would be first, then base your hosting costs on that amount.

£150 is silly cheap.

By installing a CMS I assume you mean WordPress?
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*this is all a rough draft and open to suggestions, so please add any thoughts*

The intention as it stands is to use a reseller package, after a brief google I was looking at this one. If this develops in to more, I may opt for a dedi.

£150 is a random number. I figured that installing a CMS, whether it be Wordpress, Drupal, whatever plus a day to configure it all and set it all up would be about right, and I would be willing to charge £150 for a day's work. Obviously once i have some templates and more experience in this I can work faster and also create sites which command more money, but as a reasonably new person to this, I think £150 is safe.
 
So looking around at various CMS, they all want to tie me in to their servers and pricing structure. Wix, Weebly, etc. Other than Wordpress, are there any CMS that I can simply install on my own server with no branding, ads or other nonsense?
 
If you believe your pace of delivery will speed up then maybe charge by the project instead of by time? i.e. charge £2-300 for a wordpress setup regardless of how long it takes you.

Once you are more confident in how long each job will take then switch to a day rate perhaps?
 
Good suggestion from Mickey which gives you room for error and less pressure early on whilst you work your way through becoming more efficient & building a business model.
 
I charge £60 an hour and have people telling me its too little, but it seems to be a price point that attracts good customers who have realistic expectations.

Cheaper attracted people who had ideas much bigger than their pockets.

More expensive attracted people who thought they owned you for the price.

I seem to have hit a nice spot where I get comfortable work with customers who have realistic and fair expectations.
 
Diddums said:
So looking around at various CMS, they all want to tie me in to their servers and pricing structure. Wix, Weebly, etc. Other than Wordpress, are there any CMS that I can simply install on my own server with no branding, ads or other nonsense?
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Joomla. I run it on my personal site, although it's not very beginner friendly, it's a very powerful package. For the gf's site and a few others I run I just use Wordpress, less hassle.
 
There's Django CMS (python based). Not used it myself, only came across it when researching Django CMS solutions to see if any exist for future integration with some Django based products out of curiosity.
 
I set up a drupal site and wordpress site on a VPS. Drupal took me around 5 times longer to learn and setup. I would stick with wordpress.
 
I don't think you can really charge too much these days - I mean for a basic website where you've got some CMS to do it all for you it is the sort of thing the business owner could probably do himself if he sat down for a couple of hours and just had a go at it...

Unless you've got some design talent or you're doing some real coding/customisation that goes beyond the typical plug and play solution then it probably is going to be along the lines of the rates you're pondering in the OP.
 
£150 won't even get you some content pasted into a WordPress template by anyone who isn't doing it for pocket money.

If you only have that sort of cash then get a site from Wix and do it yourself.

Edit: Oh you wanted to know how much to charge. More than you said above, but it depends on how good you are.
 
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bobbyspangles said:
My uncle does this but uses free website generators and charges £350 to set up and £50 a month support :o.
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That's amazing. I mean that people are prepared to pay that much for something they could do themselves, in a couple hours.

I'm in the wrong business :p

However I got the impression that web developers were massively over-subscribed, that everybody and his dog is doing web dev these days.
 
I'd probably aim higher than £150 but it really depends on the value you deliver to the client. You need to keep in mind that the entirety of the work will almost certainly involve more than just setting up the hosting and doing a wordpress install. A happy client will want the site in good shape when handed over (e.g. real copy), know how to do stuff, you'll need to explain how ongoing support will work and so on. What is a nice and tidy day's worth of work in your head probably won't pan out like that.

In terms of hosting, £20 sounds like a lot for the type of clients you'd attract. I have absolutely no experience with these resellers but I'd look into spinning up a cheap VPS. I've got one from ArubaCloud that I just mess about on and it costs me a massive one euro a month. The specs are actually quite respectable and probably capable of hosting a few low traffic sites and mailboxes without issue. You would need to be pretty comfortable with linux and something like virtualmin though. I'd also recommend putting the sites behind cloudflare as it'll reduce load on your servers and you'll get free SSL :)

If you do go ahead with this I think you should be careful about the type of clients you take on. In essence it's about picking the right tools for the job and if you're only capable of doing wordpress installs with some basic theming and plugin installs then seek clients only wanting basic content sites. I've never done freelance wordpress development but from my experience within an agency and dealing with wordpress sites it generally goes:

1. Client wants basic content site
2. Some freelancer creates site with wordpress
3. Client wants X but no plugin exactly does X
4. Freelancer hacks code to make it do X
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 a few times
6. Client desperately rings around trying to find someone who will touch their unmaintainable site

You'll get a naff reputation and for peanuts; it's just not worth it. I'm not bashing wordpress as such, I'm sure there's lots of smart people doing great things with it, but I can only go from my experiences and anecdotes from colleagues.

FoxEye said:
However I got the impression that web developers were massively over-subscribed, that everybody and his dog is doing web dev these days.
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I think it's bit of a mixed bag really. There seems to be a lot of people who are doing what the OP is looking into but it's pretty different to actual development on large code bases that need to be maintained by teams and such. There's certainly a market for the latter.
 
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FoxEye said:
That's amazing. I mean that people are prepared to pay that much for something they could do themselves, in a couple hours.
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This is the definition of a huge number of jobs though. People pay for TVs to be plugged in, shelves to be put up, pictures to be hung. Why is the idea that people happily hand over money for something they can't do themselves so strange?
 
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