web design cost?

personally uni did nothing to get me my job, it was just 3 years of a mickey mouse jack of all course. Well worth it because I think everyone should go to uni for that experience, but I got my job by working my backside off for 6months after graduating!

multimedia degrees dont count for much, but going out and getting paid work does, best way to start off I think
 
z3b3dy & Edward01 - heh, yes tsinc80697 is quite right, £900 p/h top end web consultancy - usually the type that's able to guarantee x million hits, top three ranking in google across a range of keywords, world class website etc etc etc...

Very much more business consultancy than web design, quite often I see a break down of teams where the lead consultant will get that and have a team of designers doing the donkey work for £100-150 p/h...
 
tsinc80697 said:
Oh and before everyone wants to jub on the web designer bandwagon, remember katie is talking about top level earning as freelancers.

If you're starting off as a junior etc you will be on £15kish and personally I don't think you can ever really earn a GOOD amount working for a company, the real money is running your own studio/freelancing.
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Oh I realise that, I've been a freelancer for over 10 years. In my time I've never come across anybody who's been offered those kind of rates in the web world. Yes I know there are software developers who can earn very good rates but not web developers/designers and that's what we're talking about.
 
katie279 said:
z3b3dy & Edward01 - heh, yes tsinc80697 is quite right, £900 p/h top end web consultancy - usually the type that's able to guarantee x million hits, top three ranking in google across a range of keywords, world class website etc etc etc...

Very much more business consultancy than web design, quite often I see a break down of teams where the lead consultant will get that and have a team of designers doing the donkey work for £100-150 p/h...
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So more business consultant rather than developer, well that makes more sense.
 
£900p/h will be chargeable rate, not necessarily earnings. The consultant will more than likely with a small team attached.
 
z3b3dy - well I think that's exactly the point, most of the web jobs we're seeing require far more skills previously unique to programming... just look at the new wave of websites, eg:

http://sumopaint.com/app/
http://animoto.com/
https://www.photoshop.com/express/landing.html
http://instacalc.com/
http://www.mybanktracker.com/

These require far more 'application-like' interfaces and that's where the consultancy comes in once you start talking around UI design, use cases, market research etc etc...

Certainly, whilst basic sites I've noticed becoming more and more accessible price-wise, the top end ranges have become even higher with £250k being a fairly frequent price level for serious web launches... It's becoming a big industry! ;)
 
DJ_Jestar - no, team will be charged separately p/h - but obviously much less! (circa £100-200)
 
OK so for someone just starting it, it's best to assess the job and charge a flat rate?

What would be a reasonable charge for a small website?

I.E. Just the design and coding? Maybe 5-8 pages...
 
skippi90 - very difficult to judge unfortunately, though you've just got to accept that's part of the learning process. I'd say for 5-8 pages £800-£2000 - but that depends if you're literally just building the pages and dumping them on the client or whether there's extra.

DJ_Jestar - oh absolutely - normally far more than that actually, but I mean the £900p/h will go directly to the consultant, not be split off for other team members - eg an invoice might be:

senior web consultant @ £900 x 60 hrs
senior web developer @ £300 x 200 hrs
web support @ £100 x 100 hrs
etc
etc
etc
 
A friend designs newsletters for national brands - the cost of each newsletter is a very large number, but when you see the revenue they bring in it's a tiny figure :eek:

Enterprise stuff is a whole different ball game to anything else out there. I read a report about cloud computing recently which stated that yes, it's very good, but not suitable for organisations with a >$500m turnover!

On the other hand you get the cowboys who want to charge ridiculous amounts for simple things, or grossly overprice what is in the end an awful product. But you get those everywhere in life sadly.
 
skippi90 said:
OK so for someone just starting it, it's best to assess the job and charge a flat rate?

What would be a reasonable charge for a small website?

I.E. Just the design and coding? Maybe 5-8 pages...
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charge what you think you're time is at. Do you think your skills are worth £30/hour or £15/hour as you're just starting out etc

Best thing to do is sit down and roughly work out how many hours it will take you to do a design, and then double it because the client will want changes or not like your design completely.

Then figure out how long it takes you to slice a website and get it fully working in xHTML/CSS/jQuery valid and working in IE6.

Multiply by your hourly rate and you havea middle figure, say its £800, you can quote them £700-900 that way they won't be shocked if it came out at £900 as you had to spend more time on the design as they didn't like the navigation etc
 
I posted on this thread in its early days and the figures just seem to be getting more and more mental!

Now, i'm not saying I don't believe any of it to be true, but I do think its an entirely different caliber of client being discussed, at first I was thinking christ we must be missing a trick if some clients are waving about this kind of money. But now i'm thinking maybe these are top-end companies and the game would be much more cut-throat at that level, which is not something my company would be interested in, so maybe i'm not even aspiring to be getting these kind of clients. I think i'll stick with my small-medium business clients and charge an honest days pay for an honest days work.

I'm sorry but I class anyone who charges £900 per hour in the same league as overpaid footballers etc... i.e. no one is good enough at their job to justify such quantities, over 7 thousand pounds a day? if people really can get that then good luck to them but good god the people paying it need their head looking at.
 
Mammalian said:
£100ish imo if you have just started out.
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He's going to take more than 20hours for the whole website, 20 hours at less than minimum wage is £100.

20hours design + 10hours coding

That's nearly 4 days, 9-5 work. That's not a lot to make an entire website design, or 2 variations and fully code the site, get it approved/altered slightly a few times for someone who doesn't have much, if any, commercial experience.

So would you effectively charging your services at £3/hour? The lowest value you could possibly charge has to be above McDonalds etc rates as its a niche service you're proving, a skill.

Starting out you need to make sure you're not undervaluing your self and your services, how much would you pay for one of your designs? How much will your target clientele pay?
 
Well, I've just made my first LIVE website.

I.E. I've designed several before but they've never made it live.

Take a look and tell me how much you would pay for something 'similar' keeping in mind that I haven't finished it and there is much more content to go into it including a blog, email form and maybe a better flash portfolio...


Link is the first one in my sig.
 
tsinc80697 said:
He's going to take more than 20hours for the whole website, 20 hours at less than minimum wage is £100.

20hours design + 10hours coding

That's nearly 4 days, 9-5 work. That's not a lot to make an entire website design, or 2 variations and fully code the site, get it approved/altered slightly a few times for someone who doesn't have much, if any, commercial experience.

So would you effectively charging your services at £3/hour? The lowest value you could possibly charge has to be above McDonalds etc rates as its a niche service you're proving, a skill.

Starting out you need to make sure you're not undervaluing your self and your services, how much would you pay for one of your designs? How much will your target clientele pay?
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starting out i made sites for free, as have so so many other people as they were just starting out, and the learning for them/me was my payment, as would be skippis as he is just starting out. you see it all the time, people posting how they are in uni/just starting out so willing to make a site for free/very cheap.

if someone was to pay more then £100 for a site from someone that just started learning how to make sites, imo very rarely would they be getting a good deal, and the site could quite possibly be "harming" business as much as it is helping depending on how good the site is, i.e if a company is trying to look professional but has a very unprofessional site, i'd more likely then not go to someone elses.
 
Mammalian said:
starting out i made sites for free, as have so so many other people as they were just starting out, and the learning for them/me was my payment, as would be skippis as he is just starting out. you see it all the time, people posting how they are in uni/just starting out so willing to make a site for free/very cheap.

if someone was to pay more then £100 for a site from someone that just started learning how to make sites, imo very rarely would they be getting a good deal, and the site could quite possibly be "harming" business as much as it is helping depending on how good the site is, i.e if a company is trying to look professional but has a very unprofessional site, i'd more likely then not go to someone elses.
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Maybe it's just a personal thing but I never have or will work for free unless its something like a charitable cause. I value my services and my time otherwise I'd go and work in Mcd for minimum wage. Working for free may be a good way to get work on your portfolio but then that client is left with a picture in their mind that they can get websites made for free. This goes on to their friends and their friends friends and before you know it we have a situation like we do now in the industry where most clients don't have a clue what to charge as their friends friend got it for £50. Then when they come to an established designer or someone who thinks all services should be charged for, they have to sit the client down and educate them that what designers/developers do is a skill and is highly valued.


skippi90 said:
Well, I've just made my first LIVE website.

I.E. I've designed several before but they've never made it live.

Take a look and tell me how much you would pay for something 'similar' keeping in mind that I haven't finished it and there is much more content to go into it including a blog, email form and maybe a better flash portfolio...


Link is the first one in my sig.
Click to expand...

Its a nice simple design but it just seems template like. You've got a good company name there so I thought you would run with a concept throughout the website. Why use the colours, why use a wooden background? Why did you pick the typeface you chose? Whats unique about it? What makes it yours and not a template you just grabbed from themeforest or similar? Why did you pick a flash gallery to host your portfolio? Is there anything that makes the site stand out or be remembered by people that visit it?

None of what I say is meant to be taken in a derogatory way whatsoever it's meant as constructive criticism so if you feel I'm slagging you off then I'll remove comments etc as I am just trying to help :)

But like I said you have a nice clean design with a name that you can build on to make the design something special.
I'm not trying to come across as a know it all and all my websites are perfect, just trying to help someone who's starting off in a tough industry filled with other similar minded/skilled people.
 
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tsinc80697 said:
Its a nice simple design but it just seems template like. You've got a good company name there so I thought you would run with a concept throughout the website. Why use the colours, why use a wooden background? Why did you pick the typeface you chose? Whats unique about it? What makes it yours and not a template you just grabbed from themeforest or similar? Why did you pick a flash gallery to host your portfolio? Is there anything that makes the site stand out or be remembered by people that visit it?

None of what I say is meant to be taken in a derogatory way whatsoever it's meant as constructive criticism so if you feel I'm slagging you off then I'll remove comments etc as I am just trying to help :)

But like I said you have a nice clean design with a name that you can build on to make the design something special.
I'm not trying to come across as a know it all and all my websites are perfect, just trying to help someone who's starting off in a tough industry filled with other similar minded/skilled people.
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No not at all, that's the sort of criticism I was after. :)


  • Why use the colours?

    When at college, I learnt that one of the first things that should be considered is the colour scheme of your site. I then started checking out other sites. Another member here, Ps3ud0, linked me to the site of a friend. Upon this was a banner for the site he works for. The colours in that banner are the ones you see now on my site. I chose them because I think they look good together and contrast well against the dark background of the header and so became the colours for the site logo too.


  • Why use a wooden background?

    The theme or feel I wanted for my site was minimalistic. For this, the first thing that came to mind was desktop wallpapers and in particular how much I like those that use natural materials. I found a site that has high res images of lots of textures, natural and man-made. I could have made the background myself and most probably will at some point but for now, I think it works perfectly with the theme I wanted.

  • Why did you pick the typeface you chose?

    I wanted a clean but professional typeface so it was really trial and error until I found one I was happy with that would work throughout the site.


  • What's unique about it?

    I'm hoping this is where my content comes in. Every day is full of new ideas but I've never really had a reason to put these ideas into action. Now that I have somewhere to put my work on display, I hope it will also help my work improve.


  • What makes it yours?

    I have designed the site completely to my own tastes and very happy that I can tweak the graphics on the site and include new features when and how I want.


  • Why did you pick a flash gallery?

    I feel that flash galleries, although they take a while to load, look the best in action and are simple to implement. The one I have in action atm is perfect in some ways but not in others. For example, the one you can see embedded on the site itself does not allow you to browse by folder but if you click the link below it, it takes you to the original flash gallery with more options.


  • Is there anything that makes the site stand out?

    I'd really like someone else to answer this as, to me, I don't think the designer ever really feels something is perfect and I know that I always think my work isn't good enough.




And I'm glad you like the name. I spent hours watching Red Dwarf episodes and reading Wikipedia articles to come up with a decent one. :p
 
skippi90 said:
Well, I've just made my first LIVE website.

I.E. I've designed several before but they've never made it live.

Take a look and tell me how much you would pay for something 'similar' keeping in mind that I haven't finished it and there is much more content to go into it including a blog, email form and maybe a better flash portfolio...


Link is the first one in my sig.
Click to expand...
As tsinc80697 has said, it's OK but doesn't leave much of a lasting impression, and there doesn't seem to be any reason/theme linking the design to the name.

The other thing that struck me when I first looked at the site, was that there are a few things which look like they're errors, but after looking closer, they're probably intentional e.g. the header image position, the selected menu item background not filling the green menu bar, the menu item text not being vertically centered within the green menu bar...

Overall, not too bad. Keep at it, and try to start reasoning why you're going to do something a certain way, not just do it because it looks nice.


Mick
 
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