Web Site Design Contracts

Simmy

Simmy

Simmy

Associate
Joined
26 Dec 2003
Posts
2,260
Location
UK
Hi all,

I started my own PC repair and building company about 5 months ago, and I also advertise a web design service on the side. I've only designed my own website and my dads, but in the last week I've had two companies ask me to build a site for them.

This has made me realise how unprepared I am! I've got a very brief website design contract written up, made of bits and bobs from other contracts I've read on the internet.

So I thought I would ask any web desigers on here what contracts you have for web design jobs. And if possible, could you post it up/email me a copy so I could have a looky see? :) :o

Any other info you could give me about how you go about designing a site, would be greatly appreciated aswell :) ie how you charge.
 
The main points you want to nail down in the contract is exactly what your service will be.

All to often clients ask if they can have an extra section added to the site after the contract has been signed for free.

Any extras after the contract has been agreed you want to charge for and they need to understand this. Its all to easy to be bogged down with added requests that you won't be getting paid for.
 
depending on the site if all the pages will be similar maybe a price per page. Or work out the estimated time it will take to create the pages and charge an hourly rate * estimated hours and keep track of how many hours you do.
 
Charge for your time and also by the complexity of the work.

For example, a simple 5-page HTML site with the same look and feel is pretty simple...nothing fancy there. Whereas for an eCommerce site you need much more skill and care and attention, so you should up your rate accordingly :)

eg, "I require full payment before I will send you the completed design", "This is a one-time only job, if you require maintenance in the future we can discuss pricing or create a contract now", and so on.

Few questions...

What've you got so far? Would you require a deposit? Cash on delivery? Cash in advance? Do you mind sending out a couple of screenshots and doing X minor revisions before you start charging extra? (though this could be a fallacy as if you're just starting out you need to really bend over sometimes to get the first few jobs done and create a portfolio :))

Need a bit more info before I can answer in more detail really :)
 
For one of the companies, it's just going to be a simple 5-10 page site, with email form and that sort of stuff. I'm not really sure how much to quote them, because when I made my site, most of the time was taken up writing up and formatting all of the content. If they're going to provide me with all the content and logos/images I don't imagine it would take that long.

I was going to estimate ~5 hours at £30 and hour (my usual rate) which they seemed to think was ok. Does that sounds reasonable? I'm not a god at web design by any means :( It was just a service I offered to hopefully provide some extra income.

But they also mentioned that in the future, they want to add an online shop, but that will come under a completely new contract.

I'm happy to make a few alterations on top of the agreed contract for free, because I'm only just starting out. Any additional pages I will charge for, but minor amendments to existing pages I'm willing to let go.
 
Simmy said:
I was going to estimate ~5 hours at £30 and hour (my usual rate) which they seemed to think was ok.
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I'll bet they did.

Do you seriously think you can do the whole job start-finish in 5 hours? Whats that include? Design, Images producing?, implementation, design revisions?, the time you've spent already with them?... You also say they're giving you the content, what format? Will it be ready to just copy/paste into the site (adding <p> tags etc..) or will you need to go through formatting certain sections differently, adding images?

Anyways, good luck :)


Mick.
 
The rule of thumb is usually to take the time you think it will take you, double it, and you'll be a bit closer to the real time.
 
Well I actually left my options open by saying 5-10 hours :p

I guess 5 hours would be pushing it even though they're providing images and content. I was hoping they would agree to one of the free templates I found on the net aswell :p

Thanks for the replies so far :) I'm armed with more questions to ask and points to make.

I just need to make some amendments to my contract. If I posted it up on here, could someone have a look at it for me? :)
 
If they want to use a free template then I'll happily do that :p But yes, I was kidding.

I've created a gallery of free website templates to give them an idea of different layouts and colour schemes I can create for them. This is much easier than me constructing lots of different design templates, especially considering my portfolio only consists of two websites atm :p But I don't intend to use the free templates :)
 
Simmy said:
I'm happy to make a few alterations on top of the agreed contract for free.
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What we do is add a grace period of a week or so for the client to make alterations. After that, it's cha-ching time.

Seriously - people take "computers and stuff" for granted and will take huge advantage of you if you start off saying "mm, ok, have updates free" - honestly, it's not worth it in my experience :)

Be clear and concise at all times and you can't go far wrong. There is room to smudge lines but don't let them be erased completely :)

Good luck!
 
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