What would you charge to build this website?

[pioneerx01]

I am not looking to hire anyone to build this website. I am looking for quotes to get a rough idea about what the prices are like. Let's say that I want a website with following features:

• Basic CSS style, nothing special of flashy
• No flash based components
• Standard landing page, with small image slide show and text on rest of it
• Drop down navigational menu.
• About 10 pages of non-dynamic content, contact us, rules, locations, ...
• Build from scratch, not a template like worpress.
• Simple banner made from provided logo.

1. How much would you charge to build and hand the code over to the customer? You will not need to host or mamage it.
2. Later on the customer contacts you that they want you to change information on one page (text only), how much would you charge for that? Assuming you have ftp access already.

Thanks

[B_CooperA]

Well basically there's nothing dynamic there, all just static pages so u shouldn't charge too much. If you need to build up the whole layout (using a Photoshop or something first), I would charge anything between 150 to 200 euros.  

 

Don't know about the updating charge though, since I have only created pages which user can / are updated by the users itself.

[KevinM1]

I would charge anything between 150 to 200 euros.

Wow, that's cheap.

 

To the OP, the best way to figure it out is to have an idea of how much your work is worth an hour. It doesn't matter what kind of work (e.g., PHP vs. HTML vs. creating a layout in an image editor). Just figure out how much you think is fair to yourself per hour. From there, estimate how long it will take you to complete the project. After you have a ballpark time estimate, add 50%-100% more time for debugging, installation, last minute tweaks the client wants, etc. Multiply your cost/hour * the number of hours (including that 50%-100% buffer I just described). That's the estimate you give your client.

 

The best part about doing it this way is that most of the time you'll likely finish the project under the amount of time you originally project (which is part of the reason why a large buffer works so well). If that happens, you have a choice - charge the client the full amount, or take off some/all of the unused buffer time from the bill, thereby making your client very happy.

 

I personally have a base fee of $500. Meaning, even if something is trivial, that's what I charge. Remember: if you're doing this as full-time employment, you need to be able to earn enough to not just cover hosting, domains, software, hardware, transportation to and from a client, phone, etc., but enough to live off of.

[AbraCadaver]

I would start with a reasonable hourly rate, maybe $40/hour and decide how long it would take you to do maybe one page and multiply.  I would say maybe $400, but you should get buy-off from the customer on a draft layout of one page (layout, colors, etc.) before doing the rest.

[B_CooperA]

Wow, that's cheap.

 

 

Well I'm not doing it full-time and I'm still a student of IT so the money isn't so relevant to me, but the learning and understanding of web development

 

And I honestly thought I'm asking too much. Well, seems like it's my time to raise my hourly rate

Edited October 8, 2013 by B_CooperA

[Barand]

I would start with a reasonable hourly rate, maybe $40/hour and decide how long it would take you to do maybe one page and multiply.  I would say maybe $400, but you should get buy-off from the customer on a draft layout of one page (layout, colors, etc.) before doing the rest.

So that gives you 10 hours to do the CSS, 10 pages and installation without any contingency for the client to change their mind (and that's not exactly unheard of) and there are always "just jobs". You know the sort of thing - as my wife says "if you could just knock down that internal wall..."

 

I suspect you could end up working for minimum wage (approx 7GBP/10USD in the UK)

[trq]

And I honestly thought I'm asking too much. Well, seems like it's my time to raise my hourly rate

If you had guestimated 150 to 200 euros what exactly was your hourly rate? Shit, I won't get out of bed for less than $60/hr + start fee for these kinds of projects.

[AbraCadaver]

So that gives you 10 hours to do the CSS, 10 pages and installation without any contingency for the client to change their mind (and that's not exactly unheard of) and there are always "just jobs". You know the sort of thing - as my wife says "if you could just knock down that internal wall..."

 

I suspect you could end up working for minimum wage (approx 7GBP/10USD in the UK)

 

For me 10 hours is adequate and the $40 was in general, I charge more  As I said, I would get buy-in from the client on the general layout, color scheme etc and agree to deliver what was stated (spelled out in contract) with some verbiage around minor changes/tweaking after the fact.  I haven't done these small sites in a very long time but I agree with KevinM1.  I would set a base price for any site, no matter how small and build from there.

[AbraCadaver]

If you had guestimated 150 to 200 euros what exactly was your hourly rate? Shit, I won't get out of bed for less than $60/hr + start fee for these kinds of projects.

 

And for me, to answer all questions present and future, I am not a developer and never have been, so the projects that I've done have been outside of my normal job (network design, security, consulting, etc).

 

I charge a lot for the dev projects that I do do, and estimate high because I don't need the work, but do need flexibility.  So maybe I'm not the best to answer for those starting out as I tend to think of average rates for someone who would ask "what do I charge".

 

I was kind of thinking that $40/hour was the average for average (American) developers and average projects (small HTML/CSS, no JS, PHP, no from scratch graphics, etc).  I would think that normally, experienced PHP devs that do dynamic DB driven sites wouldn't even go after this type of project unless they had extra time or business was really slow.

 

Years ago (10 or 12) I worked for a company that provided high-speed Internet to office buildings and as a service they resold web development packages from some other small company.  If I remember correctly the smallest site price was $500 (just HTML, maybe 5 or 10 pages).

[ignace]

// what would be the absolute minimum you would charge for this project?

$minimum = ..;

// what would be the absolute maximum you would charge for this project?

$maximum = ..;


$range = range($minimum, $maximum);

echo 'This projects total costs: ', $range[array_rand($range)];

Adding some randomness to your project makes for on-time and within-budget projects. You'll also feel much better because you won't feel like your the one ripping your client off as you did not set the price. Edited October 9, 2013 by ignace

[.josh]

The way we do it at my job is we estimate how many hours it will take to complete the project and then give a price based on the hours.  But we charge for the hours worked, not the actual project.  IOW our contract does not state something like "Job will be finished [or to your satisfaction]" or anything like that.  So if we estimate 10 hours and the project takes longer than 10 hours, they have to pay us more money.

 

It works really well for handling jobs that take a lot longer than expected due to clients changing their minds about things or otherwise not fulfilling their end of things, or unforseen circumstances or problems in general that aren't your fault.   But it also only works well if you are very good about estimating how long it should take you to fulfill your end of things.  

 

Same thing for "ongoing" stuff.  We offer them up a monthly retainer of like 5 or 10 (or more, depending on what they want) and they have that many hours to burn a month.  

 

But one tip: make sure to include some time for hammering out details of the project, agreeing on the scope of it, etc.  You can easily spend many hours on calls or emails hammering that shit out, and that's work you shouldn't just write off.  Even our smallest projects involve several hours worth of meetings and emails and poking at setups and things to hammer that stuff out.  Some of our projects consume hundreds of hours just for that.  

 

IOW, don't fall into the trap of working all this shit out before offering a price.  Figuring that shit out IS part of doing it. So if you do that before client has signed a contract or given you any money, well you just provided them with free work that they aren't obligated to pay for.   Yes, it's a gray area: you have to have "some" discussion before signing a contract, but it should be as top-level as possible.  Don't spend any more than like 30m talking to them to get a feel for it and then make an estimate based on what they've told you.