How much to charge for a full blown site?

I wasn't sure where to post this. I have been approached to help develop a full blown website for a proprietory school in town, design, graphics, SEO and all.

I don't even know where to begin on my proposal. I have done things for friends as favors and some small sites. I feel I would do a great job but I don't know what to charge. Plus I am a hella nice guy and have a hard time profiteering off anyone.

Thanks in advance for the advice.

 

Charge more than you will imagine. Every project I've ended up taking on board which has involved creating a full website has ended up taking me at least twice as long as I estimated. It's often left me very frustrated.

Also clients usually want to add new features after the initial costing is done.

So make sure you factor in that the site will take you longer than you may initially estimate.

Congratulations on being offered the job.

 

A good place to start would be to ask them their budget. Then you'll know if they're thinking realistically as far as how much time you would put in. And if their budget is too low for what you would need to make at a minimum, you'll then have the option of saying to them "well I couldn't do the full scope of the project for that price, but here's what I could do at that rate...." They might not need as much done as they think. Perhaps they'd still hire you for the design work and deal with content and SEO on their own, and you would still make a fair rate for what you do.

Jenn

 

The budget is there. Pretty much whatever I need. My problem is I don't know what I need. This stuff is just fun for me.

Can you give me ballparks on how you price a site?

 

Why not charge them by the hour rather than by the project? You should know about what your time is worth, right?

 

Actually, the standard in just about all kinds of consulting and freelance projects is moving away from an hourly pricing model to something more value-based. Per project is almost always the way to go. The problem with hourly pricing is that it immediately pits the contractor against the client. The contractor by nature wants to be able to bill for a larger number of hours, while a client wants to minimize the time spent on the project to reduce what they have to pay.

Instead look at the project as a whole, come to an understanding of how valuable the final results are to the client (whether it's a website, a complete corporate identity, etc.), the general quality of your work compared to industry standards, how long it generally takes you (if you're new it's going to take you longer, but that doesn't give you a right to bill more for your time than someone who's more experienced and could do the project in half the time), and your own background. After you look at all of that information, you need to also consider how many billable hours you have each week (22-23 billable hours is the norm for any freelancer or consultant working full-time), figure out your general expenses, and decide how much that means you need to make per hour for those billable hours to meet your financial needs. Make that a standard rate that you keep in the back of your mind when figuring out per project rates, b/c it should be the minimum that you're making. Decide on that per project rate, and then understand that sometimes you'll get done quicker than expected, and therefore make more per hour, and sometimes you'll be slower, and therefore make less. In the end, if you work out a good value-based pricing structure, it works itself out in the end.

Jenn

 

decide how many hours it will take to complete the website
and charge per working hour

 

This just isn't the standard when working on freelance basis! Charging per hour is mostly used when working in-house!
I would ask you to charge the following way!
> 100$ for the basic template
> 250$ for making a website out of that template
> Your SEO charges depend on your strategy!

Abhishek