Pricing Your Services

I am getting new clients and frankly, I am not sure about my pricing. What do you charge for a local small business website, hosting, ongoing support, and seo?

Where can I get some simple contracts?

Thanks in advance

 

Pricing for a web site... $1,000-$2,500 seems to be fair. But also depends on skill level and type of web site. Ofcourse web sites with much more features or a demand for complex programming would be more. But for a basic web site $1,000-$2,500 doesn't seem so bad. If you have your own server or at least a VPS you could probably host for free without ever having a problem. On going support and updates are subject to what is required. And same with SEO.

 

Price whatever they're willing to pay, don't low ball them. You're best trying to rip them off and then let them bring you down to a price you both agree upon.

 

Thank you. This is what I am going with for a little while.

Basic: $399
3-5 pages

Silver: $899
5-10 pages

Gold: $1199
10-15 pages

All Mobile Optimized

$30 Per month hosting. For maintenance as well as hosting. Can make two small changes per month, for free.
If you want to get hosting for just $4.95 per month, order through this link. Save all your login details and forward them to us so we can login and build your site. By electing this choice you will get support by contacting the hosting provider, who is quite good. Any changes you would like to make are just $50 per hour of work.

SEO
Basic: $60 per month
Gold: $420 per month
Platinum: $840 per month

 

Im a little confused as far as your last post on the pricing. Why charge $30 for hosting? Many other sites that do the SAME thing, will offer $3-5 hosting PLUS a free domain for life. So as far as that is concerned, im a little concerned.

The website pricing seems fair, although just be sure that when they go Gold, you deliver. Because chances are that someone that can shell out this amount for a site, will be a great reference further down the road for you. And when you are trying to make even bigger sales, references will make or break you.

 

You charge a lot for extra pages.. it takes less then 5mins to make new page from template of existing pages.

You can charge what ever you want but it depends what your competitors are charging. Are you selling sites in downtown Manhattan or in Mumbai or on the internet competing with the entire world?

 

depend on your work quality man!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I deal with a lot of professionals on the day to day basis. I have never met a firm that would charge less than a few thousand for a web site. I've never met a Professional Freelancer that charged less than $1,500. I believe your pricing is low. Unless you can bang out a professional quality web site for $399 in a single day I can't see it being worth your time. Keep in mind... if it takes you 5 days to build and you charge $399, the 17 year old boy with a speech problem asking you if you want fries with that burger is not too far away from making your pay check. He may even be making more... If you produce quality work you should charge no less than $800 for a basic web site.

Even if it's true he can create a page in 5 minutes that doesn't mean he needs to charge for 5 mins worth of work. It costs me a couple hundred for an oil change for my Porsche...it only takes the dealer less than 30 minutes to do. I just can't and won't do it myself....but do they give me a break? No. With that sort of mentality if his work was worth $60/hr that 5 minute page would be worth about $5...the price of a hamburger. *rolls eyes*

 

hosting is a tricky issue. if like everyone else, you pack them onto a shared server then your doing them a disservice. Business should be on better then average hosting.

I would say MIN $20 per month for hosting, that means with 5 clients you can afford a high qualtiy vps, all the software and backup and pay for server management.

Your hardest battle with hosting is trying to explain to clients that you can only give their website a set amount of bandwidth, where for $2 they can get "unlimited" from another company.

 

I agree with Matt_62 about it being a hard battle when competing against larger companies in ANY particular niche. Considering todays world of very intense marketing and the such, its almost impossible to get people to pay more for something when theres most likely an advertisement somewhere close by telling them they get to pay less. Especially when considering that ive found that most of todays new webmasters are very uneducated on what is actually a "good" hosting provider.

Having said that, i also agree with whoever said that your prices are low when you look at what others charge for their similar services. I think you could go up in pricing. Just remember that everything revolves around your sales skills and your people skills. Your sales skills will help you interest the customer and get them to consider purchasing from you. Your people skills are what will actually make the end sale for you with a majority of consumers. Good people skills = increase in sales. I know people that charge ridiculous amounts for menial services, but because people like him, he makes the sale.

Regards,
Brendan

 

Others will.. Just like you can get you oil changed for $40-$60 and the mechanic spends $20 on 4qts of oil and $5 on a filter not to mention the other overhead cost of running a shop. You can charge anything you want but it is a lonely world when everyone goes somewhere else.

No one said a additional page is worth $5 but it is certainly not worth $100. to anyone I know. We are in the days of Wordpress where clients add their own pages with a click of the button. When the next bid is for $100 for 5 extra pages you probably won't get the job.

The market sets the price not the seller.

 

You can't say a page is not worth $100. That's like saying a car is not worth $30,000. Some cars are, some cars aren't, and some cars ABSOLUTELY are worth 10 times that amount... It depends on the product.

The layout, flow, and scheme is what takes the most amount of time for a site. Adding additional pages is an easier task. However, just because it takes you less time doesn't mean you simply charge $25. The only reason someone acquires your services is when they CAN'T do it. There's a reason why dealerships have half hour-1 hour minimum labor. There's a reason why Tattoo artists will charge $75 even for a little dot. There's a reason why a web page is NOT $25.

Actually the seller sets the price. This is not real estate. You may want to be competitive with in your market but you set the price. Digital Point is a funny web site...there are TONS of people who will charge $150 to design a whole web site but very rarely will you get a quality product. But that doesn't mean the PROFESSIONAL must consider the Bids and Offers of a child who produces low quality work when pricing his services.

 

I completely agree. But i think to a certain extent the pricing will also be determined by where you find the buyers from. For example, in my country, a professional team might charge $3000 - $15000, so a company offering $500-$1000 is seen as cheap. But when you meet tech savvy people from online, they expect the world for $5. I hire a guy from fiverr that does better work then i do, and works for less then i do. I am still learning web development, and while i can make a site from a psd in just a few hours, creating a complete solution, that is the online representation of a company, requires quite a bit of time.

Netstar mentioned cars, which i thought was an interesting anology... some cars for the initial development cost MILLIONS, but to then make the car in a production run is cheap in comparision. In the same way, making the initial design and layout, all the logos, and understanding the full scope of what is to be done is the initial development cost, running off an extra page from your template is nothing in terms of the initial costs, but this cost might need to be absorbed in either monthly maintenance fees, or in the initial project cost. I think things like changing prices, phones numbers and small stuff, if its only once a month and under 30mins, i think the client should get it for free, but something like multiple edits, or extra pages, i think charging $20+ per hour is reasonable, emergency rates, (like working weekends) should be higher.

 

A custom eCommerce site with customized magneto theme, 300 products, professional photos, professional product description and webcopy, professional seo campaign, landing pages, and affiliate codes could be a $30,000 job. NOT "I will add a few more pages with dreamweaver"

A basic site with a few html pages is nothing.. you can put and ad out and have hundreds of bids by the end of the day.

DP is a market a low end market you can post ads all week for $1199-10-15 pages no one will buy you have not set any price, you have only asked too much and failed. Craigslist is also a market you can ask anything you want for your work but it is a low end market and unless you are competitive you will sell nothing. To be a "PROFESSIONAL" you have to make money doing what you do, if you make no money you are just a hobbyist.

 

I'm from INDIA and for a basic 5 page website development we can't expect more than $100

 

Well there you have it..$20 a page..............

 

An "enterprise" web site with more complexity than an "Advanced site with more options" is $309.90? Do yourself a favor... collect cans or flip burgers. You will make a lot more money.

Your entire pricing scheme is flawed and silly. There is no way you are an adult. No body is going to acquire over $80,000 of student loans to start charging a few hundred for a "enterprise" web site. Do you not have any bills???

 

Everything depends from your skill and client budget. You can overprice something when someone is rich and give less value for poor client.

 

No. That's what an amateur would do. You should always price accordingly to the quality of your work, type of work, and your skill.