What should I charge for building a medical web site?

I've only gotten into the web design game fairly recently with my summer camp site http://www.goculver.com but some people have recently asked me what I'd charge to put together a web site for them.

What on earth should I charge? Whats a good billing structure for making a web site for someone? Flat fee? by the hour?

I'm proficient in HTML, CSS, and know some php, have photoshop, dreamweaver and all that. I'm pretty confident I could put together a sharp site for this gentleman's medical practice (i think he's basically looking for an online calling card type of site).

Any tips? I hadn't really thought of doing work for hire with my new web skills I've been developing in the last year.

 

Some people like to charge by the hour, some prefer a flat fee based on the value they think the site offers the client. My suggestion is, starting out, set yourself an hourly fee (say, $100/hr), consider how long you think it will take to complete the site, add 25% on (so if you think it'll take 100 hours, charge for 125 hours), and then give your client the quote based on that. The additional 25% is for your time meeting with the client, and then fixing all the little things that crop up at the end (which ALWAYS crop up, no matter how well you've planned things), chasing the client to pay the final installment, and then making the site live.

So say this client just wants a simple 2-page site, and you think you can do a nice design, and code it, in 10 hours - charge him 12-15 hours at whatever hourly rate you think is fair.

I hope this helps...