How much do I charge?

[tranman]

I've got a potential client (realtor) who would like a web site built. Nothing fancy, just typical HTML and photos. Any idea how much I should charge? Is it per page typically? What about ongoing maintenance/changes/improvements? Does it vary (like everything else) depending on where you are located?

Thanks.

[mairving]

The answers are:
As much as you can
Don't charge per page
Charge a monthly fee
Yes

Anyway, what you charge depends upon several things. One is your skill level. The other is what the customer thinks your skill level is. I would try to determine how long it would take to do it like the customer wanted, add a few hours and do it at a rate of $25/hr. That is if your skill level is high to you and your customer. Otherwise, do the site for whatever he will pay to build up a portfoilio.

[Confused]

I think your fee would depend in large part on whether or not you are going to have a business doing computer work or if it is just a part time hobby for some extra cash.

If as a business, $25.00 a hour is way too low. As a business you will be responsible for your own medical, retirement, liability insurance, taxes, business license and fees, social security (15% off the top). Think about it, $25.00 a hour for 40 hours = $1000.00 a week. SSI 15% reduces that to $850.00, then pay your state, federal taxes, purchase liability insurance and medical insurance(probably minimum of 300 a month). Well I think you get the picture, $25.00 isn't going too far.
Chas

[tranman]

At this point, it would just be for extra cash. Maybe someday it will balloon to the point where I would have to consider doing it full time. On that basis then, is $25 hour about right?

[Richard M Balling]

Determine if he's paying for it or if he's in turn billing the reality company...either way, there's a strong chance he'll want a reciept to deduct this from his taxes as a marketing expense.

Richard

[tranman]

The realtor has her own small real estate company that I'm going to do the work for. I suppose I'll be hired on a "contractor" basis.

[Confused]

$25.00 an hour might not be too bad. You could also bid it for the entire job.
Chas

[shecky981]

$25 per hour is extremely low. I charge $65/hour for design & implementation, and $50/hour for updates and maintanance. Those are just freelance prices, When I was with a firm, our office rate was $90-$120/hour depending on the client.

As a "extra cash" situation, you are far better to charge a flat fee for the entire site, as, it is hard to predict how long it will actually take you to do the site, and, the client needs a fairly accurate idea of how much it will cost her. So, i would offer flat fee based on your experience and portfolio.

There are a lot of different ways to bill. You need to be flexible in what you charge, but, ALWAYS charge enough. Examples:

I recently bid out a Flash website for a client, a music producer. The entire site is in Flash, but, it is only maybe a 10 page site, so, its actually pretty simple once it is designed. I bid $850 for the project, which is much lower than I normally would have, but, its kinda a cool little project with a lot of freedom from the client to do what I want and how I want to, and, may lead to more work in the future, which is why i bid the way i did. Now, the problem here is that the original site was done by a high school kid for $100, so the client thinks that $850 is kinda high, whereas i see it as 1/4 of what the project is really worth. We are still in negotiations.

Another project I recently bid on was for a staffing business, some Flash work, lot of database stuff, etc. the client wanted nothing up front and to just pay me a healthy chunk of the business profit over 5 years. I told him no, and that i would need $2500 up front and a smaller percentage of profit, as it was a big project and would take up all of my time fer a couple of months. We are also still in negotiations.