What’s the max I can charge for opening a website?

[JoeyHustler]

I think I can get some local residents that need a website for their business, simply opening them a Wordpress site, installing a theme setting up the whole website, hosting domain etc.. how much can I charge for that? (Local businesses)

 

[sam.hunt0710]

Totally depends how many hours you are working on their projects . Whats your hourly rate is ?

What sort of customization work , content , design work you will provide & they will ask.

 

[MisterF]

How long is a piece of string ?

See this debate in FB groups, some argue charge what the client can afford to pay. Others say charge as much as you think you're worth and if the client can't afford that, walk away.

I'd suggest a lawyer can afford to spend more than a barbers shop doing £5 / $5 gents haircuts.

 

[JoeyHustler]

Totally depends how many hours you are working on their projects . Whats your hourly rate is ?

What sort of customization work , content , design work you will provide & they will ask.

For example, logo, all necessary pages you need for a business, plugins etc.. everything you need for a local business

 

[HowToBeHappy]

Usually the smaller the town the higher the cost. Not as high competition.

Just say $100 and see if they blink or run away.

 

[sam.hunt0710]

If you are providing start to end service then you can make your price 15$ - 20$ / hour + Hosting & Domain Price + Taxes .

 

[Chris TC]

Check their business out and buy a company report for a few pounds:

- How are they doing financially?

- Debt ratio %

- Are they flaunting money? If they have a company car from their business this is a good indicator of how well they are doing. For example If they’ve got a BMW 330D they you know their monthly income is stable, if they are rolling an BMW 118i then you can assume they are cautious and not currently in a place where they can risk money.

There is a lot more to this strategy… but if they don’t currently have a website then you want to get your foot in the door. Go in low 200-400 is reasonable, if you do a good job and can support future growth they will always come back to you. After time you can charge more.

Always take a deposit.

Plan your steps, only show them progress once you’ve hit KPI’s.

Don’t rush for them, if they put pressure on you manage their expectations.

 

[JoeyHustler]

Check their business out and buy a company report for a few pounds:

- How are they doing financially?

- Debt ratio %

- Are they flaunting money? If they have a company car from their business this is a good indicator of how well they are doing. For example If they’ve got a BMW 330D they you know their monthly income is stable, if they are rolling an BMW 118i then you can assume they are cautious and not currently in a place where they can risk money.

There is a lot more to this strategy… but if they don’t currently have a website then you want to get your foot in the door. Go in low 200-400 is reasonable, if you do a good job and can support future growth they will always come back to you. After time you can charge more.

Always take a deposit.

Plan your steps, only show them progress once you’ve hit KPI’s.

Don’t rush for them, if they put pressure on you manage their expectations.

Perfect!! Thanks. I was thinking exactly this, I always thought local businesses would pay 200+ , online services are much cheaper but they wouldn’t look online in my area (wogs lol).
What’s a KPI?

 

[Chris TC]

Yeah you need to make it clear to them form the get go that hiring a freelancer will not result in a website they are expecting. Should they choose to go down that route they will run into two factors that will stop the development dead.

From my experience this is:

Poor communication – Without being specific, freelancers who are from other countries where English is not their mother tongue they have great difficulty understanding what it is you need doing. I’ve encountered this problem with simple jobs like a basic logo concept… I wouldn’t like to try have a website developed by someone who can’t understand what I need doing.

Best avoid freelancers, unless you’ve worked with them before and know they can understand. Especially avoid taking on freelancers who ask about money on the first day.

Aside from freelancers, you want to make it clear that using prebuilt websites from Go-daddy, 1&1… w/e are not great for what they are trying to do. Crush this option for them.

Just kick things off with a £75 deposit, add your simple terms. Plan it out on a excel sheet and mark everything off day by day.

KPI’s – they’re like key points in a project, a key stage where you would be happy to present progress to a customer

 

[ThatSEO]

Stay clear of the low end clients.

• One man bands
• Sole traders
• Food outlets
• Sometimes estate agents

Go for clients who have 2k budgets minimum else you’ll be doing a lot of work for little reward, they’ll keep wanting more and more. Bigger companies want cut and shut jobs, pay quicker and a lot less hassle

 

[JoeyHustler]

Stay clear of the low end clients.

• One man bands
• Sole traders
• Food outlets
• Sometimes estate agents

Go for clients who have 2k budgets minimum else you’ll be doing a lot of work for little reward, they’ll keep wanting more and more. Bigger companies want cut and shut jobs, pay quicker and a lot less hassle

Hmmm 2k budgets, how could that work? I’m not creating them a website from scratch, installing a theme for that business niche, setting everything they need up, would some pay that?

 

[darulez]

1 month average salary in cour country

 

[darulez]

I'd suggest a lawyer can afford to spend more than a barbers shop doing £5 / $5 gents haircuts.

good. thatn I want the lawyer and not the cheap guy.
the more $ the clients have, the less problem.

 

[ThatSEO]

Hmmm 2k budgets, how could that work? I’m not creating them a website from scratch, installing a theme for that business niche, setting everything they need up, would some pay that?

Which is what most ‘web designers’ do - custom builds is 4K or way higher but that type of budget needs a developer. 95% of designers use drag and drop or themes these days

Know the customers you want before pricing up your offering.

 

[Chris TC]

Stay clear of the low end clients.

• One man bands
• Sole traders
• Food outlets
• Sometimes estate agents

Go for clients who have 2k budgets minimum else you’ll be doing a lot of work for little reward, they’ll keep wanting more and more. Bigger companies want cut and shut jobs, pay quicker and a lot less hassle

This is very true.

 

[hacko]

Totally depends how many hours you are working on their projects . Whats your hourly rate is ?

What sort of customization work , content , design work you will provide & they will ask.

It absolutely does NOT depend on yhe hourly rate. Selling a website to a local client has nothing to do with the amount of hours you put in and everything to do with your sales knowledge/experience.

 

[davids355]

Ideally you want to look at what the competition are charging, then look at what you need to earn per hour and work out what you want to charge for a site then get a figure somewhere in between the two.

In addition to that, you can factor in how much you want or need the work - if you really need the work or to grow your biz then you can be flexible and try to always get the jobs. If you are more established then you can keep the price higher and fixed in order to weed out the crap clients (the ones who can’t really afford you).

I’d definitely say website design is an industry where there is a massive variation in price. I’ve personally charged as little as a few hundred $$$ and as much as the mid thousands. I’ve also lost jobs to people who quoted nearer to 10k and I’ve seen other web design agencies (happycog for example) who’s projects start from 100k or more.

 

[Chris TC]

It absolutely does NOT depend on yhe hourly rate. Selling a website to a local client has nothing to do with the amount of hours you put in and everything to do with your sales knowledge/experience.

I agree, you will spent a lot of time taking requirements and planning, interpreting what they want.

For a small local client you won’t be able to charge for this, it’s like integrating them as a customer which you have to absorb the cost initially.

Like I said earlier planning everything well, you can account for you time.

When you have all the hours you’ve invested let’s say it takes you 50 hours to achieve what they are looking for but you’re only charging £400 – customer is happy everything’s GG.

Now take that figure of 50 hours and divide it by 400... You would have been working for £8 per hour, so you would be working for less than someone at Tesco’s or Mc Donald’s – It doesn’t matter so long as they are happy and you’re confident they will reach out to you next time they have work.

Take this initial loss on the chin, it pays off in the end.

When they next approach for work and you can over estimate your delivery date in the plan, for example they are looking for an email enquiry submission form with captcha… you quote them 250 for the job.

You know it will only take you about 5 hours to add this feature, but in the plan you long out each step so on your invoice it looks good.

So second time round you’re now on £50 per hour.

 

[luhasr]

I think I can get some local residents that need a website for their business, simply opening them a Wordpress site, installing a theme setting up the whole website, hosting domain etc.. how much can I charge for that? (Local businesses)

Am from india , Am charging $250 per website , I will basic website +Domain + Hosting. One time cost deliver in 15 working days.

 

[eventually-seo]

@luhasr I will think this $250 per website. This could be a good business if there are so many clients as well.