Pricing a Client...Advise needed.

hey folks...
...i am in need of some advise or insight.

basically i have a client. she did study psychology besides 2 other branches that fit to that. she is momentarily working as a freelancer - writing articles, doing seminars, coachings etc. after a big setback in life she got her ball rolling right now and wants to step out of the freelancing game as she made up some good connections she is networking now.
time for her to start her own buisness.

now she stepped up to me and asked me if i could do the net-side of things for her.
this means i will do:
- a buisness-site. explaining everything she has to offer for clients etc. etc.
- a blog that is connected to that site. so she can keep writing articles and other stuff. i plan on marketing book-suggestions and other stuff she wants to do use her blog for. there will be items she wants to sell so a shop will be added later.
- a FB-page that is connected to the above.
- i guess twitter will be added too.

so this would be the basic job that needs to be done.
there will be no big need for seo-stuff in the beginning - so it`s just the setup first. i guess she will want to have me to manage the content also but we will see.

so what would you charge for such a setup?
what would you charge for monthly content-management?
try to think about it in 2 ways...
...you are doing it for a big company.
...you are doing it for a small local buisness.

any insights on this from you guys already running buisnesses would be really appreciated as i need to tell her what i will charge for the different set-ups.

cheers.

I'd charge $700-800 for the lot but I normally bullshit a lot when I sell so I bump the hell out of clients. Charge $30 to manage content, and keep putting upgrades under their nose. I find it works best when you're more informal, but avoid being overly conversational. So not 'Yo, what's good?' but more 'Hey, how are you holding up?'.
You've got the web designer's dream: a client that is just about to hit the corporate world. They'll spend ANY amount if they think it'll help them on their way. So use BHW's infamous tool, Fiverr, to do the work for you by buying followers, FB likes to your client's social networks and bump the living crap out of them.

I think you are thinking about exploiting the client as she is not much aware about the designing rates and all. The problem with giving a high estimate is that she may approve it initially but later when she comes to know about the competitive rates in the market, she might no be doing business with you. If I was in your place, I would have quoted a fair price.

@strictly:
i will not bump the sh*t out of it - as she is a single person only right now(she got staff available if she has got to a point to be able to employ really) and wants to get a buisness started. first off she needs to do the shift over to get it on her own feet. what she offers to me is an easy job with ongoing income from keeping her stuff up. as well as the chance of getting more work through the people she knows. shes got some decent connections in other fields stuffed somewhere in the back.
so it really isn`t about some company ready to spend "any amount".
but appreciate your input anyways.
but isn`t 30$ a month a little too less? i guess she will have some decent content output per month and i will have to get it all linked up right? so it won`t be like 3 hours of work a month.

@krishna:
as you read above i am not about to exploit her in any way. what i am looking for is some numbers from reality. just to give her an insight what she would have to pay within this market if she was a big company with a large budget compared to a small buisness.
it is basically informational for me to know where i can "meet with her" in terms of pricing.
so it`s about what you have said - finding a fair price i can set for her. as i really want to help her get this thing rolling. she deserves it somehow. and in the long run it will sure pay off for me otherwise as well.

therefore i seek advice on some realistic numbers - just to be able to tell her whats the deal and not to be found a liar later on.

Halilovic-Squad said:

@krishna:
as you read above i am not about to exploit her in any way. what i am looking for is some numbers from reality. just to give her an insight what she would have to pay within this market if she was a big company with a large budget compared to a small buisness.
it is basically informational for me to know where i can "meet with her" in terms of pricing.
so it`s about what you have said - finding a fair price i can set for her. as i really want to help her get this thing rolling. she deserves it somehow. and in the long run it will sure pay off for me otherwise as well.

therefore i seek advice on some realistic numbers - just to be able to tell her whats the deal and not to be found a liar later on.

Click to expand...

In my opinion, the realistic price will be about $400-$600 for setting up the websites, blogs, facebook profile, Twitter. You can also offer her services like Facebook likes and some direct traffic to boost the website at additional cost.

Here is a thought trying posting the services that your client will need done here in BHW or some other freelance posting sites and see what offers people come back with. When I used to freelance I always did that to make sure I was under pricing or over pricing myself. It's just a thought but I've had good success with doing it this way for some time.

Halilovic-Squad said:

@strictly:
i will not bump the sh*t out of it - as she is a single person only right now(she got staff available if she has got to a point to be able to employ really) and wants to get a buisness started. first off she needs to do the shift over to get it on her own feet. what she offers to me is an easy job with ongoing income from keeping her stuff up. as well as the chance of getting more work through the people she knows. shes got some decent connections in other fields stuffed somewhere in the back.
so it really isn`t about some company ready to spend "any amount".
but appreciate your input anyways.
but isn`t 30$ a month a little too less? i guess she will have some decent content output per month and i will have to get it all linked up right? so it won`t be like 3 hours of work a month.

Click to expand...

This is Black Hat World, where 90% of the members (including myself) are immoral, unethical moneygrabbers LOL. I would exploit this, but if you want to keep your morals intact, go ahead and charge less. HOWEVER, it doesn't matter how broke the client is, if they're taking their first step on the corporate ladder, they'll be willing to give up their weekly food shop for it LOL. And that's from personal experience.

@ Derrick:
hmmm...it`s wether you didn`t get the point of my post or i do not understand what you are trying to tell me....

@Strictly:
i know where i am...but i do not see why i have to connect blackhat and unethical, immoral etc. if you do so - fine. and the topic ain`t about keeping my morals intact or whatsoever. then my client isn`t broke. but i guess you do not get the whole picture. or just want to see the green in it?! i get your point and maybe would act different if it was a big company.

.....................

besides that - i maybe should have mentioned some other stuff about the situation:

the reason why i am asking is that this is basically my first client. i do not offer services - up to this point .
i wasn`t looking for clients. my first client found me - kind of.
we got to know each other through a mutual friend. after knowing a little bout me from him and randomly meeting at friends of ours she stepped up to me and thinks i am the right guy to do it. it`s not that she couldn`t find an provider herself. she wants me to do it.
must be my outstanding personality ...

so first off she just needs a web-presence and someone that maintains it...
...later i will may have to rank her for her services. have to check the comp on that. she doesn`t really need to be on top of the big G (for the moment) to get clients as she is networking pretty good and has decent contacts so far.
therefore i just do not want to overprice on her but take a fair amount on what i will do.

even though krishnaverma put me in somewhat of a direction i was thinking myself.
but hearing some more voices on this would highly be appreciated.

cheers.

Halilovic-Squad


Halilovic-Squad you clearly did not understand what I was saying which is okay... I have been in your shoes before. I was not saying to outsource your work or give away the client that found you. I was suggesting that instead of racking your brain and waiting for other people to tell you what is acceptable to charge your client I was saying go and find the data yourself.

Finding it yourself means that you pretend to be your client for example back in the day when I did some website design, content writing, SEO, graphics etc for people I would go to places like guru.com or other freelancing sites and put the project that I knew I was going to do up for a bid to see what other freelancers and professionals would do it for...from there I would have a good perspective on what I could/should be charging. This was very helpful when I was first starting as like you I had no idea what to charge my clients. It was just a suggestion whether you take it or not best of luck with your first client and hopefully its a start to many more.

ahhhh - now there is some light....
...alright i really just didn`t get what you wanted to point out to me.

yes if have been looking round a bit after she told me about the job - just to get a feeling myself of what should be ok to charge her and to give here some rough numbers so she kind of knows where this will be going.
now i just have to settle the price somewhere and do the job. so aswell as i do not want to go overpriced - i do not want to go too cheap. therefore i am asking on some insights on numbers from people here already doing buisness as a service provider.

thanks derrick for taking the time to rewrite your post more detailed so i could get your point.

No problem sir glad to be able to shed some light on the situation. Best of luck in your project

I just put up a site for a friend of a business partner. I didn't charge them because it's not something I do professionally, I just do a lot of offline work for these people and everyone knows I can throw up nice websites. I installed wordpress and used a theme I already owned I hosted it on my server because I have a huge amount of free space. I used a variation of their logo but if I had to pay for graphics, 20$ would have got me what I wanted. I built twitter and Facebook pages and integrated them into the site along with contact details , contact forms, email addresses , legals etc. Wrote intro pages and some content, minimal stuff it's a big business card , that's all.

In total it took me 5 hours to put up an excellent looking site. Everyone is delighted etc. It sounds like your customer is starting out and money will be tight so there's no point in asking for big money because she wont have it. I would be looking to get a monthly upkeep out of it because I would rather have the client than not. Also bare in mind your first client leads to your second. Next person you speak to will be buying your service based on the work you are doing for client A at present.

So although I will get blasted by professionals here who wouldn't get out of bed for less than a grand you can always up you rates as you get busier and more pro.

I would offer.

I build and host your site
I build and integrate your Facebook
I build , integrate and update your twitter
I build you some similar web 2.0s such as tumblir , squidoo etc
I work on a concerted full time seo programme which includes reputation management and some press release work.

This is a major undertaking on my behalf and all web reputation and seo only brings results to people who stay at it for the long term.

So I will set up your entire web presence for free ...but I want a 12 month contract at $350 a month. That's my figure if you think you would do it at 250 then fine if you think it's not worth it for less than 450 then that also works. If you do a good job them you are in a better place to negotiate a better contract at the end of term.

This might seem very cheap but if you want to do this sort of work professionally then I recommend you go low and get your first few clients onboard once you are busy you can choose who you want to work with and for how much.

Hey man,

If I were you I would do some research on your own in your area. It depends on where you live on what you can charge. I charge anywhere from $1000 to $3000 dollars to build a basic website. Any real technical things they want is extra. (example: a program to keep track of her clients information on the site) * definitely extra*

On the monthly CMS, my basic package(local) is $350.00 and then you get into regional(550) and National (950). This includes adding content, linking the articles to facebook,twitter,and pinterest along with checking for broken links, bla bla bla monthy. Updating software/programs building up their followers for social networks and building backlinks to their site. I can send some info I send to clients in the beginning along with the contract if you think this would help. Some is in info path so hopefully you have this. The more information you give them the better off you are of landing that client. Be confident.... People look for confident people in this line of work.

P.S. You want to be upfront with your clients and you will have a customer for quite a long time. I have customers that have actually signed two year contracts because of the way I represented myself in the beginning. cheating them in the beginning will just make them distrust you and your judgement. I know your not thinking of doing this but someone posted this. Just because you go to a Black Hat forum doesn't mean you are a sleezy dirt bag. I use it to gain information to help me.

Fair price. Keeps her on your leash.

@duffers:
thx for your input duffers - and you hit the nail there.
i won`t go for big money - since she has no "big money". she will pay me - so far so good.
i was thinking about doing it for free also and then just charge her a fee for keep everything linked and running - since that is the mayor point for her. but as i can`t forsee how much work that will be, i got back to charging her a stup-fee and then go from there.
she writes a lot of articles and needs them spread - as far as i can see she does have quite some output. eio
another thing is that she is on the road a lot - besides seminars and other stuff she does coaching-jobs for companies a lot. there we got some bigger clients - and that might come in handy later. as she showed that she would definetely be willing to recommend me to people.
maybe i really should think about a higher monthly fee and set it up as a favour since it`s not too much of a special-task.
may be a good option since she has a number she can calculate with.
ohhh....and thx for the reminder on reputation management. this will come in handy for her - reminding her work.
*note to myself*

@cloakme:
i did research that - but theres so many people that build crappy sites at high prices etc. as well as people buying them. which isn`t too bad for "others" right ? but as i plan on not overpricing but giving her a decent presence so she can get a good looking start into her own buisness - it is a bit difficult to come to a good conclusion. at least thats what i felt after a while.
my first thoughts were about to go "high" on the whole set-up and shpwing her that i am still cheaper than others - but i guess i tend to set it up for a little and put the upkeep of everything a little higher then.
the confidence-thing: check.
since she came up to me and explained why i was her choice - only knowing that i am able (and had an instant blueprint) and knowing what my/our friends would give for me and why - i feel good about the situation. that basically got me the point (she isn`t dumb - and has 3 degrees in different psychology-topics).

thanks to you both - much appreciated.

if there is one thing i am lurking for - then its what might happen later.
since she often gets paid to do coaching-work within copanies to improve them and show how.

therefore i do ask here - i like to have a spread view on things.
it just helps me to choose what decision i will make.

so any other insights are still appreciated too.

cheers.

ohhh....and CLOAKME:

...if you would send me the info you mentined - would be very kind and helpfull.