How much to charge for Web Design?

Hmm, this is interesting. I too never know how much to charge. Then again I've never charged but have worked on many personal/school related websites. If you're going to charge him a monthly maintenance fee I would keep it low. But I would probably say like $200 max for what you have and a low monthly fee of maybe like no more than $20. Or maybe do something like $20 every time something needs changing rather than a monthly fee. If he's helping you then you should help him by keeping things reasonable.

That's what I would personally do, but many people may not agree with this at all. Since I enjoy web developing and find sites like yours pretty easy (not trying to knock you down or anything, but ajax stuff is much harder), I can't understand how people charge and spend a ton of money for what they actually get. I think the hardest part of the site like that is overall design and logo creation.

(emphasis mine)

roebuck86 said:

Whilst I've never made a website before I cannot charge by the hour or set a price based on how much time I have invested into this website as I had a lot of trail and error and researching CSS etc.

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I'd have to disagree with this part. Trial and error and research are a part of the job. Professionals in a number of fields have to research things. It's actually very good for them to do the research so they can do a better job. So, don't let your needing to look things up take away from what you feel you're worth.

Since this is a side things for you and it doesn't sound like this is your professional area it does make it a little harder to figure out billing. I'd recommend thinking about what you feel a fair hourly rate would be for yourself, then find out how many hours you have worked so far and see what it adds up to. Use that figure as a guiding point to figure out what amount covers your effort whether you end up charging hourly or a fixed amount.

From taking a casual look at the second site, I'd probably charge in the range of $150 and $300. Though, that's only considering what I can see. It doesn't consider the time you've put in and the number of layouts you've tried. Then again I did a similar site to that for a meal, but he was a co-worker and it was simply a personal web site, not for a business. A business should be willing to put up more money as it's a form of promotion, which can lead to more business. Offering to do follow work for more money is also a good idea.

As an aside; make sure to test your pages without JavaScript enabled. The background for the text is missing with it turned off, which makes the text unreadable.

angelwatt said:

I'd have to disagree with this part. Trial and error and research are a part of the job. Professionals in a number of fields have to research things. It's actually very good for them to do the research so they can do a better job. So, don't let your needing to look things up take away from what you feel you're worth.

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I think it's more of a learning process than a research one.

I'd say you'd rather not charge him at all. Or, you could tell him that if he waits one or two months, time in which you get proficient with CSS and time for you to create one or two web sites, he'll get a way better result and you'll be able to charge him per hour.

For example, in my country, a professional web design and development company charges you 9 euros per hour. For a 10-pages project, one hour a page, with a unique template, images provided by the customer, a banner, and one language option, they charge you 550 euro.

I'd say you charge him 3 euro per hour, after you know exactly what you're doing.

I'd say you charge him 3 euro per hour, after you know exactly what you're doing.

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Are you serious? You'd earn more money shovelling s''t.

Dal123 said:

Are you serious? You'd earn more money shovelling s''t.

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Agreed as minimum wage here is £5.65 a hour and since this is a skilled job i would not expect any less than £20 an hour on top of the base cost of the site.

For example £400 for the site as is with a contract for doing maintenance charged at £20 a hour and in that contract saying that within 5 years all updates to the site must be made though you but this can be waved for a extra £250 on the base cost.

Well... he wanted to do the guy a favor, I see.

Anyway, 20 pounds per hour is way too much. If it's a simple web site, it's overpriced. If it's a complex one, many hours would be needed, and therefore, you would end up giving the guy a very very expensive web site.

Plus, the company I was talking about charges 9 euro per hour, but they are a professional team and know exactly what they are doing. My uncle paid them 1500 euro, so it does take a lot of time, especially if it's an eCommerce web site.

I'm curious if any of you has ever done a web site entirely. I can tell you that on a web site which includes designing, design implementation (HTML and CSS), client-side scripting and server-side scripting, PLUS optimization for many web browsers and OSs (think IE6, 7, 8, FF 2,3, Safari 3,4, Konquerer, Opera 9, and so on), testing and SEO, you spend over 72 hours if you're doing it all by yourself. Charging at 20 pounds an hour would end up the customer having to pay around 2000 pounds. And I don't think it will end up good enough in order to sell it for that much, because I've never seen a man to do all the steps by himself, and do them WELL.

My advice would be to forget about the charge. Get yourself going, finish the web site, and, based on the experience and trouble you've had throughout the process, give it a price. This way, the price will be based on the experience you've accumulated, the headaches it gave you, and the discount for a special person. Also, the hours make no sense unless you do it at a professional level, and need to have a fee high enough in order to be able to pay your employees, buy software, and so on...

Not Available said:

Well... he wanted to do the guy a favor, I see.

Anyway, 20 pounds per hour is way too much. If it's a simple web site, it's overpriced. If it's a complex one, many hours would be needed, and therefore, you would end up giving the guy a very very expensive web site.

Plus, the company I was talking about charges 9 euro per hour, but they are a professional team and know exactly what they are doing. My uncle paid them 1500 euro, so it does take a lot of time, especially if it's an eCommerce web site.

I'm curious if any of you has ever done a web site entirely. I can tell you that on a web site which includes designing, design implementation (HTML and CSS), client-side scripting and server-side scripting, PLUS optimization for many web browsers and OSs (think IE6, 7, 8, FF 2,3, Safari 3,4, Konquerer, Opera 9, and so on), testing and SEO, you spend over 72 hours if you're doing it all by yourself. Charging at 20 pounds an hour would end up the customer having to pay around 2000 pounds. And I don't think it will end up good enough in order to sell it for that much, because I've never seen a man to do all the steps by himself, and do them WELL.

My advice would be to forget about the charge. Get yourself going, finish the web site, and, based on the experience and trouble you've had throughout the process, give it a price. This way, the price will be based on the experience you've accumulated, the headaches it gave you, and the discount for a special person. Also, the hours make no sense unless you do it at a professional level, and need to have a fee high enough in order to be able to pay your employees, buy software, and so on...

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I said £20 a hour for changes laddy not for the development.

£300-£2000+ for a site
£20 a hour for changes and updates (such as adding a new page in the future or minor adjustments)
£250 +2% to get out of a only i can update the web site agreement for 3 years.

Anyway, 20 pounds per hour is way too much.

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I'm earning more than that at the moment working on a building site. Web development is far more skilled.
I know someone (a plumber) who has just spent £3000 on his website and it's about 5 pages. Very simple. The plumber earns well over £300K annually.
Now you compare the work web developers/ designers do to a plumber. It's far more skilled and complex. And you think £20 an hour is too much.

Plus, the company I was talking about charges 9 euro per hour

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If they are that professional then why doesn't he use them?

I'm not a web designer/ developer, I'm only trying to learn. But people that have posted here know more than me. But I'd seriously question why there are monkeys earning more than you hammering a few nails in (on building sites) than you are performing in this highly skilled profession.

I'm a little curious; how old are you? Are you seriously considering working for 3 euro's an hour? Surely that won't even cover your electric bill to keep your computer running.
I understand if you are learning, you can't charge top whack. Why not get a specific brief, exactly what he needs and charge him a price and give yourself plenty of time to accomplish the task. So you know you won't run over.

I'm not working at all. I was just saying, but I have built three web sites for me and a friend last summer, and I know without a doubt how to use HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and now I'm getting into PHP, so, apart from you, how are still learning but are charging heavily, I know what I'm talking about. I don't know if you've ever heard of the W3Schools forums, but there was someone with this idea of charging $15 per hour. He got pwned immediately by PROFESSIONAL developers. That's what I'm talking about. Charging someone for your learning process is completely retarded, from both sides: yours, because you're in it for the money, not knowing a thing about it at all. the customer's, because he pays you a lot for a poor job.

I don't get the "If they are that professional" part, because they really are, they're a company, and have done a lot of great web sites (I could link you a few, but you wouldn't understand a thing, they're entirely in Romanian). I did not say anyone should use them, I just said that they charge you 9 euro per hour, but an eCommerce web site takes 20 hours, an administration system 40 hours, and so on. It's a lot of work, and the hours are gathering. Charge 20 euro per hour, and you get well above 4000 euro. Charge in pounds, and no one will ever pay you

Again, I could show you a calculation of the services, based on their online calculator, but you wouldn't understand it because it's in Romanian.

There was an article written at O'Reilly entitled "I Dreamweaver, therefore I am". You should read it. You're still learning, but you're charging heavily.

Also, I guess you have more experience with forums. I said HE should charge THE SPECIAL PERSON 3 pounds per hour, because 1. he is not proficient in anything and 2. he has to do the guy a favor, getting him rid of the lots of money he pays the current company for. So I'm not charging anyone 3 euro per hour.

In fact, let me post their offer. I've customized the services on their web site.

Cost: 9 EURO/h
Website Type: eCommerce ----- 40h
Allow Discount for Products ----- 6h
Newsletter ----- 5h
Review ------- 3h
Payment through credit card ---- 15h
Payment at Arrival ----- 2h
Unique Template Design -------- 20h
Text ------- 15h
Users -------- 6h
Administration -------- 30h
3 languages ---------- 9h
Banner --------- 2h

Total Cost: 1309 euro without TAV.


Now convert the 9 euro to 20. Then, convert euro to pounds. How can you charge someone so much? Not to mention we're in financial crisis...
9 euro based on the fact that they're a company, so the employees have to be paid, software has to be bought, and many other payments have to be made in order to keep the business up and running. But if you're a single block just learning <html><head><body>, you should indeed charge three times more. You're pathetic...

Oh, and we're talking here about THE OP'S BUILT WEB SITE. You seriously can't pay more than $300 for a presentation web site...

Not Available said:

Cost: 9 EURO/h
Website Type: eCommerce ----- 40h
Allow Discount for Products ----- 6h
Newsletter ----- 5h
Review ------- 3h
Payment through credit card ---- 15h
Payment at Arrival ----- 2h
Unique Template Design -------- 20h
Text ------- 15h
Users -------- 6h
Administration -------- 30h
3 languages ---------- 9h
Banner --------- 2h

Total Cost: 1309 euro without TAV.

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I would never work for so little if that is what my time is worth then i would be better of in a call centre, i would earn more per hour for my time and with much less work.

http://nextframe.ro/
This is their web site. Get over the language.

http://tehnica-medicala.ro
This is my uncle's web site, made by them, which he's paid 1500 euro for. The redesign cost him 700 euro.

http://www.nextframe.ro/tehnologie/
Here are listed all the languages they are fluent in.

And again, have you ever built a professional web site from the layout in Photoshop to the design and implementation of a shopping cart and other advanced features? Because these guys are not living poor at all. It happens that some of the guys there, including the owner of the company, are customers of my parents, and I see them from time to time...

i would earn more per hour for my time and with much less work.

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Of course, they're proportional. If you work one hour per day for 9 euro per hour, it doesn't help you at all.

Trust me, before knowing anything at all about this, I had the same reaction you have when I read that on W3schools. Turns out things are a little bit different...

You do realize that there's a bit of a difference in living costs between Romania and the UK?

Charging 20-25€ per hour for web development is not too much for a talented beginner, and from what I've seen the OP is talented. Professional central and western European freelancers charge more than 50€ per hour, the "big ones" up to 250.

Not Available said:

http://nextframe.ro/
This is their web site. Get over the language.

http://tehnica-medicala.ro
This is my uncle's web site, made by them, which he's paid 1500 euro for. The redesign cost him 700 euro.

http://www.nextframe.ro/tehnologie/
Here are listed all the languages they are fluent in.

And again, have you ever built a professional web site from the layout in Photoshop to the design and implementation of a shopping cart and other advanced features? Because these guys are not living poor at all. It happens that some of the guys there, including the owner of the company, are customers of my parents, and I see them from time to time...


Of course, they're proportional. If you work one hour per day for 9 euro per hour, it doesn't help you at all.

Trust me, before knowing anything at all about this, I had the same reaction you have when I read that on W3schools. Turns out things are a little bit different...

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Would add here that these professionals can not write valid HTML nor does there web site pass web accessibility standards so they could get sued in the UK for not being accessible to disabled users.
This is where some of the differences between cheep and cheerful developers and professional developers that can command a higher pay come into play.

I know about these, but the point here is the hours it takes you to build the web page from design to the implementation and optimization, both SEO and browser optimization. Designing the web site (layout) takes you about 10+ hours (a very complex one). Then, you show it to the customer. If he likes it, you go on and implement it. If not, you discuss and make the changes. Based on their complexity, it can take between 1 and 10 hours. Say the second time you've got it right, and go on and build the template. Another 20+ hours go into this, because you've got to write many HTML pages, many CSS files, many JavaScript to write (you can use libraries such as jQuery for this). Then, you've got to fix the parts which do not validate, if there is any, and test the web page on each web browser, resolution and OS that most people use (I've written them above). This can take A LOT of time, including fixing the parts which do not work. Next, you write the PHP for user registration, let's say, and the databases. Again, test it to make sure everything works fine, AND secure the application. You also write the administration system. This can take 20 or 30 or 40 or... hours, based on the complexity and customization level of the application. Next, you start adding the elements like images, text, and what's there left to do. Let's say 6 hours for two language options.
When everything's done, you go and show the client your final result. If he's satisfied, you get paid. If he isn't, you go back and fix things up. This can take a very variable time, based on the level of the changes (is it a visual bug in the administration panel? or do you have to rewrite the user management script entirely?). Say 10 hours.

So we've got... somewhere around 80 hours of work, FOR A NON-COMMERCIAL WEB SITE. How should we price it? Say 20 pounds per hour. 1600 does not sound fair to me. I've got better things to spend my money on, because I'M NOT GETTING ANY MONEY BACK OUT OF THIS WEBSITE.
So unless we're talking about eCommerce, the price is either too high, or it's just me. I wouldn't pay anybody this much if I don't get any money out of my web site. And if we make it an eCommerce one, the price goes way beyond 3000 pounds. And unless this is your only source of income, there is really no point in paying so much for a web site.

I've heard of guys who charge 90 dollars per hour, but they're only doing heavy server-side scripting, nothing else. In this case, it is fair, because if I know what I'm doing and it only takes me 10 hours, I can't price it at 9 dollars.

What I wanted to point out with the example of the company, is that they do it for a living with their 9 euro per hour. Note that the final price posted does not include VAT, so the price grows when you meet the representative.

Not Available said:

I know about these, but the point here is the hours it takes you to build the web page from design to the implementation and optimization, both SEO and browser optimization. Designing the web site (layout) takes you about 10+ hours (a very complex one). Then, you show it to the customer. If he likes it, you go on and implement it. If not, you discuss and make the changes. Based on their complexity, it can take between 1 and 10 hours. Say the second time you've got it right, and go on and build the template. Another 20+ hours go into this, because you've got to write many HTML pages, many CSS files, many JavaScript to write (you can use libraries such as jQuery for this). Then, you've got to fix the parts which do not validate, if there is any, and test the web page on each web browser, resolution and OS that most people use (I've written them above). This can take A LOT of time, including fixing the parts which do not work. Next, you write the PHP for user registration, let's say, and the databases. Again, test it to make sure everything works fine, AND secure the application. You also write the administration system. This can take 20 or 30 or 40 or... hours, based on the complexity and customization level of the application. Next, you start adding the elements like images, text, and what's there left to do. Let's say 6 hours for two language options.

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You forget the weeks for making up multiple design ideas, logo concepts, researching that the design is unique and distinctive, checking for and solving usability and accessibility issues, making valid HMTL and CSS, IE 6 "optimisation".
Much more to the site than just the code and design.

I think I may start sub-contracting web design work to Romania.

Seriously, a friend of mine moved to Brazil, and called me up to design a real estate showcase site with him. I told him he'd be crazy to look outside the country for work that can be produced locally for a fraction of the cost.

I did not forget anything. I said about optimization and validation. Also, was "optimisation" a reference to anything? I did not misspell it anywhere.

About the design part, I was trying to get the shortest time possible

Anyway, I still think it's too expensive to be worth it if you price 160 hours of work at 20 pounds per hour. About 4000 pounds. oO

LATER EDIT: Ok, I give up After Googling a bit, I found a guy charging $1500 for a basic blog design. You've got to be in need, or rich, or... dumb to pay this much.

So we've got... somewhere around 80 hours of work, FOR A NON-COMMERCIAL WEB SITE. How should we price it? Say 20 pounds per hour. 1600 does not sound fair to me. I've got better things to spend my money on, because I'M NOT GETTING ANY MONEY BACK OUT OF THIS WEBSITE.

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Not everything in life is free. A website is a form of advertisement, your company's presence is out there, and it's up to you what you pay. Some companies/ furniture stores pay tramps to stand on street corners holding a sign that says 'sofa's turn left' for £20 for the day. Others advertise on tv for £50K for the day.

No offence or disrespect to anyone from Romania but it's a very poor country, and you can't go judging prices from all different countries comparing it to Romanian prices. As everything will be cheaper in Romania. You'll also find that their standards are lower in everything over there, as was mentioned you would be sued in the UK.
It is not that everybody is rich, have you considered that you are 'poor'? Don't mean to sound harsh but it is reality.
Things cost what they cost, you can't expect a top of the range website for 3 euros and hour.

Not Available said:

LATER EDIT: Ok, I give up After Googling a bit, I found a guy charging $1500 for a basic blog design. You've got to be in need, or rich, or... dumb to pay this much.

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Thats the norm, not the exception and people are willing to pay as the return is greater than the cost.

Dal123 said:

No offence or disrespect to anyone from Romania but it's a very poor country, and you can't go judging prices from all different countries comparing it to Romanian prices. As everything will be cheaper in Romania. You'll also find that their standards are lower in everything over there, as was mentioned you would be sued in the UK.
It is not that everybody is rich, have you considered that you are 'poor'? Don't mean to sound harsh but it is reality.
Things cost what they cost, you can't expect a top of the range website for 3 euros and hour.

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Well... you are wrong. There are only some things which cost less in Romania. My MBP in the sig, for example, costs $2000 in Romania. There are a lot of people having expensive things here in Romania. It's just that here, most of the people would pay $20.000 for a watch, instead of a web site. Same goes for cars and many other things, but we're not proud of it at all.

You've also got wrong the charging part. The point was that the OP should charge the customer for less than someone who has experience should.

babyjenniferLB said:

Thats the norm, not the exception and people are willing to pay as the return is greater than the cost.

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I still question the return value of a blog design, UNLESS you do it at a professional level.

Dal123 said:

Things cost what they cost, you can't expect a top of the range website for 3 euros and hour.

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Why not? You can't discount the skills of somebody in a country with a lower cost of living than yours.

Against my better judgement, I've decided to sign up and respond to this since I am a web developer myself, charging these "surreal" rates on a daily basis.

First and foremost, let me reiterate what ergdegdeg already said:
There's a fundamental difference between the cost of living in different countries and thus in hourly rates - for both, self-employed and employed people. For example, in Berlin (where living is cheap by German standards) you can rent 50sqm flats for 300-800€/month. Add 300-400€ of additional expenses (food, cell phone, internet etc.) and you need 1000€ per month (net!).

Next, there's tax and social security laws that differ between countries. In Germany, you have to pay income tax (30-50% of your gross income - expenses) and you are forced to have social security (~ 25% of your gross income if you're employed, self-employed people have private insurance which usually amounts to 1500-4000€/year for health insurance and whatever you decide to put into life insurance). Let's assume that you're self-employed and pay 200€/month for health insurance and 200€/month for life insurance. Together with the 1000€ you need for living that adds up to 1400€ (again, net!). At a tax rate of 30%, this means you have to earn 2000€ (gross) if you don't have any expenses (which is unrealistic). If you now calculate 2000€/21.66 days per month/8 hours per day, you need to charge 11.54€/hour to get this sum. "Natural" things like setting some money aside for bad times or some margin for risk (e.g. becoming sick where you can't earn money) aren't even calculated yet!

As you can hopefully see, the 3€/hour aren't even low by German standards - they're simply not doable. The minimum wages in Central European countries to my knowledge are between 4 and 6€/hour and they're there for exactly this reason. And this minimum wage is usually paid to people like streetworkers, supermarket employees etc. - jobs that generally aren't considered to require "high" qualification, as opposed to web development, design etc.

Another point that you don't seem to see: A more experienced developer can get more work done in the same amount of time than a less experienced one (which holds true for most professions, of course). Here's an example: Depending on the duration of the contract, I usually charge my customers 50-75€/hour (yes, that's my actual rate - and I'm actually pretty cheap compared to some colleagues who work in my field). Compared to one of the other developers in one of my projects, I'd say I'm about 3-4 times more productive than he is (unless it's a really basic task) - which means that if he costs his employer 15€/hour I'm actually still quite a bargain at 50€/hour. The important amount for the customer here is "cost per feature": If a feature takes me 4 hours to implement, it costs the employer 200€. If the other guy does it, it maybe takes him 10-15 hours - which results in a cost 150-225€ (assuming 15€/hour) and probably isn't as good as mine anyway in terms of quality. This - and of course quality (for programming, that's the amount of automated tests, maintainability, documentation etc) - is really the only metric that counts.

That being said, I have to say that you, of course, are absolutely right about the differentiation between private and commercial websites.

The important thing to see here is that it's totally up to the customer: If they want (and are able) to spend a couple of thousand Euros for their website although it doesn't generate revenue of any sort - so be it. If they can't/won't (and I assume this holds true for most private customers), there's solutions for that: You can register a Wordpress blog which doesn't cost you anything, use one the hundreds of themes that are available for it and start producing content at no cost (except your own time). If you need more, Joomla and other CMS are Open Source and free to use - at worst you need to buy some webhosting for < 10€/month. And the truth is: Although some people want more, they usually don't need more than a simple blog or CMS.

For commercial websites, the interesting question is the amount of revenue that is generated solely by the website or assisted by the website. This is a simple cost-benefit calculation: If you spend 200.000€/year for your website but it generates 10.000.000€ revenue/year, your money's more than well spent. On the other hand, if your website's mostly there to represent your company (i.e. no direct e-commerce features like a shop or support features like a forum), you can again just set up an Open Source blog/CMS which will probably fit your needs perfectly at almost no cost (apart from the design).

I hope this explains to you why (custom) websites aren't as cheap as it would make sense to you, personally.
- Clemens

Around here it's anywhere from $75 to $150 an hour for a specialist with low overhead.