Ballpark price estimates for a simple WordPress website.

[foreignconcepts]

This isn't a question about how to create something specific, but if there are any web developers who develop WordPress (CMS) websites, please feel free to weigh in on this.

I have been approached to do a couple of WordPress websites for some friends/family members who are starting their own business. I was unsure what to charge them, so at first, I spoke to a friend who is a freelance web designer. He said that he usually charged $750 for the creation of a simple WordPress website (from a purchased theme), and some general website administration tasks that the client themselves may not know how to do (usually to do with PHP).

He also told me that he usually resold hosting space to the clients from a hosting reseller account he had, and encouraged them to subscribe to a third party backup service for their site called BackupBuddy. It wasn't clear whether or not he lumped this in with his charge of $750, or they subscribed to his hosting and BackupBuddy separately - where these are both recurring charges, I'm assuming that they would be over and above his initial price for creation of the site.

I ran this by my client, and they seem to think hosting should be included in the initial cost of $750. I know they don't have a lot of money to pay, because they are severely underpricing their services, and in turn, it's having a ripple effect. I realize that most instances, the professional advice would usually be to walk away from the deal, but because they are friends/family, this isn't exactly an arms length transaction. Where it is a creative venture, I am also coaching them in other areas for the business, so creating friction or bad blood would not really be the smartest move for me or for them.

I also know that they won't get the job done anywhere else for that price, but I need some concrete evidence, because they don't seem to believe me. I want to make it clear to them that if I agree to do everything for $750 (which I believe is low), they are getting a deal. Is there anyone who can confirm this for me? Not a lot of web developers post their prices online (and understandably so), so I'm not really sure what the market value of a simple WordPress site would be. Where could I find this?

 

[design-is]

As with most design / dev work, you probably won't find something that will tell you the market value of a simple WordPress site. Some students will charge peanuts, outsourcing to India (etc.) will be dirt cheap, but a good professional in the western world would probably say:

That certainly seems like you'd be giving them a good deal at that price (assuming you did a good job ).

I'd suggest you throw in hosting and domain reg for 1 year if they moan, but as this is a recurring charge to both you and them, they will need to pay you for it in the following years for the life of their website. Make sure you put a little markup on what that costs you so you don't end up working for free when you renew it even if it is only a little bit of admin time —*then at least you might eventually re-coup the initial free month you gave them and make some extra profit.

But I'm based in the UK and I think the market is slightly different over here anyway.

let us know what you decide to do and how it works out

/Doug

 

[yk2366]

you should type up pros and cons of website templates and they will prob tell you why it's better to get a template, bc custom designs will run you over $1000. You can give this to them and show them that it is that much more expensive?

 

[manueld]

I realize that most instances, the professional advice would usually be to walk away from the deal, but because they are friends/family, this isn't exactly an arms length transaction. Where it is a creative venture, I am also coaching them in other areas for the business, so creating friction or bad blood would not really be the smartest move for me or for them.

I think this is EXACTLY the reason why you should walk away. Adding a business relationship with a personal one can be disastrous. One thing I've learned is that just because you have a close personal relationship with someone, and you decide to enter a business relationship with them, they feel a sense of entitlement on your time and skills.

I would just suggest walking away doing it yourself and just help them by giving advise AS a friend.

 

[Laird Knox]

If it takes you 10 hours to produce the site expect to spend another 100 hours changing it. As manueld mentions doing web sites for friends/family can and will quickly baloon into a full time project.

 

[notjustjay]

Well, you could always call around a few local companies and ask for quotes to compare.

But if you're going to do this, make sure you spell out exactly what is included (hosting, domain registration, backup service, X hours of support per month, etc.) and what is not.

What would you have charged a "regular" client to do the same? Maybe you could start from there, and apply a "20% friends and family discount" or whatever discount you want it to be, to your regular rates. At least then you can substantiate it better than a ballpark "I think I want $___" figure.

 

[ChicoWeb]

$750 is reasonable and actually sounds cheap to me to design/deploy. Why don't you just have them set up their own hosting and domain reg. Then they'll figure there is no such thing as life time free hosting.

 

[walangij]

Like others have said, depends also on the type of site and functionality they desire. I've been doing some freelance drupal development, and creating/launching simple (really basic) local business sites priced $1000 for the work.