Website Design
CrazyJoe
Winter Springs, FL Icrontian
One of my former students has created a website for his work on lobbying for animal rights. He is working with PETA and an animal rights lawyer and they are wanting to move the site that he created using Wix.com to a paid hosting site like GoDaddy (since they already have a GoDaddy account for their email services.) Part of this is that they would like the site to be slightly redesigned and they are looking for a web designer to do such things. Since he was my student he suggested that I be considered for this and has asked what I would charge to redesign the site. Since I've never done any paid web design I have no idea what to even suggest as a price for this service. Have any of you done professional web design before, and if so what is a good ballpark to offer?
The site that they want me to redesign is here: http://lobbyforanimals.org/
The site that they want me to redesign is here: http://lobbyforanimals.org/
0
Comments
The way I would personally approach it (as I've had for a few projects a while back):
I usually have a pretty extensive internal conversation with myself about complexity of project, friend or company, interest in job, etc...
My math factors all the above in. But, my approach is basically this:
A1) All elements of work broken down into what's needed: (image creation, backgrounds, etc...)
A2) How much per day per element: (basically how many of what element of work is needed)
A3) How many days to complete each element: (how much of the above can I complete per day)
1: Direct Cost/Day: Dependent on who I'm working for (bigger client warrants a bit more money)
2: Overhead/Day: (Direct Cost * .1)
3: Profit/Day: (Overhead + Direct cost) * .2
Total per element: (Direct cost + Overhead + Profit) * A3
Just my view. Maybe that helps?
For what Lincoln admins, Go Daddy would be out, but for my tiny site, they are cheap and answer basic tech needs for a knowledgeable person to roll some fo the stuff himself or herself. I have remote backups here, though.
1 And 1 has a good rep and uses more than one data center, and Lincoln might recommend Liquidweb. Keep in mind that Liquidweb is better for folks wanting their own server, AFAIK they exclusively do servers non-shared, and price accordingly, though @primesuspect has told me that is what he recommends in the past.
That's my limited two cents worth.
As an example for this, I would think:
You will spend around 5-10 hours communicating with them about what they want, going over revisions, etc.
You will then spend 20-40 hours doing designs/developing.
Always use the upper end of your estimates.
So 50 hours + 15 hours because something always happens/they want more than what they ask for to begin with.
Multiply 65 by what you want your hourly pay to be on this, and there is what I would charge them.
I have sample contracts if you want to use one, which I would recommend.
Wordpress Engine if you want to go the WP route.
As for what to charge, I think @PirateNinja did a great job. The only thing I would add, be sure to put together a short document which outlines what the project is and what it is not. This should accompany your hourly rate and your overall estimate. I also recommend that you highlight that this is an estimate and if the customer changes the scope of the project, that the actual hours may need to be increased.
Don't be afraid to stand up for what you're asking for. Remember, your time is valuable. If you don't value it, then your customer(s) won't value it either.
Last item. Communication is very important. Most of my work is back end processing, so customers don't always see what I'm working on until close to the QA portion of the project. For projects that are 50+ hours, I highly recommend sending a report (every 1 or 2 weeks) to outline what work you've done and the hours used. This prevents any surprises where you may need to justify that your original estimate wasn't sufficient for various reasons. Also, plan to meet with the customer periodically to get feedback on design and functionality. (Gah! Can't get the Agiles out of my brains!)
You'll do awesome. Good luck!