Testing and Prices

[Rmpl]

Howdy 'yall. These questions are for the hardened, experienced professionals out there...

1) How do you decide how much to charge your customers?

2) I use a Mac and can, therefore, easily test my work in Firefox and Safari. How do I test how things will appear in IE?

Thanks in advance and I hope these questions don't get asked constantly because I couldn't think of how to search for them.

[Benji1012]

Hello,

On the price front think about how long it will take you to make. If it takes 2 hours then charge for the 2 hours. If you see what I mean, In my prices I have:

Basic Web Design (no extras) - £10

Full Web Design ( 5 chosen extras) £19.99

Pro Web Design ( all extras) £40

Logo/Banner Design (non-animated) £5

Logo/Banner Design (animated) £7

Website management ( £2.50 per month)

Full Set-up (includes banners, domain, hosting ,website design, logo and all extras) £60

And as for the IE front I have the same problem. I however have a PC with windows on it so I can check. My site does offer a testing service if you are intereted click the link in my sig.

[VIPStephan]

Originally Posted by Rmpl

2) I use a Mac and can, therefore, easily test my work in Firefox and Safari. How do I test how things will appear in IE?

http://browsershots.org/

[GJay]

if you're in the least bit serious about it, then $80 for parallels (http://www.parallels.com/) and a winxp license ($30?) are peanuts.

[Rmpl]

Thanks. I would be interested to hear from others how they charge.

[tribalmaniac]

If people can't do something, and you have the expert skills, you can charge a large amount

I've done many websites for clients and I start my prices at £220 for a full website with content management system, £5 a month for hosting; and every client I'ce had has agreed that this is a reasonable price

[Stardog]

When I go freelance I'll be charging at around tribalmaniac's prices, and that's without a CMS probably, unless it's a somewhat basic one - e.g. not wordpress.

I've look at other UK website companies and they usually charge around £350 ($700) for a 5-page website without CMS.

Some charge on a per-page basis too at £45 per page.

Those prices are kinda steep in my opinion but web design is a skill, so charge for it

[bcarl314]

In reality, your prices are going to be driven more by your finances than anything else.

Rather than looking at what others charge (which, imo is a bad approach) look at it from a "what do I need to make to live the way I want to". Now, I'm not talking about being a multi-million aire, so consider it this way...

Start with a desired salary, let's say $50,000 / year (which is probably near average for a web developer in the US).

Now, back track into your hourly rate. Consider that you won't be billing 40 hours / week, more typical would be 20 - 30 hours a week. So let's go with 25 billable hours / week.

So, 25 hours / week * 52 weeks / year = 1300 billable hours / year.

50,000 / 1300 ~= $40 / hour.

Now, here in the US, you also have to consider things like the fact that you'll need to pay both ends of Social Security (7.65%) + your own insurance, so add about 4000 to your salary for Social Security taxes, and about 500 / month ($6000 / year) for health insurance and you actually need a salary around $60,000.

$60,000 / 1300 hours ~= 46 / hour.

Of course, where you live, and your lifestyle play a role, and don't forget that you also have to account for business expenses, travel, etc.

In reality, asking $70 - $100+ / hour, although it sounds like a lot, isn't really that much in the grand scheme of things.

I always worry when I see a new programmer sell themselves short for $20 / hour. That's not a liveable wage anywhere in the US or UK, all things considered.

Of course, keep in mind that the 25 hours / week should be an "average" some weeks you'll have more (40+) other weeks you'll have none.

Hope this helps.