Every week, I get emails from potential clients who all want to know one thing: How much for a design?
Nine times out of ten, my answer causes them to run for the hills. Scary thing is, based on industry buzz, my prices could actually be considered totally reasonable by comparison. Don’t believe me? Well, today you get the whole scoop - my prices, their prices, and my always-priceless editorial commentary on the subject 
My Prices
For the sake of argument, I’m going to constrain today’s post to blog design only.
When people email me and ask for a quote, I always follow the same process. I visit their current site and determine the following:
- The current CMS platform (WordPress, MovableType, Drupal, etc.)
- The scope of the site - how many unique styling elements will be required for specialty pages?
- The perceived complexity of the re-design. Does this person want a graphical masterpiece with all kinds of bells and whistles?
Generally speaking, there’s not a whole lot of variance in these areas from blog to blog, so after checking out the site in question, I usually have a good idea of how much to charge. Now, to answer the question you all want to hear…How much is all this gonna run ya?
At this time, blog designs start at $1500. This price is for a blog that has minimal graphical complexity, no customized icons, and no logo production. What you do get at this price is rock-solid, hand-crafted, browser-tested CSS, XHTML, and simple (but striking) graphic design.
In most cases, bells and whistles like plugin support, unique page designs, and extra graphics push the price up into the $1800-$2000 range. From there, the price is largely dictated by page-specific CSS/XHTML production and custom graphic design. It’s totally conceivable that a pimped out blog could run as much as $3000. Rest assured, though, that it would be totally badass, and the recipient of the design would receive mad props for having such a killer online abode.
Their Prices
Based on my experience, I have reason to believe that about 90% of you who just saw my prices thought, “Gosh, that’s awfully expensive!”
Well, you’re right, but actually, you’re wrong too.
You’re right because $1800 is a decent chunk of change - for an individual. You’re wrong because companies throw this kind of bread around all the time. They do so because they understand that crafting a brand holds a value that is oftentimes hard to measure in dollars and cents alone. On top of that, companies typically have a monetary objective behind the launch of a new design, so to them, there’s a foreseeable payoff. Individuals, on the other hand, are oftentimes unable to see things in such a positive light. Let’s face it - most people don’t make a sustainable (or even decent) income off of their blog.
Everybody wants a killer design, especially after seeing one that they lust over. Problem is, nobody wants to pay for it.
At this year’s SXSW, I attended a very informative roundtable discussion that focused on - what else? - blog design. Naturally, the hottest topic of discussion was pricing, and the panelists freely gave out information regarding not only their prices, but also some info regarding industry pricing trends.
For instance, The Blog Studio charges $3000-$5000 for a blog design. Some people thought this was quite high, but Peter (who runs TBS) was cool enough to break things down into their individual elements to explain pricing more thoroughly. It’s been nearly three months since SXSW, so I’ll try and rehash things as best I can here…The major elements of blog design include:
- Graphical comps produced in Photoshop
- Graphical splicing for optimal CSS/XHTML structure
- CSS/XHTML production in standards-compliant fashion
- Unique CSS/XHTML adaptation to CMS platform of choice
- Bell-and-whistle functionality to meet client requirements
All of the steps highlighted above require a certain degree of expertise to be completed in professional fashion. Unfortunately, people who want designs are oftentimes unfamiliar with the amount of knowledge required to pull all this off in seamless fashion. Sometimes I think people see a design and think it’s all just a matter of applying a “look” to stuff that’s already there. In reality, that’s basically what’s going on. In practice, however, things are intensely more complicated.
And this is why you hire a professional.
Another person on the panel at the SXSW design discussion was the female member of a husband and wife design team. While I don’t remember her name, I certainly remember what she said about blog pricing. $2500 and up, and this “just really begins to cover the actual time investment” required to deliver a complete, robust design.
Want another example? Javier Cabrera, a talented designer who’s responsible for some really great stuff, charges $2500 as a base price.
How’s my $1800 price tag sound now? Looks to me like I need to raise my prices
Watch out for that curveball!
People like surprises. Unfortunately, when those surprises include a hefty price tag, people hate them.
Here’s why professional web designs are the curveballs of the site construction process. Well, hey, let’s look at the process first:
- Buy a domain name: $10
- Buy a hosting package: $60/yr. with two years prepaid - $120
- You set everything up, and then you realize you need a design because your site currently looks like 50,000 others out there. Whoops.
The problem here is that when setting up a new site, newbies often think, “$10 for a domain? Awesome, let’s get started!”
Next, they get hit with the reality of hosting fees, and while they’re a little bummed about having to pre-pay for two years in order to lock in that great price of $5.50/mo., they go ahead and kick down $100-$200 to set up their hosting.
Their tab is already up around $200, and now they’re beginning to wonder if this web stuff is all it’s cracked up to be.
Unfortunately, they get hit with a wicked case of design lust while browsing and getting acquainted with the blogosphere, and now they really want a hot design. “Shouldn’t cost too much, right? After all, look at all those cool designs out there!”
And then BAM! They get slapped with the reality that a wicked design is going to cost them $1500+, and they totally reject the idea, especially since the hosting fees were already a tough pill to swallow.
Talk about your curveballs.
Case study: my clients
My clients all have one thing in common. They have a concrete, business-based reason for hiring me to design them a killer site. Thus far, there have been no exceptions to this rule. All of my clients are doing one of the following:
- Using their site to sell a product
- Building a subscription list for marketing purposes
- Building links and increasing exposure to help with ad/referral conversion
Based on this information, I think it’s fair to conclude that professional designs are really only open to the following people:
- Those with a plan
- Those with a lot of money
I never really thought of it this way until this morning, but it’s definitely true. Professional blog designs are a luxury item. Look at it like this: plenty of businesses buy 60″ HD TV’s for their stores and displays, but only individual consumers who have money and really want a big, bad TV would ever actually kick down and buy one.
Update: You asked for it…
Because some people asked for it (and because this site is woefully incomplete when it comes to my portfolio…), here’s a list of some sites that I’ve designed recently:
- PressRow Theme for WordPress
- Text Link Ads
- SEO Book
- CopyBlogger
- Mobile Herald
- Link Building Blog
- Gadzooki
- Biziki
- Kentucky Alliance for School Choice
343 Comments ↓
Some other factors I consider important:
if ($CMS != “Word Press”) { echo “price goes up”; }
If client is a first-timer or micomanagerial type who needs a lot of hand-holding, the price goes up
If the design work is for another designer or firm who can effectively collaborate, the price goes down
Similar to the previous, if the client is someone I’ve successfully worked with in the past, the price goes down
I’ve told you this before, but one thing that I try to do with my pricing is limit the number of clients I have.
While being in school, I don’t have time for 5 or 6 designs a month, or even in 3 months. So I tend to price higher than people expect, because 1 in 10 people think the price is fair and I end up getting one big job that I have time to do (and enjoy doing) rather than 10 little ones that are tedious and time consuming.
Well written, Chris, and perfectly understandable. Also the reason you haven’t done my design work.
No seriously, you might when I have money, but I have to tackle my own stuff for now.
As most people do. And as most people should.
People starting off in blogging really don’t need a professional design. They may want one, but they don’t need one. It’s far more important for a beginner blogger to understand basic building blocks like finding their voice, learning the whole social network of blogging and building their profile and reputation. Even ads aren’t important.
It took me 2 years to get where I am now. But it took me a year and a half to find myself first. Now I’m allowing myself to dream but even now is not the right time.
Of course, I have your email when that time comes.
That post totally rocked. I am actually in the process of launching an entrepreneur blog network and I absolutely knew that paying for a professional design would be needed! No if ands and buts. In the long-run, if you are serious about gaining readership, making money, and really getting your content out there in the best possible fashion, then it’ll always be worth it to pony up the extra cash for a sick design. Think about it, if you’re going to drop $100 bucks a month on a dedicated server (like I do) to host all of your blogs blogs, then its worth dropping $1 - 2.5k on a great design that will really last and really help gain that critical mass of readership — makes perfect economic sense and that’s the most cost effective thing to do..but yeah…many people don’t apply logic to matters such as that and would rather download a played-out theme that million other bloggers are already using… or just sit back and get pissed off by how much it would take to get a “real” design… To each their own, right?
Please enlighten me (and about 10 million others); what exactly does a professionally designed blog have that Blogger doesn’t?
Hey Tom,
I’m not trying to be an ass, although I excel at it, but if you have to ask that question, well, you really need information other than design info.
Really, Tom, I’m not trying to be smart alecky, but the difference between a professionally designed blog and one on blogger is huge.
Take for instance, the fact that most people would think that any COMPANY that would operate a business blog on a free service like blogger, without even ponying up $10 for their own domain…well., they would be thought of as cheesy, cheap and uninformed.
Same as if they tried to put a double-wide trailer on 5th Avenue, rather than rent one of the brick-faced shops already there.
There’s about 173 reasons why blogger is inferior to WP, and this ain’t the place for that whole discussion, but we all would be glad to try and help you find the info you need to read and make a more informed decision.
Now somebody else jump in and further enlighten Tom.
I enjoy Wordpress because I am a cheap a*s and modify others themes to make them my own. In doing so you learned that it is a highly useful program.
BUT if I was looking for a business template, Chris would be the man, his designs are fresh.
About Blogger:
Anyone who is serious about success would not use blogger.
Anyone serious about success would purchase their own domain and IP.
Blogger blogs often get hit with collateral damage in search engines.
The Blogger network is one big bad spammy neighborhood.
Even Matt Cutts from Google suggested getting off it.
Want more?
Nice post Chris, there is a massive difference between a ‘blog design’ and a ‘professional blog design’ and your work speaks for itself.
I’m always interested in the value people are place on design-thanks!
One question-to me, part of the online design experience is “change”, unlike a traditional print run, online stuff needs to change and adapt for the client to stay relevant-that is one advantage to being online. Do you charge a maintenance fee as well? (i’m thinking updated links, etc.) Or do most clients take care of that kind of stuff on their own?
As someone who has (previously) built templates for CMS’s for a living AND more recently procured templates for blogs/CMS’s, I think you’re prices are pretty reasonable for commercial work (although I’m not familiar with your work - you should link to it in this post for those who are new to you!).
People who think $2000 is too much for a blog template are probably thinking about a personal site, which clearly is not the market you are looking at.
When I started working in the industry I couldn’t believe what people would pay for — but if you are good at what you do and produce good work then it’s a win-win situation.
Keep up the good work, I say!
Nice disclosure. I think that’s a cheap cost for a pro design really.
When you think about it, really, a custeom and clean design should be 4 times that much.
There’s always the possibility that you’re pricing too low as well, consider that. It’s true, people will pay more for the same work, it’s all about how they consider value. Lots of people think more money, more valuable.
I don’t, but they do.
Great post. It’s refreshing to see somebody actually talk about their own pricing AND give specifics.
I do understand why most designers prefer not to publically disclose such information, but it really is nice to see the details once in awhile.
Thanks!
Awesome post. Pricing is tricky, no question about it. We arrived at our pricing the hard way: by charging too little to cover our costs, adjusting up, still losing money, then adjusting up again (and again).
The cold hard truth: a ten thousand dollar job takes as much time and work as a two thousand dollar job. To be sure, there are not a lot of ten thousand dollar blog designs out there. But there ARE a lot of blog/website hybrids that fall within that category.
These are not personal sites or professional blogging sites. They’re corporate sites - sites that two or three years ago would have cost thirty thousand dollars to develop. But thanks to the expertise we’ve developed building blogs, we’re able to leverage tools like WordPress and Expression Engine to non-bloggy style sites.
Further to Jim’s point about value above: in addition to the value of our design work, we pro blog design types also offer very valuable advice. Part of what our clients get when they hire us (and I’m sure the same with you) is well rounded expertise in all aspects of blogging. This includes marketing tips and strategies, monetization plans, traffic building strategies, stats analysis training, SEO training, etc etc etc. I’d say that’s as least as valuable as the site itself.
Sorry to hog the comments!
I think your pricing is pretty acurate. But there are more aspects on pricing then “professional design” only though. Please allow me to explain:
A small 2-man company, just started, want a good website to broaden their horizon. Without a huge amount of money, they try to find a studio that can make this for them. 10 pages, a blog, contactform, above average design (coders are not designers and vise versa right
). You charge them with $1800,- for that website.
Now a huge company comes to you. Million dollar company, with 100’s of employees. If you would offer that same website to them for the same price, they would laugh you in the face and fo to someone who asks $5000,- for that website.
What I’m trying to say is;
- Besides the amount of work, it also depends on the type of client you have. A small bakery will poo his pants when he sees that amount of money, while a company like Shell (for instance) will not take you seriously if you ask “pocketmoney” like that.
But a lot of people (companies as well I may add) don’t know what goes on behind the screens of ány graphical company. All the coding, research of the client, sketches, and perhaps even storyboards… no one sees that you are doing all that work as well. They only see what they want to see: their final product.
I bought a design, loved it, and am hounding Chris for another one. And then probably another one. And then…
Sharp. Crisp. Clean. Unique. Those are the words I would use to describe Chris’s designs. I am a big fan.
Thanks for the portfolio.
I personally enjoy the text link ads site and seo book the most.
Well done!
I am curious as to what a blog costing $3000 might look like.
I think that both the Copyblogger and SEObook designs, given their intricacies and thoroughness, are worth $2500-$3000.
Granted, these guys didn’t pay that much, but that’s what I really think these designs are worth.
Every element received special attention. It wasn’t as though I just threw a form in with default styling and said “here you go.” Down to the last pixel, every element, typeface, bit of whitespace, and graphical touch was pored over meticulously to achieve the exact look that I was after.
Besides, I bet if you asked these guys what they think their designs are worth, they’d probably agree with me
At least I hope they would. Guys? Guys? GUYS!
Interesting write-up. I think the greatest misconception that I entertain is that “blog” design is on a lesser scale than that found on a traditional “website”. People don’t understand that they are often one in the same.
I despise individuals who request insanely low prices for designs stating that their project is nothing more than a blog.
That’s what the free mass produced templates are for.
Dugg.
One thing I’ve also noticed in my own limited design/coding experience is that higher paying clients often give you less grief: they respect the professionalism more, take your advice more, etc.
Lower paying customers, or charity jobs have always given me the most problems.
(FWIW)
How does one go about learning website design? I would like to learn but I really don’t know where to start. I feel like I would need to start at the very beginning. Do you guys take classes or college courses?
I knew that I wanted to learn more about web design, and I also knew that CSS was the most important thing driving “modern” web design. With that in mind, I went out and bought Stylin’ with CSS by Charles Wyke-Smith, and I read it while I was on vacation (August of last year).
After a month or so, I decided to develop my own site, and everything snowballed from there. When you design your own site, you are introduced to all kinds of coding “scenarios,” and attacking those head-on is a wonderful way to learn design.
On top of that, there are a million and one resources out there to help you along the way. In my mind, it’s just a matter of sitting down for that first time and tinkering.
WTF? I must be in the wrong business. I design my own sites. Granted, they are not beautiful looking, but they work. The amount of work I had to put into them was maybe $100 worth, maybe. For $1500 you better be giving me some masterpiece. Charging that amount of money might work for now, but it won’t once all the idiots have been fleeced.
As a designer, I feel so vindicated. Thanks!
I’ve got to jump in again. Remember, when you’re looking at a site that a client paid $3000 for, you are not seeing the consulting, training, and marketing that went into the project.
Most professional designers that I know do more than design a template and walk away.
Your prices seem fair.
When I owned a web development company, we wouldn’t touch a design project for less than $10k. This priced us out of a lot of business, but gave us the luxury of treating our clients REALLY well. We were never lacking for customers.
Think for a moment what the weekly payroll of a 20 person company is. Assuming an average salary of $50k (throw in a bit extra for tax burden and benefits) and they expenses in payroll alone are about $100,000… PER MONTH. $3,000 is a drop in the bucket for a company like that.
Not only are they paying for your time, your training, and your skills– they are also paying for your idle time… As a consultant, 30% of your time is spent on sales, marketing, or just sitting around waiting for clients to get off their butts and give you what they need.
For the author to make a decent living (say $50k per year, after taxes), he’d have to do about 37 $2000 sites per year… That’s a helluva lotta sales (which is why solo consultancies are pretty hard to do).
pretencious
i think we should discuss pricing more. The extra unseen side of our work in hand holding, sales generation and idle time are highly underappreciated.
ive been building blogs/article posting sites(design+backend) for a few months, and charging not much. ive never known how much to charge (this page has been bloody unreal) and its always taken a while, it would be so much easier just doing the design instead of the whole system! now i know what i will be focusing on. thanks heaps!
It all depends on what you really want. If all you want some free stock photo cropped and some text logo stuck on it, save yourself money and go buy Photoshop Elements and a book. But if you want every graphical element customized, you need a designer to spend 10-20 hours in Photoshop. That costs money. I think $1500 is low for a full-time professional. I do some design work on the side and I regularly charge that much for a site.
Thanks for kicking off an excellent conversation Chris! I picked it up via Peter’s great post on the The Blog Studio blog.
We’ve been pondering many of the same issues over at Radiant Core, and your post inspired me to write a lengthy diatribe on the topic: How long is a piece of string and other quantitative quandaries. We don’t do blog template design exclusively so it covers a whole bunch of other topics including an elaboration on how we should all shift our pricing models to Value pricing.
Thoughts?
Is this world you get what you pay for. But in the web design area people just dont get how much work goes into it. Most people would be willing to pay a plumber $70 and hour to clear a drain and laugh when a comparitive quote is given for a site.
As you said companies are really the only ones that will jump on a quality designer.
>The amount of work I had to put into them was maybe $100 worth, maybe. For $1500 you better be giving me some masterpiece. Charging that amount of money might work for now, but it won’t once all the idiots have been fleeced.
Well I am standing in line waiting for Chris to fleece me again. I won’t mind if he gets a bit more this time too.
>pretentious
I think we all need to be at least a bit to be profitable as consultants and service providers.
I think more likely some people are rubbed the wrong way by the clarity and bluntness of Chris’s writing, especially when they couple that with seeing the rapid success he achieved.
Interesting read but why pay someone $1500 as a starting price for a design when there are equally competent designers in eastern Europe charging a fraction of that price?
Chris I purchased a print of yours from art.com called “Peaceful Sunset”.
On the upper top right of the photo there is bright line that looks like a defect. Am I correct or is this part of the cloub formation?
Michael, you must be talking about another Chris. My artistic skills are pretty much zero.
Oh, and a glaring mistake like a bright line? That’s totally not me.
@Brooce
It’s not just about the design (as others have dulely noted).
-communication
-relationship
-value-added services
-long-term help and insight
-marketing advice and objectives addressed specific to the WEST (if that’s where the client is coming from and marketing to)
Making pixels pretty is fairly easy. There’s always people who will make things prettier than I and other designers do. But a lot of people who do competent design work at rock-bottom rates may not be relational, or have marketing expertise, or know the ins and outs of everything from writing strong blog-entry titles to using Feedburner for feeds because of its “bonus” features.
Those of us charging in the $1500-plus range have made it our life’s work to produce not only design, but measurable RESULTS for clients who are looking to acheive specific business goals. Not everyone who proports to crank out a site for $300 can do so or are willing to do so.
I do work for cheaper than $1500. I also greatly clamp down on the “extras” my client gets.
I stopped reading when I saw $1500 because I knew you had to be insane to expect anyone with even an ounce of common sense to pay such a price for basically nothing.Nothing you could possibly create would justify such an inflated price and tacking on hundreds of dollars for plugins that take at best minutes to install is even more of a slap in the face to those of us who have working brains.
Josie: are you just baiting for an argument?
It comes down to value and how much your time is worth. I pay people to do things for me that I don’t have the time to do myself or that I don’t want to take the time to learn. Not everybody wants to take the time to learn html, css, php, wordpress, linux, ftp [etc..] just to write and maintain a professional and unique web site. So, they pay others to do it for them. I don’t care if it takes 5 mins or 5 hours, that time is worth money and people deserve to be paid for their time. There’s nothing inflated about it.
Now, if you can do it cheaper and quicker, please get in touch.
I agree with this article 100%. We have recently passed a policy to not work for individuals anymore ourselves. It’s not that we want to refuse anyone, but we have realized that we just can’t provide a practical solution for individuals and make it a win-win situation.
Recently a good musician friend asked us to do a blog design for his new web site. We realized that even if we gave him a discount, it would be something unattainable for him. It was a little uncomfortable to explain this, but eventually he understood.
I think people just don’t realize the amount of time and effort it takes to put together an effective design. Sometimes the most simple designs take the most thought and effort and ends up being the most successful.
Interesting article. It is kind of sad that clients feel a blog is less than a web site. CSS and XHTML, PHP, etc. REQUIRE CODING SKILL, coders have ALWAYS received higher pay than basic designers. More and more web designers are not designers, but a hybrid coder/designer who is expected to make something look great and function correctly.
Your prices are extremely reasonable, based on the quailty of this site’s design.
My (Fortune 500) company just paid $10,000/page for about 5 sample designs and decided not to use any of them. Even this was not considered expensive. Of course, that was a company site, not a “blog”
S. Martin - you hit the nail on the head there, with the fact that when most people are searching for a “designer”, what they really want is a web production team rolled into on man (or woman). It’s something that, as a designer, I’m learning with during my 9-5 jobs. As well as something I consider when I take on after-hours (or freelance) jobs - am I qualified to do this quote-end-quote “design job” when they really need me + a programmer?
I love to hear people supposedly in the know talk about website design prices. These people that think $1500 for work of this quality is expensive don’t have a clue. $1500 is peanuts.
I’ve run a web design company for 6 years now and we don’t get out of bed for less than $2000 for a very basic site. We’ve not advertised for about 4 years now - work comes through word of mouth and we have orders booked up to 6 months in advance.
The thing is, I don’t even consider us to be especially better than anyone else, it’s just that there is so much work available from businesses.
Personally Chris, I’d double your rate and I’d be willing to bet you get just as much work, if not more.
Looking at your designs makes me feel so inferior (in terms of design). And knowing that you’re living my dream doesn’t make it any better. You’re the best designer there is, man! What’s your secret? Great blog!
At least $1500?
Ok, now I’m really going to learn CSS and improve my HTML.
In the end, it comes down to time - people don’t know how long it takes and how much creative effort goes into it.
People will pay $1500 for a nice printer for their business, but when it comes to their online brand - their ONLINE BRAND!!!!! they think “my brother’s, wife’s, uncle’s friend is into IT, and he says he can do me a website for $150″.
To think that I wrote a whole post when I could have just said that…
Well put, Time!
Thanks for taking the time to write this, I try to shy away from a lot of web jobs, I prefer print, but this still helps a lot.
Great blog, great post. And since I’m using Pressrow on my Wordpress.com blog - great themes. Your designs stand out head and shoulders from the the crowd.
I used to work for a small web design company, with extremely talented designers, IA’s content specialists, you name it, we had it. To prepare quotations and do sales presentations (as well as project manage) I used to cost out the time of everyone for consultation through to design and delivery, and even though we often underpriced ourselves to get the business, it was remarkable the number of people who wanted design for free. In fact they wanted everything for free,even though they often didn’t really know what they were looking for and wanted help with that too.
Obviously we were chasing the wrong customers, those who thought that skill, knowledge and talent come free, gratis and for (almost) nothing.
The good customers, as was noted above, gave us no trouble at all and trusted the knowledge they were buying. For those bleating about the cost of building a professional blog being “expensive” perhaps what you are looking for isn’t a professional designer.The design is actually the outcome of creativty, thought, consultation, planning and a host of other things that you do not necessarily see.
In design, as in most things in life, you get what you pay for. If an entrepreneur or business person feels queasy at investing in a stellar design for their company, I’d really query just how long they expect to remain in business. But that’s just me.
http://www.oswd.org!!!!
nice article BTW.. heh but this has hundreds/thousands of free templates. :/
Excellent article, I like it.
I’ll do the same thing for free
Great post! I think the most frustrating thing about running a web development company is dealing with individuals who don’t understand what it takes to make a great website / blog / design. I will definitely be referring any potential clients we have to your post if they start complaining about the cost of their project. Thanks for taking the time to put this post together and giving some real pricing to compare to. You may want to check out a related blog post on our site at: http://infinitewebdesign.com/journal/clients/archives/2006/10/14/good-design-is-good-business/
[...] I came across a great blog post about the cost of web design written by Chris Pearson. How much should design cost? The article discusses the cost of designing or redesigning a blog. [...]
I say you raise the price. There is nothing worse then having cheap clients I prefer to have no clients in that situation. Also raise the bar when you select your clients. I normally do businesses that have been established for some time I know what some might think but lessons have taught me to deal only with profesionals who appreciate and understand the work.
$1,500 is a drop in the bucket. Those that call $1,500 unreasonable have obviously never sat down and hand coded 50 lines of compliant XHTML and 2500 lines of CSS only to replicate the exact template you just took 10 hours to create and prefect in Photoshop/Fireworks.
I charged $1,500 on my last project for a static front page, and a single secondary page. They recieved every pennies worth.
Wow! I can’t believe anybody would really pay that much. I’ve done a few sites of my own and I have never hit that price with any of them.
I think pricing is relative to the client. It needs to be treated that way. I am not selling templates that I can charge a flat rate to, I am charging for ideas, creative.
There is no base price for an idea. There are only expectations.
Also to be considered is the amount of value a blog will give back to the person(s) paying for it. Blogs can be more valuable than traditional websites in just about every category. We need to be charging more for them.
Another great article. An issue that most if us face. I think thought that educating the customer on the benefit and the process is key.
All down to valuing the service I guess. Thanks for the article.
You say “What you do get at this price is rock-solid, hand-crafted, browser-tested CSS, XHTML, and simple (but striking) graphic design.”
But under FireFox, the Gadzooki and Biziki websites are broken in the left hand column (i.e., incomplete blocks - usually no title and or empty).
OK, lets take an example of one of your designs:
http://www.biziki.com/
I get 143 validation errors
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.biziki.com%2F
and the site is broken in IE6 (but hey, who uses IE6 anyway).
So, basically you charged $1800 for that template (after all the rest of the site is wordpress, which is, um, free).
Dude, you rock.
“Professional blog designs are a luxury item.”
I’m gonna quote that. Nice post !
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://www.kentuckyalliance.org/
83 errors..
Did you validate any of these templates? Or is that an optional extra service?
nsharp: My we are cool, aren’t we. News flash — Biziki and Gadzooki were both free.
Oh, and Kentucky Alliance? That was the first commissioned site I ever did. How about checking Pearsonified.com? Or maybe the Cutline theme for WordPress?
At least I shamelessly parade examples of my work. You? On your site, you give no indication of any sort of “job” or “expertise” — instead, you merely choose to come here via Digg and insult designs that are live examples of a learning process.
Look at this site in its current state. Look at Cutline. Look at the progress I’ve made this year.
What have you done?
Think about it - how long does it take to do the work?
A simple, 3-day job, at 8 hours a day, $50 and hour, means 24 hours of time and $1200. Can most people expect to do a well-designed, finished, tested, functional site in three days?
Beyond the blog world, let’s say a Website takes four weeks to design, code, and roll out. With a small team (say 4 people) at the same rate, that’s a cost of $16,000.
I’m not expensive, but I won’t do a week’s work for under $2000 either.
$1500 is quite affordable.
As a frustrated designer, this post and the comments as well, are fuel for me, to strive to be good enough to be anywhere near what you can do. Excellent post.
Okay I could honestly be a nagger but here’s my overall problem with this. Most people who want web sites, full blown stuff require more design than some of these bloggs. As a matter of fact two of your blogs are the same with the exception of color which would not require much time so if you charged those two people $1500 each that is a rip off.
At the same time if you are getting paid $1500 more props to you for not doing what so many constantly do which it cut their prices until they bleed. I think web design should be priced reasonable. While $1500 sounds unreasonable when you are explaining your reasons behind it I totally 100% understand. I just wish there wasn’t as many bottom feeders who roam around looking for the cheapest prices.
One does have to wonder if you do this solely as your living and how much you really make in a given year. I know that’s personal and I am sure your not interested in sharing I just find it amazing that someone could live off designing blogs and I’ve yet to see anyone who can.
Well… let’s see… my personal site is on WP with the “veryplaintxt” theme, which cost me $0.00 to get and install.
The *professional* sites I work on all day at OSTG are created by two full-time staff designers backed by a group of programmers.
And then, there’s this site — CadeTropicalArt.com — that I whapped up for a neighbor in about an hour with the Sitebuilder utility (from Yahoo). Awful HTML, but it’s all the Web site she needs right now.
Different people (and companies), different needs, different budgets…
The way to do it is to buy a high quality domain for sale or auction at forums like sitepoint or digitalpoint. I got the template .psd for my website, DigitalPortrait.net, for $35. After that I paid $200 to get it coded in PHP. $10 domain + $35 template + $200 coding + free hosting (I’m special) = $245 website creation. You just got to know where to look.
Martin Bland WTF? The whole point of his article is custom blogs not cookie cutter designs. Had he talks about buying one of the endless psd files that they sell to god knows how many people so your site is unoriginal I am sure your post would’ve made since but you posting how much your cookie cutter site cost you makes none.
Seems to me you only focus on design companies that charge more than you which leads me to believe this is just for getting clients.
If hiring a registered company (paying taxes) and works from an office I would say $1800 as a base rate is reasonable. But when you can easily find people who work at home and don’t pay taxes online $600 - $1000 is a more reasonable price.
Obviously if you chose someone who has completed further education in web design then expect to pay more as you are paying for those years they spent learning.
Wait Chris. Now you have me scared! I just read what you wrote to Nsharp. which is:
——————————-
nsharp: My we are cool, aren’t we. News flash — Biziki and Gadzooki were both free.
Oh, and Kentucky Alliance? That was the first commissioned site I ever did. How about checking Pearsonified.com? Or maybe the Cutline theme for WordPress?
At least I shamelessly parade examples of my work. You? On your site, you give no indication of any sort of “job” or “expertise” — instead, you merely choose to come here via Digg and insult designs that are live examples of a learning process.
Look at this site in its current state. Look at Cutline. Look at the progress I’ve made this year.
———————————-
But yet you clearly state:
—————————-
Because some people asked for it (and because this site is woefully incomplete when it comes to my portfolio…), here’s a list of some sites that I’ve designed recently:
—————————–
So your like contradicting yourself by saying these are recent sites. Also two of the sites are free and one was the first you ever did? If this is recent and it is then I would think that $1500 for a newbie designer (YOU) is expensive. Just cause you can pick up CSS and design a blog doesn’t give you expert cred.
This blog is just a marketing ploy to make you look like more of a professional which your obviously not. You just started and your attempting to get your name out there by using digg. Not bad.
The real answer to the question of how a designer should price their design work is simply - “As much as you can get for it”. If you’ve got the portfolio and the reputation to back it up then there is no reason to ask for anything less than the maximum you can get, unless you’re doing charity work or you’re a student or hobbiest. No $number mentioned in this article seems even close to unreasonable to me. Design is not eggs or gasoline… there is no bluebook value, no standard price.
The issue is NOT PRICE — it is VALUE, that needs
to be communicated.
If someone says my nephew can do it for $50, they are relating the site to an electronic brochure. Which most people think websites are. They are not.
Depending on the business, websites are the store-front, the sales rep, the store shelves, the company’s face or image. This last one is the most important. Image is everything, it’s the “trust” the customer has in your company in lieu of a physical presence.
Are they willing to let their 15yr old nephew be VP of Marketing? Then why are they entrusting the future of the company on $50?
[...] This blog post has some information on firms charging for design. I always find myself struggling with this part. I usually gauge the client, then give the cost. Find out how deep their pockets are first. Good read. read more | digg story [...]
Well, if there’s one thing that’s true in this business, it’s that some people (even would-be clients) don’t really place much _value_ in design. You can’t help these people, and shouldn’t try
One additional item that needs to be pointed out. When you pay someone to design and build you a website, you aren’t paying them for the 10 or 12 hours they spend building the site, you are paying them for the (in some cases) 5 - 10 years of experience and the design and development expertise that they bring to the table. So yes, of course someone could spend 2 hours with dreamweaver or the yahoo site builder and shit out a website, but building a technically sound and well designed site is not something that just anyone can do.
It takes years and years of constant learning and development to become a professional web designer.
If you look at it from the perspective of the business owner, would you put your companies brand and reputation in the hands of an amateur ? probably not. In this industry, you get what you pay for.
And as far as free open source templates go, the entire essence of design is to communicate a specific message. When i design a website for a client, the clients “message” is what drives the design. Every single pixel is placed with the sole intention of supporting the clients brand and unique selling point. how could a free template possibly compete with that?
[...] There’s a great article out today from Chris Pearson at Pearsonified about the How Much Should a Design Cost which has also made the front page of Digg. [...]
[...] In my opinion, this can be overcharge if it was just for graphic layout design. But if it requires programming for CMS, plugins, and such: Then that is a different caseread more | digg story [...]
Excellent Post.
I agree with a lot of comments. Experience is one of the key factors. I like to show examples and explain to the client why design can be so costly. Once they realize how involved design is and how insanely helpful an online presence can be, they’re generally more inclined to spend big bucks. A lot of business people don’t understand whats involved technically and creatively, they just know how to run a business. If someone asked me to rewire a hybrid car I would have no idea how. People have to understand why there are web specialists and how valueable we can be.
Patrick: Keep in mind that my “portfolio” list only contains sites that were coded up this year. Also, it should be noted that I’ve only been designing professionally since the middle of December 2005. On top of all that, I’ve stated in a previous comment that I have basically rejected those early designs, but in the interest of full disclosure, I have no problem stating that I am, in fact, responsible for the first iterations of those designs.
Be that as it may, I am supremely confident in my coding skills, and I consider them to be a much stronger asset than my design eye. You will never hear me claim to be anything even remotely approaching an artist, and frankly, I don’t aspire to be one.
I do, however, wish to understand the nature of colors, element interaction, and the ideas and influences of design.
In each project, I try to bring what I’ve learned to the table. Despite the fact that I’ve been doing this for less than a year, I feel as though my current work is worth every penny.
And to be honest, I wouldn’t charge less than $3000 to do a site these days.
So you can say what you like about my experience or expertise, and I’ll be over here fielding emails from prospective clients.
[...] For more from a designers perspective, check out this post made by Chris Pearson. Chris is a popular designer thats not afraid to give clients the view from a designers eyes. [...]
Very good post to find! I’ve been doing sites for small businesses for several years now, and one of the hardest things in the process for me is the quote.
For me, it seems only 25%-50% of the time am I actually working/coding/designing on the site. The other time is spent on educating, explaining, probing and communicating with the customer to get the answers you need to build the site they need. Most of my customers just know they need a site.
I’ve tried to look at the cost of other things a business would spend money on for advertising and marketing. The Phonebook / Yellow Page Ads. Yellow page ads in my area run at least $1,500 for the year, and that’s the smaller ads.
So considering: yellow page ad is only for the year, a website can do a lot more for your business than a piece of paper and that a phonebook will only reach people in a particular area, I’d say that $1,500 - $2,000 is a decent price over the alternatives.
And even though I have no idea how much effort/time/work is put in to creating and publishing a single yellow page ad, I’m sure it takes way more effort/time/work to create a decent website for a business.
That’s my ‘two sense’. I was glad to see my pricing is not much different than the others mentioned here.
On another note, it would be nice to find a forum/blog type site for individual web designers to talk and discuss these kinds of topics. Not code and design, but the business side of things.
I agree with Anonydesign at 5:07 pm that 1500 USD for a week work is a normal price.
But I really don’t understand the poster, I’ve really never heard him.
He gives us a bunch of links, which are, in my standards, not really that ’super’, don’t get me wrong, I like ‘em, but not SUPER.
Then he tells us that of that short list, a couple of them are free (why? I thought you were trying to tell me why you have to be so expensive).
Half of the list is way too old, and then he was a beginner.
The writer of this article is trying to look like a pro, but is actualy just a nice guy who is loving the bloging stuff, creates nice designs which will probably help him in his future.
He is definately not a bigtime designer.
Anyways, prety nice article, no digg
Let’s face it, you don’t NEED to be paying this kind of cash. When you go after an A-list designer, sure, expect to drop serious dough. But I’m sure we all know, A-list designers are NOT the only good designers. They just have had the most exposure.
There are so many really talented designers that aren’t as well known yet, and they charge accordingly. I can get a wonderful fully valid semantic tested design for $800. Plain and simple.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying the high prices are unjustified. If you have taken the time to build your brand, By all means capitalize. But a consumer does not HAVE to pay the price the Big Boys are charging, for the same quality work.
Dyon, a comment is worth a thousand diggs
My word, what a charlatan we have here!
[...] How Much Should a Design Cost? Bookmark at:+ StumbleUpon | + Digg | + Del.icio.us | + Newsvine | + Spurl | + Furl | + Reddit | + Yahoo! [...]
Chris P.: You’re right
But still it isn’t what I hoped for
I agree — my newer stuff is about 1000 times better (it’s not linked to in this post, as the post is from June), and I didn’t intend to come across as the be all, end all authority on design.
Be that as it may, it’s clear from the traction this post has received that design pricing is a hot, hot topic!
Hey,
Your designs are rip offs. You are noting but a copy-cat mate. Your markup is not valid. Stop playing mr. Big Pro Blog designer. First, it’s not professional to talk about prices, second - your work says it all.
Joe, so does your link.
Oh wait, that’s not clickable. My bad, bro. I had mistaken you for an Ebert or a Roper; not a spineless prick.
I just put out an RFP for a CMS website design (lots of details to the requirements in the RFP). We don’t want our design to be a standard template.
We got back seven bids:
$1,000
$6,500
$6,500
$8,000
$8,500
$9,000-$15,000 (and point off cause they can’t make a decision!)
$28,000
So, it looks like the sweet spot for the work we want (a little more than a custom blog site, but not that much more) that will be done in Joomla! or Drupal is between $6,500 and $8,500. But some developers out there are clueless as to how to price.
Anne
Anne, that’s an excellent comment — probably the most revealing one thus far. I agree with your sweet spot there, and just estimating based on what I know about both Drupal and Joomla!, that’s a pretty reasonable price for a site that gets an expert’s touch.
Thanks again for that enlightening disclosure!
a very nice story telling people for which they worth to pay. i’d ask a big discount on using free wp plugins.
[...] This rant was mostly based on an article found here [...]
Excellent article. I’ve never priced blog design. I tend to price a little lower than your average for website design, but still, its usually starting at 1,000. Either way, most people are very happy with the prices. They’re paying for time and people are sometimes so suprised at price because they’re paying ’so much’ for an abstract thing. Well, you can pretty much price anything as long as you can prove the value to the client.
I find that if you can prove the value of any website component to your client, you can charge whatever you want within reason. Ideally you would want to sell additional components with the design so it would appear to the client that they are getting more value for their money. Most full website template custom designs that I’ve seen can go for $1000 or more. Like I said, it’s all about value.
Steve - TasenSoftware.com
Wow.
Great article. Can I send some of my potentials clients this? Of, better yet, can I copy it (with attribution) to my blog?
Brad, you can link to it, but please don’t copy it. Thanks!
[...] Pearsonified | How much should a site design cost? Posted in bookmarks | Trackback | del.icio.us [...]
Holy crap, I’m really getting ripped off!
I like the article.
Following the logic of people who say this is over-pricing, why does a luxury car cost more than a “family” car when the cost of materials can’t be _that_ much more? Are luxury car drivers idiots who have been ripped off?
The key idea is “value added”.
This is a professional service, and what you get from it is greater than the cost of WP (i.e. > gratis).
Don’t get me wrong, some people can knock up great site because they happen to have good IT knowledge and a great eye for design. But these people are very much in the minority, with most people having either one, or none, of these skills.
For this reason there are professional web designers. And following the cost-per-hour break down that Anonydesign did above, quibling over this price would mean a designer struggles to have a decent standard of living and will trasfer to other design or IT related disciplines. It would be the end of professional web design!!! ARGH!
Great article. The point was made in the comments section about how you can find a lesser-known/hungrier designer to professionally put together a great blog for $800. This is true, but it only proves the point of the OP. You can find an absolute deal for $800, but you still acknowledge that the value of your product is well above it.
Believe it or not - this does not apply only to web design/development, either - most businesses do not go for the lowest quote submitted. If you’re Joe Schmo (or Joe Schmo, LLC) and you want a nice blog, you can get it for cheap/free. If getting from A to B is a fairly simple task and not critical to your business, then a bicycle may do. Otherwise, you may need something on the flip side of transporation-technology.
do you see real competition from offshore designers ? from you’re posts it seem that there’s almost no competition from offshore ? why ?
yaniv: To be perfectly honest, I believe that supply is so far below demand in the design game that competition is not yet a real factor.
At the highest level — perhaps for corporate and big media design — there is much more competition. Web design, on the other hand, is still very much the wild wild west.
What’s more, blog design is even wilder, and I think that people who possess a firm grasp of a CMS, coding skills, and design can easily convert that into a well-paying venture.
I think that your pricing is really rather cheap, at the studio I have been working at recently my skills are sold at a starting rate of £50UK+VAT@17.5%/hour - around $110US. (I see dynamic print work jobs go out at £100-150UK/hour).
For $1800US you would only get at most 3 days of my time if I am working in a studio.
If I work on my own on projects I am currently charging £20-50/hour, but I have less overheads as a sole trader than a studio.
To me I would say that creating & configuring blog/templates/graphics/plugins, sending the work back and forth would take a minimum of 1 week, more like 2. Taking this as a baseline this makes your work really rather reasonably priced for a professional job.
Different people for different projects though - I cannot afford to do personal sites, and am not able to build a large business’ site on my own. I sit in the middle ground and build sites for small/medium-sized businesses.
People just need to get the designer/agency who suits their project, support needs & budgets.
If you want a personal site and can’t take the kinds of prices businesses charge the best coices are:
I’ve run a web agency for the last 7 years or so, and reckon your prices are excellent value, given the quality. Props for the disclosure.
I wonder if the recent addition of another browser rendering engine (IE7) will force up prices (in the industry) a little, as it’s yet another browser to cross-browser test on…
[...] Thanks to Andy & Digg for this read on design pricing! [...]
I empathise with Chris’s post very closely. The problem is even more acute in the kind of server consulting work that we do, because our end-product is less tangible. Only when things go wrong on installs maintained by “a friend of a friend”, and don’t go wrong on our professional installs, does our time become valuable.
Back on the subject of web design and cost, a good friend of mine works for a large web company here in the UK. They don’t touch any projects under £100,000, and they get huge amount of business.
[...] Stevan had a great link today about how to price a custom blog design. Granted, my custom designs are priced nearly that high, but it generates an interesting discussion about the differences between a professional blog and a (personal) blog. [...]
WELL said! This one’s going in the ole’ memory file for sure!
[...] Page Summary: When people email me and ask for a quote, I always follow the same process. In most cases, bells and whistles like plugin support, unique page designs, and extra graphics push the price up into the $1800-$2000 range. Rest assured, though, that it would be totally badass, and the recipient of the design would receive mad props for having such a killer online abode. They have a concrete, business-based reason for hiring me to design them a killer site.read more | digg story [...]
[...] Obviously it varies from designer to designer and of course job to job, but Chris Pearson wrote a great article outlining his costs for custom blog design. The price tag is a bit hard to swallow, but he brings up some great points and hopefully can help you or your client understand where those costs come into play. [...]
[...] Cunto debera costar un diseo? (blog) Son tantas las notas que hay acerca de cuanto deberamos cobrar y tan pocas las que hablan de cunto pagar y el porque que no pude pasarla por alto el otro da a pesar de que tenga unos meses de antigedad. En mi opinin, creo que $1.800 de base est un poco pasado de precio, claro que, en nuestro mercado (el de habla hispana) a ese precio cualquiera lo tendra muy difcil para conseguir clientes. Sin embargo veo un futuro esperanzador (prximos 12 meses), vosotros no? [...]
[...] Vía Chavalina y HTML life, How much should a design cost? donde pone como ejemplo el diseño de un blog, desde 1500$ en adelante. [...]
[...] Pearsonified: How Much Should a Design Cost? Pricing is always tricky. But make sure you get paid according to value, not necessarily only by the hour. [...]
[...] Designwire - http://www.designwire.org Creative Commercials - http://www.pronetadvertising.com How much should a design cost? - http://www.pearsonified.com Web Design Process - http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com Five Simple Steps to Designing with Colour - http://www.markboulton.co.uk/ [...]
[...] How Much Should a Design Cost? | Pearsonified article about webdesign-prices (tags: article interesting webdesign tips money freelance business job) [...]
[...] Design: How Much Should a Design Cost? An interesting article discussing the ever hard to narrow down subject of “how much do I charge for this” or “how much should I expect to pay”. I’ll be writing my own response post to this in the next few days with my own thoughts on the issue, as they do vary a little bit from this authors. I’ll also be covering decided what to charge for advertising. [...]
[...] Wondering how much it might cost you to have your blog professionally designed? The answer may surprise you (for good or bad). Blogger and web guru Chris Pearson breaks down the costs behind designing a blog; comparing rates and explaining the work that goes into a unique design. Everyone knows that you gotta walk the talk and dressing up your blog is the equivalent of owning the blogosphere’s version of a catwalk. [...]
[...] How Much Should a Design Cost? - web design [...]
[...] Via el excelente blog “html life” llego a este enlace que toca una vez más el tema tan común en la comunidad de diseñadores: cuánto cobrar por el diseño (inglés). [...]
Tom said:
“Please enlighten me (and about 10 million others); what exactly does a professionally designed blog have that Blogger doesn’t? ”
Yes please enlighten me too.
Web designers feel threatened by Blogger, Wordpress or any of the free blogging services.
I am a copywriter by profession and set up a blog because I did not want to call up my web design guys every now and then every time I wanted to share some information or go off on a rant.
When my clients ask me for fees I never try and justify it or break it up.
Either they get it or don’t.
Creativity is subjective.
I have seen terrible graphic design companies being paid loads of money just because they wrap it up in lots of marketing BS.
[...] How much should you charge for a web design project?Link: Pearsonified [...]
[...] How Much Should a Design Cost? | Pearsonified Really good article but to think $2500-3000 is expensive for a blog design is a bit naive I think. At least when including things beyond the Photoshop phase, they are underselling theirselves. (tags: freelance business money webdesign) Posted in Daily Links by phil.leitch RSS 2.0 [...]
Wow! And I thought it was one tenth of the price!
[...] "How can you charge THAT? My nephew will make my web page for fifty dollars!" Chris Pearson writes about this sticky, frustrating issue that every web designer faces. "Everybody wants a killer design, especially after seeing one that they lust over. Problem is, nobody wants to pay for it."read more | digg story Links [...]
[...] Pearsonified | Best damn blog on the planet. (tags: design webdesign blog business) [...]
Very good resource.
Thanks, i can tell that took effort.
Bookmarked for sure.
[...] I got this article a few weeks back from a friend and I thought of writing about it. Things are so busy this week and just now I can get back to my deferred posts. There is a great article and a good discussion at personified.com : How much should a design cost?, that you should check out for more understanding of how they decide on the cost factor. [...]
[...] How Much Should a Design Cost - lets face the facts, you pay cheap then you get garbage [...]
Thanks. Good piece of writing. Much needed. I don’t know anyone who mentions their charges on their website. Brilliant! I hope clients can read this.
Thanks. Good piece of writing. Much needed. I don’t know anyone who mentions their charges on their website. Brilliant! I hope clients can read this.
[...] Pearsonified: How Much Should a Design Cost? Pricing is always tricky. But make sure you get paid according to value, not necessarily only by the hour. [...]
Hi!
MY question is not about design cost is about content.
For example, using a CMS like joomla, if the site design and initial content is finished, what is the price for adding just only new content, the price of the content is by words and photos in the page? How can i calculate this when the amopunt of data and new pages is unknown?
Thanx in advanced.
Josoroma,
I’m not a very good resource for that question because I’ve never actually hired anyone to produce content.
Despite that, I think that the costs would vary based on who you hire and what kind of wages they’re used to. I’ve heard of people outsourcing for like $10 an article, but I’ve also heard of much more expensive prices.
I think you’ll find that just like anything else, you get what you pay for.
Thanx Chis.
The client doesnt needs me like an editro exactly, he is going to give me the Word document with onw or two pages of content and two or three pictures. Because of this, i need to calculate some reseanoble price just only for:
#1
Log in inside Joomla CMS
#2
Copy the text from word to notepad and from notepad to joomla. Give some format to the text like tables or list
#3
Resize and upload the 2 or 3 pictures.
Thanks again.
Sounds like it should be cheap to me. I’m no pricing expert, so I can’t just drill down on a number for you.
All I can say is, decide what it’s worth to you, and charge at least that much.
Here in costa rica is amazing some people charge from $1000 to $1500 just only for a simple design, nothing creative and 6 static pages.
Because of the costa rican market i cant be cheaper than them. But my moral say, dont be a thief.
Maybe im going to charge from $25 to $50 by page.
Prob is amateurs are out running here there everywhere. They will charge you $50 for a site done in a few hours, and cheapo companies/individuals will definitely accept that. It can look darn pretty, but unlike the professionals, they will most probably not take into consideration what the website is communicating to the visitors, in the use of colours, fonts and so on. These $50 sites are plain, 1-time, amateur-student-who-learnt-a-bit-of-html-and-want-some-pocket-money products. Maybe the professionals should lias with these small-timers; give them the small projects, while the professionals take the big ones, and when small-timers come across some really nice individuals who understands how professional web-designing works, then they can link such individuals back to the professionals; lightening the professionals workload and giving small-timers extra pocket money.
[...] How Much Should a Design Cost? Every week, I get emails from potential clients who all want to know one thing: How much for a design? (tags: webdesign design pricing business blog) [...]
Since you are not taking any more clients, can you reccomend someone that does great work like you do? When do you think you may take on new clients?
[...] Mielenkiintoista luettavaa btw, How Much Should a Design Cost? [...]
Wonderful article. It really helps when talking to possible future clients. You have cleared very well the stages of designing a single website.
Just interesting: I know this is your blog. How much would you ask for it if you did it for a client?
I always wondered who designed the SEO BOOK Blog. Now i know! great job!
[...] … Everybody wants a killer design, especially after seeing one that they lust over. Problem is, nobody wants to pay for it. [...]
Jeez Louise, what’s all this hullabloo?
Anyway, I’m writing in cause I was just undercut by half on a proposal for a site with requested features out the yin-yang.
For the life of me I can’t figure out how the guys he chose are going to do it - must be using stock stuff.
Oh well, just goes to show, as its been said many times in these comments, some get it, some don’t.
Hey, while I’m on the subject, anyone have links to good resources on pricing? My paranoia now has me wondering if I should rethink things.
Hi am thinking on studying website design. I was wondering for a 1st time user when i finish, how much should i start to charge clients for an excellent web page. I like your prices that u gave, $1000 to $5000 price range
Snailface — Never worry about what the competition charges. Follow these steps and you’ll have enough clients to pull in rates that really pay the bills:
Within three months, you should begin to receive inquiries about design. From my experiences, you’ll probably land a client at some point who will point you in the direction of more work.
Eventually, you’ll be able to leverage this network into a profitable design firm.
Julian — I wouldn’t charge a dime until I had at least 4 or 5 sample layouts under my belt. You really need to bend and tweak some designs in order to learn the nuances behind topics like:
I remember thinking that I knew what was going on after coding for like a month. I look back on those times now, and I can’t believe I charged people back then — man was that shady!
The bottom line is that you need to be absolutely certain that you’re capable of providing a quality product. Once you’ve established that, then you can reasonably charge rates like those I’ve described here.
I am needing professional help on my blog.
Do you have time for fixing it up? I am not looking for alot but I would like a background color and have my pages set up in an order somewhat like yours, posibly with different colors.
Deb
Thanks to all your comments and different but similar points of view, now im sure about how to charge about anything, this is the point of view of our team, is in Spanish:
Ooops! Here is the link:
Thanks to all your comments and different but similar points of view, now im sure about how to charge about anything, this is the point of view of our team, is in Spanish:
http://www.sukialogic.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9&Itemid=27
Heh, cool Josoroma