How are you going to charge for the creation of the site?

Question

Someone came up to me to create a website for their small business. What is the protocol for making a website pricing proposal?

Am I charged for the number of pages? If they need advanced features (Flash, Ajax, etc.), is that just the price per hour of development? What if I don’t know how long it will take? Are there any good ways to look at a similar website to determine if something will be 20 hour work or 100 hour work.

Are there standard templates that are used in determining the volume and price for a job on the development of the site?

Answer 1

This question is exactly the same as "How much does it cost to build a house?" In both cases, the answer depends on what the client wants. You can build a "home" for less than $ 100, especially if the person living in the house has four legs and a tail.

Before talking about value, find out what this business wants. Customers will have very different ideas about what a page is than you do. ("What do you mean, you charge me with an extra shopping basket that automatically requests and updates my inventory, which contacts my suppliers when I get low, and it sends a thank you note with the survey? Be on one page! ")

If the business does not know what it wants (and it will happen often!), Then charge them for one day to imitate many different ideas. (You will need to emphasize what the layout means. Many people think that as soon as it displays the page, all the work will be done.)

Once you know enough information to achieve the goal - even if this is not the ultimate goal of the website, you can evaluate your time and efforts.

I highly recommend Evaluation Software: The Demystification of Black Art by Steve McConnell. Good luck.

Answer 2

My advice is not to quote until you know exactly what you will need to write, and make the client go beyond . If they change their minds, make sure they understand that your quote is no longer valid and will cost them more money.

Depending on what is required, you may want to use raw html / css, use CMS, or even write a web application from scratch.

Based on the solution above and your previous experience (if any) with these technologies, you can classify each function or page so that you can estimate how long it will take. To overestimate, not underestimate. Add the overhead for styles and layout, as well as a little more to fix and correct errors and use them as the basis for the assessment.

For example, if you are asked to write a site with 5 fairly static information pages, 10 pages that must be updated by the client, and two pages with rather complex functionality (for example, displaying outlets and services calculator), you can break it as follows:

• Overhead on style and layout: 5 days
• Static Pages x 5: 1 day per page = 5 days
• Editable Pages x 10: 2 days per page = 20 days
• Complex pages x 2: 6 days per page = 12 days
• Deployment and changes: 3 days
• Total: 45 days

Multiply this by the hourly rate you are satisfied with, and there is your quote.

However, if you honestly don’t know how long this will last, you will still give an estimate of the ball. Make every effort to evaluate (break everything as much as possible) , provide a quote and cross your fingers, you have not seriously underestimated it. If this happens, make sure you learn from the mistake.

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Update: I came across a blog post from T he Design Cubicle , which may also prove to be useful. Questions to ask customers before creating their site .

Answer 3

Charge speed x hour with a weekly billing cycle (this is what I use all the time).

From my answer to the most common problems you face in independent web development

poor payment structures - I run weekly cycles, I deliver weekly , so I expect to pay weekly as well. This is a fully automated thing (part of the service I use for projects), I'm not sure how it will go beyond it, but you really want to get as close to it as you can. You know exactly what you get paid from the first 7-12 days (there is a delay, for reviews, etc.). In addition, if, along the way, something goes wrong economically with the client, you will probably find out in a couple of weeks, not in a couple of months. Of course, you are trying to find out earlier, but if this goes wrong, you will get a minor impact.

This means that you need to convey meaning from the beginning , which is healthy. Talk with your client, focus well on determining what the main parts they want to achieve, and what’s best to get started . This is based both on your client priorities and on your own knowledge of what is required for this - even if you do not know specifically how much effort is required, you usually have a general idea of ​​how complex the various basic requirements are - against each other .

Explain to them that the best way to continue is to abort the problem and focus on the subset of functions that will begin to generate value for them. Tell them where to focus and try to completely exclude other functions from the image .

Make a general idea of ​​what will be needed for those who will be in the field of coverage ... only tell us in detail about the materials that you will do in the first 2 weeks / which you need to evaluate and fix. Use any deviation that you received when entering the details of the first weeks to get an idea of ​​your overall deviation - using this adjusted overall estimate will increase (slightly) accuracy.

If they are not suitable for the cost and cost of the first two weekly articles, it is usually best to leave (see the answers of others in this link above - learn to say no ) ... it is very likely that this will end badly due to incorrect expectations from the client. Do not let them lose the effort, he takes what is required if you still want to go for it - let them know that you will throw off their x number hrs / or x $ in speed for the first x weeks.

Use what you learned about the first week (s) to steer your way forward into other weeks. Keep in touch with your customer. If you build trust with your client, they will be less concerned about evaluations and will talk more about what they get next. Make sure to raise any problems that you see as soon as possible , never wait until the end of the week.

Be sure to remember that you will evaluate v. wide parts (as few of them as possible) and in more detail in just a couple of weeks, we say hrs, evaluating not days .

Answer 4

I’ll just tell you how my company does this because it works for us: we are happy and our customers are happy (as far as we can tell).

To work without fixing, we always charge an hour. We charge the same rate no matter what work we do (for example: WordPress skin vs custom e-commerce platform), because we believe that our time is worth it. In some projects with urgent timelines, we charge an additional hourly fee because we have to postpone other projects, which makes our business less profitable. We do this at our discretion, although we have increased our rates only once or twice in the last year.

How much the bill is very different, then when you need to bill. Turning to a wide range of clients from mom and pop to large corporations, I can tell you that when you pay, the client will be different from the client. For small and medium-sized businesses, it works well to bill one third ahead as a deposit before we work), another third at some midpoint, as soon as some stages are reached, as well as the last third after completion and delivery.

This is important, especially for small companies, because it frees them from having to worry about cutting a check every two weeks, which is sometimes difficult for them because of their own customers and billing. Also, consider that a small business is usually only a handful of people, and very rarely there is someone who is a special accountant. This means that if you structure your billing for frequent payments, they can often be late and delay the project. Less frequent billing means less billing, which is often great for both you and the client.

From medium to large businesses, there are more options when it comes to billing. You can bill on milestones once every two weeks or on delivery. It really comes down to the fact that you and the client can agree. A larger business will usually have its own billing system, which can dictate when and how you can pay. It doesn't seem like this scenario is applicable to your situation, as it seems that this is not your normal job.

Deciding what to blame is the hardest part. Others have quoted Hofstadter's law , and they are true for that. As long as you have more than your fair share of the project experience and total project time, it is highly likely that you will always be evaluating. Some suggest that you multiply your time by 2 or even 3, but this can be a bit excessive. I personally do not follow this school of thought, because I feel that it is unfair to the client and usually ends up being overcharged, but if you must use the multiplier, then it is probably more likely. If I'm not sure how long a particular component will take, I will add a couple of hours there, but I do not see the whole project as a giant unknown.

Usually we don’t charge for the number of pages, because we find this to be a bad indicator for most of the work we do. Having been in business for some time, it’s easier for me to determine how long a particular task will take. Try to break sections of the site into as specific modules as possible. This will make it easier to determine how much time you need. This is by no means a complete list and will differ from client to client, but key areas include:

• Database design
• Models
• representation
• Controllers
• HTML / CSS implementation plus extra time for debugging IE (funny yes, but completely accurate)
• JavaScript (If the project is heavy JavaScript, then you will have additional, but similar areas for the client side)
• CMS / Admin Controls (if applicable)
• Content input (this should be copy and paste from what the client provides, and should take it on the page)

For more complex development projects that require a large amount of actual programming or have a great opportunity for change, we include a time block, which is up to 20% of the total project time for QA and revisions. This has several advantages. First, it protects you. We all know that the more you develop, especially for large complex systems, the more you will have to debug & mdash, especially if you focus on several platforms (for example: CSS / JavaScript compatibility in several browsers). Secondly, it gives your client a sufficient degree of flexibility to request minor changes without changing the current contract. This second advantage comes both with the warning that a poorly informed client will use it poorly (see the next paragraph for details), and that it allows you to provide your client with the service that deserves (they pay you after all) and be flexible for specifications that are slightly biased (because they are ALL shift), which makes you look better and makes them happy.

It is always important to educate your client, even if they are not new to your types of services. Customers will behave comparable to how you communicate them. If you don’t tell them anything about your process, about how you intend to bill, what are the main steps, how often do you intend to communicate with them, which qualifies as a minor review and that requires a contract amendment, why do you entrust them with what you assign what exactly you deliver, what you don’t receive, etc., then they can expect something that you cannot deliver. This never creates a good situation. This disappoints the developer and makes you look bad for the client. Always have a contract and always indicate as much as possible in this contract. He protects everyone.

This topic has been for me for years, and these are only broader and more important points, but, in any case, I hope it was useful.

Answer 5

Here is the process:

1) Determine your value in the market. If you are confident in your set of skills, have a solid portfolio and experience in the market, then you should charge as a lawyer. There are costs for doing business, such as promotions and advertising, that you must add to your account. If you are not sure that you are starting a company and paying the bill as a lawyer, then you are not ready to act as an independent consultant. If you blame yourself as a professional, you will be treated as a professional. If you pay as a child, you will be treated as a child. If I were a freelance business agent, I would charge $ 150 an hour for my time , which is pretty standard for external business services in many different areas. If you are a programmer or database architect, you get more charge. You must remember that as a free agent you do not have 401K, health insurance or other corporate benefits.

2) Initiate each individual task using a written contract. This contract should define the following:
2a) Your billing rate. Do not include business expenses as an extra charge if a trip is not required. Your billing rate should be high enough to offset any business expenses.
2b) If transportation costs exist, then you need to write in the contract that you will provide receipts for travel expenses that occur outside of standard billing. The contract must indicate the language that determines whether or not it will be, and that the costs associated with this trip will be billed to the client outside of your standard billing.
2c) Include a language which states that no work will be performed until the client signs an addendum to the contract with a detailed description of the list of specific requirements. Completion of requirements is what they pay for, and indicates the work that you will do. Do not provide any other work or do any other work. If you are acting as a charitable organization and provide additional services or work outside the requirements, you are not ready to work independently.
2d) Define the results and any other external requirements. You probably don't read people. If the client wants something specific, then they will provide you with some rough specification.
2e) Include a language in which you will not provide additional work beyond certain written requirements.
2f) Include the language in which the contract can be terminated by either party at any time. Indicate that no reward money will be refunded, but all billing will be refunded if the contract is not completed before the specification.
2g) Ask a lawyer to write the language of your contract, and you need to review and question this language for clarity. Lawyers often do not speak the human language, and sometimes they need to be returned to Earth. If the client is not able to understand your contract, then they probably will not follow it, and you probably will not apply it.

3) Mandatory money. . Some customers believe that they have a vision of Leonardo and Michelangelo in the aggregate, but they are completely surprised when the work created to write their specifications does not live up to their expectations. In such circumstances, the client may want you to do the work at no extra charge. You are not a charity. . Charge a flat input speed that is two to three times faster than the billing rate in front. This is a return on investment to ensure that at least you get something if the client returns before you can complete the project, which often happens if you refuse to work for free.

4) If the work is done with the letter of the specifications provided to you, and the client was not happy, then submit an additional contract to the client and call it an addition to the change. If they don’t like the result, they can pay you more money to do more work, or they can continue to work. You are not a charity, so never do the same work twice without billing twice if the work does not go beyond written requirements.

5) Do not sell more than your capabilities allow. If you have written JavaScript for a month, don’t expect your services to be sold as capable of creating an interactive AJAX site based entirely on JavaScript interactions. If you charge high enough and try to trick your client, they will most likely sue you. If additional skills are required, contact the project with someone else or hire a partner.

6) Never begin work until all requirements are precisely defined. This can take several meetings and many messages for the client. Keep track of this time, because the time spent on project planning is the work that needs to be billed. There may be dependencies existing in the development necessary to define the requirements at a later stage of the project. In this case, the project is divided into phases and sets a list of requirements for each stage of the project. Again, do not do any work until the requirements are defined, written and signed.

7) You are not required to accept every customer who requests your services. You can get around everyone without giving reasons. If the client does not seem reliable or you think that they will spend your time, then do not accept their work. Time is money, and you are not charity.

8) If the client spends his time endlessly, then just terminate the contract, refund the paid payment and leave.

9) Commit as a lawyer, and never quote. A project takes as much time as it takes to plan and carry out work. This time is fully consistent with the requirements and has nothing to do with the client checkbook. Tell the customer your billing rate, and if they are dead, indicated in the quote, you can give them an initial estimate of their time, and they can independently make a quote. Remember to tell them that the rating does not reflect the quote and even puts such a language in your contract.

10) Always provide the highest quality work, not the fastest. That is why you get a charge as a professional. If your work takes a little longer than any other comparable consultant, simply explain the value of your service with regard to accessibility law, regulated functions and efficiency, security, etc. By explaining the importance of these functions in determining requirements, you can change planning decisions from the client in the interest of project quality.

11) The client is the boss and pays your bills. Even after you try to pronounce them, they are likely to make a very bad decision. Do not argue. Just do your job and move on to the next project. If you cannot heed this advice, you are not ready to work as an independent consultant.

Answer 6

I would definitely charge hours of work, if at all possible. You do not know much of the time you need to contribute to individual pages; therefore, depending on the requirements that the client has, they can be cheap (i.e. use less hours), or better and more expensive (you pay more hours).

Answer 7

Try to charge for two weeks. Be sure to deliver certain functionality in these two weeks, and at the end of two weeks you will get a chance to re-evaluate the situation and change direction if necessary. You never go out of your pocket for more than two weeks, the client receives something useful once every two weeks and can change his mind about what they want to do without worrying about creeping the area.

Answer 8

What I usually do is just my hourly rate, which I charge from the time that I estimate is hours to complete.

Then I usually spend about 1 - 2 weeks at the end of my assessment (depending on the complexity of the assignment), because I always underestimate the time required. I usually finish my low estimate, even though I rate low (Hofstadter's law).

Answer 9

You can do this in several ways, depending on the client and how confident they are. I would suggest giving them several options:

• A site with a fixed cost - based on a certain number of pages and standard design. You should emphasize that this is a less flexible option, but they can change by the hourly rate after completion.
• Custom template - based on the hourly rate and then the fixed cost for each subsequent page.
• ** User site is based on an hourly rate.

If you work with an hourly rate, and this requires some kind of approximate price, try to break it down into several work items and estimate the time and cost of the goods:

• The main design of the template - 4 hours - $ 200
• CMS setup - 2 hours - $ 100
• Contacts and About Page - 1 hour - $ 50
• News Page - 1 hour - $ 50
• Total cost $ 400 @ $ 50 per hour

You should also agree on an hourly fee for change.

There are several different ways to estimate the time for the above. The best metric is the previous experience of how long the item will take, but if this is the first time you have done this, it is not possible. If you have another friend in web design who can help confirm your numbers for you, this is also helpful. Hope this helps.

Answer 10

A watch typically has a lower risk for you, because slippage and creep function become a customer problem.

On the other hand, it is usually easier to negotiate a fixed-cost project with customers: there is a much lower risk for them, and they don’t need to think about how to find out if you really work during the hours you announce or simply answer StackOverflow questions: -P

If you need to compete with other people for a project, fixed cost tends to be more competitive, but more risky. You can end up taking ten times until you are estimated to complete the project ...

Fixed cost has one important advantage for you: flexibility. What if the project takes you 1 hour and you pay a fixed cost for ten hours? You just earned yourself 9 hours to view StackOverflow at your leisure. or in another way: you are no longer required to register your movements or actions or register your hours or not communicate with people in googletalk or something else while you are working. Which is pretty nice, I feel ...

As for the "page" or something else ... in general, I would try to divide the project into small pieces, with specific technically objective measures at each point and force the client to subscribe and pay for these pieces as they are completed. Thus, you and the client have few surprises. The client receives a warm and fuzzy feeling that you are working on things and developing in a timely manner: he / she can see this, he is quite transparent. You, in turn, receive a similar assurance that the client will not just run away with the code at the end, as the client pays in small amounts along the way. Finally, if you find that you have finished or underestimate the time, you have some freedom to revise them a little for the following fragments, of course, by negotiating with the client, but the situation is transparent enough for both of you. It’s not like you have been working for months, and then you realize that it will take years ...

Summary:

• fixed cost is more risky, but gives you more flexibility and tends to be much more competitive.
• per hour is a low risk, but not so exciting: there is no direct reward for coding quickly, and you are obliged to complete temporary sheets, do nothing but work in those days, and therefore
• for a fixed cost, to reduce risks, and the client is happy, breaking the project into smaller pieces, allows the client to see that the work is progressing, and means that you can bill the client along the way, and not present a huge bill at the end, as well stress and risk associated with it.

Answer 11

For the first build, I estimate the number of hours / days that will be required, and then charge a fixed price based on my hour / day speed *.

stock photography and hosting are paid directly to the client, and any changes to the agreed first build are charged at my hourly rate.

As a freelancer, I also always try to charge for weekly / two-week blocks, if possible, not only gives money running early, but also focuses on my thoughts and clients.

Customers will always try to pry more out of you, so you must be strict about what is in the first assembly and what is not.

* (Then my project manager / wife multiplies it by 3. Seriously, the developers are terrible at predicting how long something will go - see also the already quoted Hofstadter's law )

Answer 12

Here are the steps that I usually follow:

• List the various tasks included in the project
• Estimate how many hours each task will take.
• Sum the hours and possibly add or remove a few ("H")
• Think about an acceptable hourly rate ("R")

At this point, you can see how much you should ask theoretically: H * R

But this price is not necessarily the price you should ask. You probably want to play with R (up or down) depending on the wealth of your client, the fact that he is a friend, how many of your competitors are asked and what parameters you should consider ...

The golden rule: if you know that you can do the job with a good level of quality, don't be afraid to ask (what do you like).

Answer 13

I have always been very pleased with my expenses. I usually put the table along with my expenses and what I charge for. The following are general rules:

My general rules

• If you have a detailed functional specification for the job, I can give you an estimate for free, and we can agree on a set price for what is contained (and only what is contained in) that is the specification of the function.
• If you do not have a functional specification or design, I can assemble it for my usual hourly fee (which I sometimes refuse), then we can overcome it (see No. 1).
• If you cannot adhere to the functional specification or work continues after the initial development, then it is hourly work, simple and simple.

In addition to all this, the level of skill required to complete the task, which appears in the price. Am I just building an ASP.Net application for them? Or is it MVC? Do you have Flash Development? Combination? Is this a really short contract? Such things raise or lower my prices by a few dollars per hour.

It is also a very good idea to put all this in a spreadsheet and explain all your charges to your client and why you charge for it. Remember to include things such as hardware and software, so they understand that you also have overhead. It seems that some customers do not.

First of all, put yourself in your place. We all hired a plumber or electrician once or twice and got a bill and thought, “What the $ # @! Is it a fee for ?!” ... So, be direct and transparent with your billing and you’ll “Repeat the business . ”

One more thing:

When working on a project with a fixed price, always be sure to write and sign a contract! You can develop a payment schedule, if you want, you can even try to raise up, but in the end, a contract is the only way to get money for your hard work if the client backs off. It will not offend them; they will receive it.

Answer 14

The first thing you need to do is create a Statement of Work document that describes in detail what you will do for your client, how much you will charge, preliminary work schedules and payment schedules. You can give verbal ratings to your client, for example. "It only takes about twenty-five hours of work, I charge $ 50 an hour, so $ 1,250," but make sure you go home, count and add about 25 percent more hours to your estimate.

Here are some things to consider when writing a job offer.

• Take it seriously. You draw up a contract between yourself and your client. It should not have any legal entities inside it, but make sure it is signed by someone you work for. You want to get paid, right?
• When making actual performance evaluations, be sure to consider any time spent debugging, setting up web servers, deploying and migrating databases. Some of these things can be taken for granted because you are used to working with LAMP software, but what about if your client wants to run this pig on Windows?
• Find out what you are working inside the document. If you declare that your web application will be running on the LAMP platform, and later they will tell you that they need it to work in Windows with SQL Server, you will do more work and charge them for this.
• Make sure that payments are received after completing the steps. You might want to charge 25 percent of the front fees, and then after the first milestone another 25 percent of the fee, and then, finally, when the project is completed, the remaining 50 percent of the fee. These numbers are arbitrary and completely correspond to you.
• Install software to track your hours so you can show your customer when you really worked on your software. I personally would suggest something like Redmine , since you can also print error reports after testing.
• Always, always, always delegate time inside SOW for testing and pay for it.
• Last but not least, make sure that the working paper instruction is signed on both .

I hope this helps you a bit. It is up to you if you want to pay hourly or not. What I usually do is count the number of hours that he is going to take, put it inside the self-propelled guns and set a single price that reflects the hourly wage I use to receive it.

Good luck

Answer 15

There is a lot of good here, but this is mainly due to limiting the risk of POV. Therefore, at the risk of becoming academic and progressive, I would like to propose something else, highlighting the phenomenon of a “relational contract”, which is easier to find in peer-reviewed economic journals than anywhere else, but was obviously used in the expansion of London Heathrow Airport.

Instead of determining what should be delivered, the relational contract determines HOW the relationship or collaboration will develop, explicitly including things such as the release of work in stages and periodic reflection points (where all parties “calm down” and any side can then exit the relationship, if you are unhappy with the progress).

This is also evidenced by the Lean Software Engineering Evangelist Mary Poppendik; here is a slidedeck of her on flexible contracts.

Relational contracts assume that both parties will pull in the same direction and, of course, generate trust, which, ultimately, is the best and most productive partnership that a client and consultant can use.

[Refresh] See here how New Bamboo executes its contracts (I thought it was pretty cool).

Answer 16

I would either determine what your normal hourly rate would be, or use it, or discuss a set of customer needs and determine what a suitable “flat” rate would be. Do not follow the charging route to the page.

Personally, if it were me, I would define the “amount of work” for the project and give it a fixed rate, but I told the client that the rate could change if (when?) They decided to change the situation.

Answer 17

The accrual is based on mental stress and the work you have to do. Some web pages may take longer, but we will not have much stress. Similarly, for some others, you need to work very hard from your screws, but for a shorter period of time. Therefore, you must give weight to both when charging your work.

Answer 18

It is not possible to give a price estimate if you do not know the requirements. First find out what they really want, and then estimate how much time it will take and give your quota in accordance with this.

Hint: do not give a fixed price for the entire project - this will mean that it will never be completed, as the client will always come up with something that can be fixed, you will end up doing things “for free”. Been there, done it.

Rather, give a fixed price for the first version and then charge an hour for any changes they want to make.

Answer 19

Basically, the client pays for hours, if you do not like it, then you received payment for the project. A large project gives you a lot of money, and a small project gives you a little money.