Okay so to begin with. I have been doing some client stuff for a small Software “company” at my Uni. Mainly WordPress sites, designing the site, overhauling logos, editing images, making the site from scratch with a site builder (Elementor) and running the projects as pretty much a One man project all from contacting the customer to teaching them how to update site and all that jazz.
Now after graduation (That “software company” was a a school “workshop”. Pretty much all profit goes to running it and paying the “management personnel” Like student CEO and project engineer) I find it really hard to price myself doing the same thing as with my own company, I don’t have the support of the teachers or other students, then again its not a “student project” anymore. I really do not care for projects with a lot of dynamic or “technical” aspects. I am mainly interested in the designs and visual stuff, while providing clients nice looking websites that are more or less static with all the content coming from the client not the users. Basically a interactive business card for info and digital presence.
I have found out that even sites that cost 1000€ to make is a really hard sell to smaller companies that I am aiming for. On this sub and web dev sub and designer subs I have noticed, people asking for obscene amounts of money for quite small aspects of a job or small jobs. Like 15k for just the design for website and for the “look” for the company. And that like it is nothing? Who are your clients? Companies that make over 2million a year? What about 90% of the companies out there? You know those can just barely to pay themselves a living wage? Those need websites too to get noticed. I really do not think it is realistic to generalize your big 20y experience projects and completely dismiss all the smaller projects and say that starting from 10k for a website package is fair for every type of client.
Good example, I think: My current company (nothing to do with web development) I work at full time, paid over 10k for their website created in Wix. Since I joined, I have been making changes to the site and it has been SOOOO easy. My biggest complain is that it is too easy and it is lacking a lot of features and is way too dumbed down that it is sometimes harder to do it with it than with WP or Elementor where I could get it to function exactly how I want it and place stuff exactly where I want them. They also charge 150€/h for additional work. Like what? If I were to take on the project, it would take me a bout a month of occasional evenings and I wouldn’t even dare to charge 5k for it let alone 150€ per hour for such easy changes and content additions. I would understand if the website had special functionalities not supported by page builders, but company sites often do not if it is just for info and digital presence.
So I think what I am trying to say is, being a cheap ass that I am (in everything), how do you justify pricing yourself the way that you do? For me my lowest wage starts from 500€ for a basic one page WP website (they buy hosting, I set it up, I also get affiliate 50% for their hosting from my partner), add in a logo and some content they want me to create, that can jump to 700-800€. I know in here, Finland, People are very cheap and will rather do stuff on their own if the value/price is not exactly on point. Remember this goes for smaller businesses, bigger companies can be swooned by software houses or marketing agencies just for the reputation and tend to pay more for worse value/price ratio.
**There is a saying here** “*The one who asks is not stupid, the one who pays is”* (quite liberally translated) but having my background in IT support with being honest and educating customers this really clashes with me. Maybe I am just undervaluing myself, but If I didn’t, the clients would just get some premade template and be done with it. World does not need more default theme/template websites.
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All this long essays you’re typing…
I’ll just go ahead and say prices are what they are, and you should enjoy it while it lasts. Why? Anything that few people can do that everyone wants is going to cost alot of money. Are you not happy? Wait until your transmission fails and your car needs a major service.
And wait until people can design websites by just talking to an Ai…
create sites
build your portfolio
find your niche/specilisaton on market
clients will come
and proper money with them
success
ps. do not look what other people earn but value your work and skills
pps. get rid of elementor
Multiple layers to unwrap here:
Tldr: I think you are dismissing a lot of points on the cost/time spectrum of things. Might be true that small companies might not be able to afford a custom website, but an agency might simply not be able to offer their services more cheaply. While
Most companies who need a website should be able to afford one (or an alternative to it).
1. Calculate your price based on the time you are spending on it and your general overhead.
– Your hourly rate needs to cover the time you are not working on projects : Canvassing, doing administrative stuff, answering mails, meetings etc.
– Also consider taxes, insurance, materials etc.
– A company offering web services would also need to cover the cost of office space and other operational costs.
Just some of many points to consider, most of it also holds true for freelancers. So 150€/h is not that much from a company’s perspective, number is arbitrary but it’s simply not worth it for a company to even consider a job for less than that. They will lose money.
2. Design is easy when you see the end product. But getting there is the difficult part.
– Building an identity, branding, color schemes etc.
– Creating concepts
– Discussing with your team how to approach the design.
– Actually designing, writing copy, creating assets (graphics, images etc.)
– Going back and forth with the customer
– Actually coding/building the website is just the final step and often not the longest.
Changing and adding content is not the same as creating something new. Since you already have a frame of reference. Best example is changing a logo e.g. Google Chrome – over the years they removed shadows and changed some proportions. Nothing more. A high school student could do that design in a couple of minutes with illustrator. But actually discussing it, researching it, testing it, creating alternative versions. So in reality it probably costs hundred if not thousands of work hours.
3. Monetary dimensions and opportunity costs
– 10k for a business is not the same as 10k for a private persons. As your business begins to scale, 10k quickly becomes a negligible amount.
– At some point your evaluation will just be, that having a good website (rather than an ok-ish one) is worth the 10-15k.
– A business will calculate that cost as an expense, might reduce their tax burden, you can offset it with an increase in sales, there might government funds for digitalization etc.
– If your company is good at e.g. building bird houses, build bird houses. Why waste time training staff on building and designing a website when they could be building bird houses? Before you are big enough to have a dedicated it and design department, it often makes more sense to pay someone who knows what they are doing.
– If a business pays 10k for a website in Wix that a guy on fiverr would do for 500, that is not (necessarily) because they are stupid.
– They are paying for a higher certainty that the result will not be crap, because a crappy website can quickly cost you more than the money you saved.
4.You already stated the answer to the budget problem
– For small businesses without budget there are plenty of options out there. Premade Wix, Sqaurespace, Social Media Marketing (Insta etc.)