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Hi, I’m a full-time Web Developer, and someone recently asked me to update their WordPress site. The site has around 15 pages and is about a year old, but it looks unprofessional. I’ve never done freelance WordPress updates before. How much should I charge for updating their website? Also, they want me to add new features, such as a blog and other functionalities. Should I charge separately for these new features?
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Just go hourly for every task. What’s your total compensation at your job (salary, benefits, bonuses, etc)? Then add 20% to that. When they ask your timeline for a task, come up with your best estimate and then double it. Better to finish faster and charge them less than the other way around.
What do you mean by adding a “blog”? WP, by nature, is pretty much a blogging platform – so that’s standard functionality that already comes built into WP. Although, that doesn’t mean everyone uses it as such (and instead just uses it’s pages).
There are certain additions or components that should have a baseline charge and then hourly. If you need to also design a blog template, you may be going back and forth with the client on that part, I imagine. I am curious, so that’s why I am asking.
I say this because it sounds like you’re doing both development and design. In general, web development hours cost more per hour than design hours. I know some people may simplify the hours/charges, but I would at least separate development from design. It makes an invoice look neater, and it also may cut a client off from making too many changes and wasting your time – because they know and understand how the charges are being applied.
If the updates only involve clicking the update button on WordPress / plugins then I’d just do a flat rate of maybe $100 for a smaller site (since it’s maybe 30 min worth of work, and super easy); this would include rolling back updates if there was an issue, but *NOT* troubleshooting / replacing / fixing plugins if that needs to be done. Make sure to let them know that if that is the case you will charge hourly for those items if they approve you fixing them.
Once that’s done you can either give a flat rate quote for the new features if you’re experienced enough to be comfortable with that, or charge hourly if they are OK with not knowing the exact cost up front. $30 an hour is way too cheap for an experienced web dev, especially in California. I would aim for closer to $45-60 an hour unless you’re only just starting out in web development and haven’t been at your job for long.