ikthius

# April 10, 2009 at 6:35 am

Hey everyone,

I remember a while back we had a discussion about pricing a project, I can’t seem to find it just now.

But I am returning to this question as I can now see other problems

here is an example of different situations, how would you price these?

1: A small local business want you to do a site, it will be less than 5 pages long. they have no graphics so you have to provide this.
2: A small business wants a site to be interactive, it may grow to be huge, but initially needs between 5-10 pages, these guys have the graphics and the layout they want
3: A business wants a good site that should be more than 10 pages long, they have the graphics and know how it should work
4: re-design of existing site you have done
5: re-design for a new contact

The reason I ask this, is, when negotiating with a client, is it better to be per hour / project / page or do you guys price for coding only or price for graphic work seperate when coming up with an estimate?

I see the pitfalls from all angle, if you say per hour, you give an estimate of time, they try negotiate you down, to save money. Pricing for page, could take a good while with somethings just not working out as easily as you would like, so you may take a little more time and not making money through this. And again project is kind of the same, you could work for say 30 hours but only get paid for 15 (example only)

so how do you guys work out something like this for all scenarios?

TheDoc

# April 13, 2009 at 3:42 am

It doesn’t matter what the project is:

Expected Hours (x) Rate = Price

That is for every project. Client gets a project price, you get your hourly rate, everyone is happy.

Never, ever, ever, charge by page.

Rob

# April 13, 2009 at 3:48 am

Some linky linkies :)

http://freelanceswitch.com/rates/
http://www.creativepublic.com/

:-D

falkencreative

# April 13, 2009 at 1:56 pm

I started out pricing with a flat rate per project, and I quickly found that doing this led to me underpricing and underestimating the amount of work involved. I have been slowly transferring over to a "per hour" figure.

At the moment, I usually have been offering clients two figures: 1) A flat rate, which is figured based on my usual rate, plus a bit extra in case it takes longer than I expect, and 2) My hourly figure. This way, the client feels like they have a choice, and will get the best deal for their money. If they want the security of a flat fee, and knowing exactly how much things will cost, they can choose that option. If they hope that it will take less time than I expect, they can pick my hourly rate.

The exact rate you charge will be variable, obviously, based on your age, skill level, area you live in, the amount of work involved and your impression of the client.