What's a good price range for a WordPress Site?

[RawadM]

I have a client who wants me to create a News site that keeps constantly updating with News. He wants to be able to Login, edit,delete and update content using WordPress. He has about 8 links I have to work on, also I’m building the design from scratch. What price would you guys suggest?

Would $2500.00 – $3000 be a good estimate range?

NOTE: Only Expense I deal with are my Phone Bills and MasterCard.

[Senff]

Anywhere between $0 and $100,000 would be possible.

Truth is, there are too many questions unanswered.

How many pages/templates will the site have? Front page, news listing page, archives, search results, static pages (about/privacy/etc.), any contact forms, and so on.

What type of design? Fancy, parallax, simple, using existing theme, custom theme, and so on.

Since we don’t know any of that, only you have an idea of long you’ll be working on things.

I’ve built (very simple) WordPress sites with news content in 3-4 hours. I’ve also built more complex sites, also with news content, that took me 20-30 hours. It depends on so many factors.

[RawadM]

I will answer the questions to the best of my ability. First and for most this website will have a total of 8 pages with content he wants to create on his own. He want’s to be able to create , edit, update post.

Second I will be creating the custom theme for the client.

Last he wants me to create a website similar to:
http://kalsantv.com/

I hope this somewhat gives you an idea of how much I can possibly charge.

[Senff]

First and for most this website will have a total of 8 pages with content he wants to create on his own.

This doesn’t mean much. Whether it’s 1 page of news content, or 8, or 15 — they all use the same template.

He want’s to be able to create , edit, update post.

That’s a standard feature of WordPress so that doesn’t need to be done.

Last he wants me to create a website similar to:

What does “similar to” mean? Similar structure? Similar colors? Similar dimensions? I’m afraid I don’t speak the language that that site uses so I don’t know if there are specific widgets on that site you need to have for your own site as well.

Please note, I don’t actually need answers to all these questions. My point is that your ideas are way too vague for us to give a proper estimate. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: only you know how much time you’ll be spending on all this. And if you don’t, then that’s really the first thing you need to figure out.

Imagine someone asking you: “I need to build a car that’s similar to a Ford. How much should I charge?” Without knowing much more than that, you can’t give a proper answer.

[Alen]

Would $2500.00 – $3000 be a good estimate range?

Yes.

But make sure to:

• Get the complete scope of the project. There’s absolutely no room for scope creep!!!!!!!!!!
• Write everything down in detail what you are doing and what client expects.
• Sign this paperwork (essentially making it a contract)
• Figure out a decent schedule for delivering this project (give your self some extra time)
• Charge $3k. Break the payment up in 2 (deposit before project begins, and final review).
• Do some amazing work. Next time double your rate.

To echo much of the things that Chris and Senff already mentioned. We don’t really know the answer to this.

Soooo, how are you ever going to find out?

Just do it. Track your time, pay attention and learn. Gain some experience and next time you’ll be more equipped to make better estimates. Don’t contemplate too much. Sure you might lose money (time) in the end but you’ll know 100% more than if you didn’t try it.

Hope that helps,
-Alen

[RawadM]

Thank you Alen. I appreciate all your help guys. Your method will help me out a lot.

[RawadM]

Alen this client now wants me to drop down the price range between $800-$1000, I honestly think that’s too low, what do you think?

[Senff]

It doesn’t matter what we think. You already said you honestly think it’s too low, so there’s your answer.

Now, if you want to be an independent freelancer, you’ll have to learn to make independent decisions, without asking other people every time you’re not sure about something. There’s nothing wrong with asking for advice every now and then, but if you need help or suggestions for everything, then maybe you’re not ready yet for freelancing.

[Alen]

It’s really up to you. If you think you can get all the content, design and development over in 1 week, then $1000 is not a bad number. But you are making a lot of compromises. So they should make some as well. The level of expectation needs to go way down. You simply can not spend too much time on this.

Another thing to consider is once you start at certain price point it’s very hard to get out of it. Because there will always be a perception of you being “cheap”. These clients will refer similar clients to you, and this is the primary way to acquire client (word of mouth). So imagine your current client saying to potential client “He’s great, he charged me this amount, you should call him”… this is a huge problem. So essentially you would have to drop all current clients and move out of that market. But again, you’re just starting out… so am not saying don’t take the money. While I think $1000 is not enough, it’s also not $0.

You can also look at it… do some great work and use that as your portfolio for the type of work you want to do in the future. Just realize that you need to move quickly out of that bottom feeding market.

Hope that helps,
-Alen

[shaneisme]

For reference, I wouldn’t take a job that low now, but when I was starting out I would have jumped on even $1k for a WordPress site. I would have regretted it horribly though… and I did, because I’ve been there. And I’d never recommend it for anyone. I guarantee that $1k job will spread out over weeks or even months and when you look back you’re making half (or less than) minimum wage.

It’s really important to be able to get the exact scope from the client (as has been said by others), this way you’re in a position to say something like “This sounds like a $15k job…” (random number for example), and if they scoff at the idea no harm no foul. Of course if you just tell someone it’s going to cost them $15k without selling them, you’re going to get a lot of scoffing indeed.

I highly, highly recommend this book: http://www.abookapart.com/products/design-is-a-job (this goes for anyone that works freelance in design or development)

Getting started is really tough if you’re on your own. You might want to find some moonlighting work, or even remote stuff, for a company to help build weight into your portfolio.

[shaneisme]

I just thought about it though, what if instead of creating a custom theme from scratch, I just let him search for a theme online. Once he finds the theme. I will apply it and do what I have to do.

If you’re fine with it, cool. Just make sure the scope of the project and your duties are very clearly defined in ink. If not, you will get rolled.

[shaneisme]

If I start cheap , it’s going to be hard to get out of the cheap zone, kind of like how Alen mentioned it.

Yes, but only if you let him get everything he wants and use and abuse you. If you’re going to help set up a site by getting WordPress installed on his server, help him set up accounts and slightly tweak a theme… all while keeping up good communication and never surprising him, that last bit is what he’ll tell people.

If you only get $1k for basically fully customizing a theme and inserting in dozens of pages of copy with formatting adding up to dozens of hours of work… yeah he’s going to say you’re cheap.

[shaneisme]

I still recommend getting that book :)

[shaneisme]

Yes things can get complicated quickly – that’s why having the client pick out a theme that closely matches what they want always helps.

Some are even more complicated than the baked in themes though, so tread carefully.

You can also read up on child themes.

[Senff]

@RawadM — much respect to you for being eager to do this and being so motivated to become a freelances. But in all honesty, if you’re not at the point where you know how to change an existing (fairly simple) WordPress theme (or how to figure out something in the footer is controlled by widgets, in this case), I really think you’re not at a point yet where you’re ready to work on a site for a client.

Of course, if you do, then you’ll learn a lot (probably by making mistakes), but doing that while working for a client is not the right approach. A client’s site should not be used as your playground/testing grounds.

I strongly suggest you follow @shaneisme’s advice (read the book he suggested and look into child themes), and practice a lot more before you take on the responsibility of doing a client’s site.

If course, it’s all up to you to make the choice and I applaud you for your enthusiasm. But be aware that if you end up not delivering top quality work, the client will not be happy and instead of referring you to other clients, they may actually tell people to not hire you.

I wish you all the luck in the world going into the world of freelancing, but you would be most successful if you don’t try to run a marathon when you just learned how to run a 10k.

[Author]

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