hourly design rate
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- jawbreaker0
I don't have any hosting at the moment, but I put the spreadsheet here:
http://www.mindspring.com/~virus…
comments/additions are welcome
- unknown0
I've recently signed a 30 day contract to design an Intranet for Microsoft of all people, it's only 15 pages deep and pays out at $35 per hour. Obviously this was subcontracted like 4 times until it hit me. What they want isn't very nice as well.
- xrusos0
i start at $50, but often do more work than i bill to get the look i want. so it probably ends up more like $30-35.
and i always stay within budget. occassionally i'll pull the 15% additional that i'm entitled too if things got crazy. (according to aiga, you can charge up to 15% more that quoted)
but sometimes the site still looks crappy when all their money runs out. so i stick with it to make it worthwhile... too much pride.
- phaln0
I usually calculate my estimated total hours then figure them into my hourly rates for each aspect of the site's development life cycle, for example only (not necessarily my rates):
$50 - Design
$60 - Front-End Development (HTML/CSS/JavaScript)
$75 - Backend Development (PHP/ASP/et al.)Then a standard 15% overhead to cover extraneous costs that may occur during the development of the site. For me, it's a nice buffer should things get hairy during development, and allows things like purchasing stock photos to not hurt my bottom line. However, if things don't get hairy and I don't end up spending it, it makes for a great selling point when I offer them the dollar equivalent of the 15% (or whatever's left) as a discount off their maintenance when the site's finished.
Now, this is for flat-fee sites, but it's easily converted to hourly by just transparently tacking on 15% to the hourly rate instead of a final flat-fee.
In my contracts (fixed-fee and hourly rate), I also ALWAYS have a "feature creep" clause that prevents overzealous clients from expecting me to jump out of bed at 2am to add an animated .GIF or add other features outside the scope of the project. It's hourly only and usually hovers around 1.25x-2x my normal hourly rate, depending on the project. It's the single easiest way to keep your clients focused during the development life cycle instead of getting delusions of grandeur.
If they want maintenance, then I charge the same rates (with a possible discount as mentioned earlier) as I would if I were just beginning on their site, but I lay out separate contracts for maintenance because my role can sometimes fall way out of alignment with the original contract's goals.
- jawbreaker0
2x for "out of scope" stuff is an excellent idea. That could really help keep things under control.
I always have problems defining scope issues, especially with inexperienced clients.
- nosaj0
It boggles my mind that some charge less per hour for design work then html, javascript, PHP, ASP etc.. Damn, I spend much more time designing, refining and thinking about functionality then I do developing. I almost always the 2 get mingled together, especially when working in Flash. But damn, do you really think html and javascript is worth more per hour then the design... I know lots of folks who can do some coding but I don't know many really good designers. One you can learn from a book within 24hours, the other takes an enormous amount of time to begin to do well.
Sorry if I'm preaching to the choir.
- phaln0
Chill...
Those were just numbers I threw up for the sake of having 'em.
My rates are substantially different than those in the example I provided. ;)
- kote0
I was billed out at 125 - 175 hr. at the firm I used to work at.
Now that I am on my own, its more like 35-75.
- unknown0
I got paid more for doing Powerpoint presentation development than for ever working for web dev shit. SUCKS
- unknown0
How long does it take for you guys to finish a project?
You can charge 20 bucks but if you take ages to finish it, you'll get some serious cash right?
- mrdobolina0
One time I charged a client $10,000 USD for a site with no database or anything tech and their marketing manager had a 50% deposit mailed to me within 2 biz days. Betcha I couldnt do that again.
- unknown0
Not THAT unusual mrdobolina.
Well designed sites can be expensive even without backend etc...
Depends on the clients demands..
- surfito0
people who dont want to pay the real price of something arent serious at all. (like at expensive stores you dont guy asking for a deal cause they will just ignore you)
i have learned that when people try to negociate to much with me bringing the thing down to like half, most time dont even have the money.
last time, me and a friend had a few meetings with a fairly popular musician from my country. he was braging about how much money he had just gotten from the label for promoting, so me and my friend went for like 8k and he brought it down to 5k, we were cool with it.
i made the design exactcly to his taste, even better, he wanted a copy of michael jacksons site, i made something better, my friend started to work on the programming experimenting and stuff.
by the time we were suposed to get the first half for the job and start the project, he never showed up again.
and this has happened to me 3 times, with the first time almost ending on a lawsuit cause i had actually finished the site.
so now i know, that people who are serious, know how to negotiate, and know how much is their project worth and will hire me for their needs and not looking for a bargain trying to avoid an agency.
and i also dont work for exposure either, a lot of people try to rip you off with that excuse.
- enobrev0
surfito is right on, and it goes far beyond the design industry...
a good client will always look for reliability and talent over price. They may have a budget, but if they trust you, they'll find ways to fit you in to their budget.
If price is the first thing they're looking for it's because they have either a low budget or no budget at all and they think they'll wing the money by the time you're done.
The cheap ones don't trust you enough to use your better judgement either, so they'll make 4am changes regularly and nickel and dime you to death until you'll want to pay them just to stop working on the project.
I don't give a damn what they're promising, if you can't get them to agree on paying what you know the job costs, then they aren't serious enough of a client to do business with. I'm not saying don't take the job, i AM saying take extra precaution with em.
- toqueboy0
^^^^^^^^^^
jawbreakernice sheet
- jawbreaker0
thanks.
hope everyone gets their cash on in 2003...
- kote0
mrdobolina
thats the only way i work