Since I told my dad that I would do his company website (Clicky It needs work) He was able to get me a job doing a website for a Used Car Dealership in town. My dad is going to pay me just enough a month that I'm able to keep my hosting plan going with enough bandwith and such (I put his website on my hosting plan that I have with 1and1.com). I have no idea what to charge this other guy though. I'm 16 and have been doing websites as a hobby since I was 8. (And for all of you disbelievers out there, GO LEARN HTML. IT'S THAT EASY). I recently started CSS so I'm getting not too shabby at it. But how much do you think I should charge and how should I charge? It's mostly going to be a website full of pictures of cars listing their attributes. So, I can see right now that I should come up with some type of PHP script (I should really go buy the new edition of the book I have for that) or something, and I'm going to need a bigger memory stick for my digital camera and some money to pay for the hosting (I have a feeling this will be on my account to). Thanks a bunch in advance for the help. No matter what, you guys here have always helped me and it brings a tear to my eye to know that people actually do care about people they don't know. And you guys show that. </sappy closing>

Charge by the hour and never otherwise: hourly fees * labor hours worked.

Base your hourly fees on a realistic appraisal of your financial needs. Total your labor and overhead costs, divide the total by average working hours, add a profit margin of 15-30%, and that's your hourly rate that must be charged to provide an acceptable return on invested time.

Have one rate.

Web design is dropping as a sales opportunity for creatives so consider yourself more valuable than you did yesterday. Don't undervalue your time, and price accordingly.

One of my employees thought that our design fee was too much until he realized that our market is willing to pay that fee. The freelance graphic designers I've hired usually had fees between $18-50/hr. Believe it or not, a higher price does add value to your brand.

That's the thing though. I have no idea how much I'm going to be working on this. It's not like I'm going to be going there every day for 6 hours and just work on the website. And I think he would be a little iffy about me just telling him how many hours I worked that week. And I would be too, because chances are I would also be talking to my friends on AIM, having my TV going, and of course, posting here.

How much would be a fair amount an hour though? He doesn't know much about the internet and I don't wanna rip him off. I was thinking maybe $7-$10 USD an hour but I seriously don't know what I'm doing with this. If it helps, I've never had a job. Too proud to work at McDonalds and too young to work anywhere else around here.

Quote:Original post by Coward
Holy crap.. Impressive website you've got there..!

I don't know whether to take that as sarcasm or not. My own website is www.ekimgram.com but my new layout will look like this

You can either charge per job, per page or per hour. It's really up to you and the nature of the job; I mean, if you spend most of your time creating a template then using that to create pages, charging per page wouldn't make much sense, you'd be better off on a per job basis.

Work out how long it'll take you to complete the site, add on an extra 10% for time spent messing around and fixing things and then work out a reasonable hourly rate. If you're charging a small company, it might be a good idea to keep your prices low - but if the company is large, hit them where it hurts ;)

if you're serious about web design and getting more work from it, I'd recommend keeping the prices low for a couple of sites and letting the word of mouth do it's work. If people talk about how well you did the site and how cheap it was, you're likely to attract more clients, giving you time to improve your skills and knock up the prices as you gain more experience.

Quote:Original post by Ekim_Gram
That's the thing though. I have no idea how much I'm going to be working on this. It's not like I'm going to be going there every day for 6 hours and just work on the website. And I think he would be a little iffy about me just telling him how many hours I worked that week. And I would be too, because chances are I would also be talking to my friends on AIM, having my TV going, and of course, posting here.

If you're going to go professional, be professional. Forget about AIM, forget about TV, and forget about GameDev.net while you work. Set your own working hours and work those hours. Provide your prospect with an estimate and do what I said.

Quote:How much would be a fair amount an hour though? He doesn't know much about the internet and I don't wanna rip him off. I was thinking maybe $7-$10 USD an hour but I seriously don't know what I'm doing with this. If it helps, I've never had a job. Too proud to work at McDonalds and too young to work anywhere else around here.

Yea, yea, who cares? How much you think your time is worth is irrelevant. It's your customer that pays you using their perception of your value. I already gave you the pricing formula. Don't give yourself excuses. Just do it. By the way, $7-10/hour is about as much McDonald's workers get paid. Don't devalue yourself. Don't devalue your services. If it helps you get your head around it, you're providing business and marketing services not Web design. Your work will help your customer increase profitability, brand awareness, and enhance their corporate identity. That's certainly more valuable than a counterfeit hamburger.

The adage "dress for the job you want" applies to services pricing. Don't dress for the job you have, dress for the job you want. Behave the way you want to be and you will be as you behave.

Quote:Original post by Adraeus
If you're going to go professional, be professional. Forget about AIM, forget about TV, and forget about GameDev.net while you work.

Agreed. If you're working on someone's site and you're serious about doing it, you should act in a professional way. Sure, that means cutting out some of your social life, but you're getting paid for your time and the more organised you become, the more it'll pay off in the long run, especially if you get more work from it.

Thank you so much for the advice guys. I'm going to post the demo when I finish it. If anybody else has to say something, please do so because I really appreciate it. It's giving me a lot of insight about what I'm going to do.