Measuring Price for a Website
Measuring price for a website can be difficult at times depending on your experience. As you get more experienced you will learn to price websites much better such as custom programming jobs and etc. I think custom application and web development can be the hardest projects to price, well I did at first. The reason I say that for is because of the complexities that are involved its just not a out of the box software where your going to install it and then move on, it just don’t quite work like that. When producing a customized application you must set down and identify everything, work the bugs out, test the software over and over, and there is just so many numerous factors that are involved.
Well how do you get around this your probably asking your self. If your someone that has been having a hard time pricing projects and etc welcome to the web world business. The idea behind pricing projects is to have *your* client write everything down they need. Then you review the project keep it simple in your head don’t get to complexed with things, but review the project and then think like this ok this will take this much time, and that will take this much time therefore you can price the project better and make sure your client has signed the paper. Don’t ever offer to do a job with out a contract, now if the client is not sure what there wanting, and they state I just need someone to work with me I’m not sure what I want, but then they say they want a fixed price. Don’t ever give a fixed price in this case strictly charge them by the hour, and make that clear in the contract thats why your charging by the hour, you charge by the hour so the project gets completed because if you give a fixed rate I guarantee you the project will fail.
Sometimes if the client is not sure of what they want this would be your job to come in and tell them what they need. Basically be there support system and then you guys can come upon agreement on something. A lot of the times client claim they know what they want just like people do in general I do it, and every one else does it, but when we don’t know that much about that certain thing we really don’t know what we want. This is where the professional or the one thats more experienced in that field needs to come forth and help the other out. I have had clients that wanted to pay 100 dollars an hour all the way to the end for customized applications, and one of them was the largest reseller for Hallmark Ornaments, and he just wanted to do the project by the hour because it was a custom shopping cart with a custom admin section and he wasn’t sure how long it was going to take, and quite honestly I wasn’t either due to all the complexities and etc that were involved.
When you are pricing a project with a fixed rate think of how some of the things below. I listed some of the important things you should really consider, and never give in on any of the following because quite honestly it can hurt you in the long run. Its okay to be a considerate person, but just watch how you do it because it can back fire on you. When I say backfire the client will expect you to do everything for free, or that same thing over and over again for free.
- Research, You should always think of how long it will take for research. Say this is a larger project and there will be a lot of research involved to get it fully functional you need to think of stuff like this, and add them hours up in your head. Always charge for more then what you think its going to actual take reason I say this for is because it will keep you out of the gutter I’m not saying rip them off or over charge them, but give your self a few extra hours every one does it.
- Consulting, Think of how much time you will have involved with you client such as consulting, and going over things. This is highly important because you will have a lot of hours wrapped up into this specially with a larger project.
- Stress and Emotions, You should also think of how complexed the project is going to be, or if its going to be one of them projects that are a pain in the ass if this is the case you charge more depending on experience and etc.
- Hours, Mainly just think of how many hours you will have in the project all together.
You know quite honestly when doing projects the best thing to do is offer packaged deals such as 5 page websites, 10 page websites, and things to that nature this way you know how much time you’ll have wrapped into it and etc. Its more of a chu ching process the client orders a site and boom its done and you move on. As a business owner things can be more profitable this way plus the clients are generally more satisfied, but there will be time when someone wants something thats fully customized and these type of projects can be a pain. Give it some thought its actually not to hard to price projects I have heard numerous people say pricing SEO is hard, or pricing websites is hard your just still struggling with these things once you start getting business and figure out how to price projects appropriately things will become very profitable.