No offence to the people who post them, but I think some are just a desperate attempts to get sales. Some of the prices they offer are stupid, unless they are out to make a loss. You should charge what your skills are worth, and most 'good' companies recognise this, and pay for what they get in return...

No offence to anyone, just my thoughts :)

Matt

How do you rate how much your skills are worth ?

Offering "specials" and "deals" is a great way to attract new business ;)

You can rate your skills pretty easily by asking yourself how many programming languages (web based in this situation) you know, how well you know them, how many technolgies (Flash etc.) you know and how familiar you are with them, and generally how the finished site looks - ask friends to review it for you.

I read as a general rule, which I do not follow - I normally charge per site etc., that html and basic graphics should be charged at around £10 - 15 / $15 - $20 an hour - this is from a magazine btw.

I agree that specials are a great way to promote a new company, but with some of the specials out there, it could create the wrong impression of the company, but again, I don't mean to offend any of the posters - this is just a little constructive critiscism.

Point taken Firefly but at the same time there will be groups out there who are small, starting out and who fit the "got some skills and want to improve but need to earn some money too" category.

That was how I got from doing a few homesites to taking it more seriously and developing my design skills further. Needless to say I'm quite a ways past that now :D but no-one is ever 100% on top of the skills situation with stuff changing to fast. :rolleyes:

The bottom line is that as the skils base, portfolio and reputation improves so will the prices. Any customers who have been the "cheap and cheerful" route will know that it's a higher likelyhood that they get a mediocre or badly written site for peanuts but occassionally they get a real star...

Those stars are the ones who in 2 years time will be redesigning the same site for treble plus the money of their first attempt. In the end everyone wins... and even those who got stung know better for next time.

Another 2 penneth worth... Yikes this is turning into an expensive board :)

To me it looks like someone wants to offer design services but instread of bringing down prices to a level where (s)he can get some work (s)he wants everyone to raise their prices so (s)he does not seem overpriced.

Personally my skills and abilities are worth the same amount of money that I need to pay the rent, put food on the table for my family, etc. not based on an article from a magazine stating what I should charge for this and that. :smokin:

This is not the case for me - I charge what prices I believe to be correct, and am willing to negotiate with the client. I get plenty of work, and, when comparing my prices to others I know from various mailing lists, mine are cheaper. But here, I see offers that would make so little profit for the person doing the site - some of the offers claim backend databases etc. and you should be charging 4 figure sums for this kind of work...

As I clearly said before, I am not trying to offend them or belittle them, it should help them, as it could bring them more money in.

And as I also clearly stated, my prices are not based from a magazine - that was just a reference.

Matt

So, in other words, you're saying that McDonald's should charge the same price for hamburgs that the Waldorf charges??
Some companies deal in volume to keep pricing down. Of course, I'm not saying that McDonald's hamburgers are as good as the Waldorf's. But, sometimes, you don't need something great when something good will do.

No, obviously the complexity and size of the site will determine this. And ok, different people have different standards, but no one should have a standard that low to charge miniscule prices.

But if this is going to continually cause problems, then the mods can delete it - or are you trying to up your post count again SoftwareRevue?

<<< EDIT >>> some things are better left unsaid:rolleyes:

they just make low prices to attrack customers. mostly new offers are made by newbies or colleage students trying to make some money in vacation from home or colleage far away from real time business expenses. :) so this doesn't heart them much to offer low prices.

Not to worry I got the understanding of the McDonald's burger comment and no I am not try to increase my count. As far as the saying goes 'you get what you pay for' so lesser qaulity designs will cost less and..... (just remeber there are always exceptions to ever rule). :smokin:

Originally posted by Firefly

I read as a general rule, which I do not follow - I normally charge per site etc., that html and basic graphics should be charged at around £10 - 15 / $15 - $20 an hour - this is from a magazine btw.


So how long would it take to do a page with the above specifications... 1 hour, 2 hours ???

Well, in answer to the Topic.

Some people make a living off of their design, and need to pay the bills.

Every little bit helps :)