Post: #1

I need someone to build a website for my new business. It is not a complicated website at all, but it needs to look very professional, clean and reputable. The guy that built my previous site wants to charge me 5k. He is damn good, but I don't want to drop anywhere near 5k on a site.

Any referrals to companies or people that design business websites for a reasonable fee? Alternatively, any people here that are web designers and are looking for some work?

Post: #2

Try elance.com mate. I had great quality come from some of the designers offering their services on there, all at a very reasonable price.

Post: #3

http://www.odesk.com
Hire a couple of web designers at $4-$10/hour.

That sounds pretty steep. What kind of business and how advanced is the website? Sounds like he's overcharging you a lot.

I set up simple websites for businesses but at the most charge a couple hundred for the more premium sites.
Are there any complex processes required? Or is it to just market your services.
PM me if you're interested and I can help you out.

Post: #4

are those sites good for people looking to get a web site built for more than just a simple plain old website?

I'll be looking for a web designer soon as well but mine will be for a product and the site would include a blog, daily updates, tons of info, possibly selling the product on the site...

Don't want it to look like a cheap ass site but also not looking for a bunch of flash and fancy nonsense either. - Any clue what this will run $?

Post: #5

The website would basically do the following: Have several pages (home page, about, FAQ, order page, thank you for ordering, contact us, etc.). Basically, person comes to website, gets information regarding service offered, decides to purchase service by submitting information online, pays fee, I get emailed the information and then contact customer via email from then on.

It would need credit card/paypal functionality and to transition from website to emails. Can these websites listed provide that?

Post: #6

(04-17-2012 11:23 PM)slubu Wrote:  The website would basically do the following: Have several pages (home page, about, FAQ, order page, thank you for ordering, contact us, etc.). Basically, person comes to website, gets information regarding service offered, decides to purchase service by submitting information online, pays fee, I get emailed the information and then contact customer via email from then on.

It would need credit card/paypal functionality and to transition from website to emails. Can these websites listed provide that?

You could get a custom website like that built for 200-300 on elance or odesk of the same quality as a 3k or 4k website.
Thats not worth paying 5k for.

Let me you in on a secret, a lot of people that charge 2 or 3 grand for websites often outsource it for a couple hundred bucks and pocket the change.

Post: #7

(04-17-2012 11:06 PM)Biz Wrote:  are those sites good for people looking to get a web site built for more than just a simple plain old website?

I'll be looking for a web designer soon as well but mine will be for a product and the site would include a blog, daily updates, tons of info, possibly selling the product on the site...

Don't want it to look like a cheap ass site but also not looking for a bunch of flash and fancy nonsense either. - Any clue what this will run $?

That doesn't sound too crazy. Shouldn't be more than a few hundred.
Wordpress is enough for this.

(04-17-2012 11:23 PM)slubu Wrote:  The website would basically do the following: Have several pages (home page, about, FAQ, order page, thank you for ordering, contact us, etc.). Basically, person comes to website, gets information regarding service offered, decides to purchase service by submitting information online, pays fee, I get emailed the information and then contact customer via email from then on.

It would need credit card/paypal functionality and to transition from website to emails. Can these websites listed provide that?

That doesn't sound too complex at all. What websites listed?
Well it shouldn't cost $5,000 at all.
A lot less actually.
Do you have any CMS that you prefer?

If you guys are serious about getting them done PM me your Skype.

Post: #8

(04-17-2012 10:36 PM)slubu Wrote:  I need someone to build a website for my new business. It is not a complicated website at all, but it needs to look very professional, clean and reputable. The guy that built my previous site wants to charge me 5k. He is damn good, but I don't want to drop anywhere near 5k on a site.

Any referrals to companies or people that design business websites for a reasonable fee? Alternatively, any people here that are web designers and are looking for some work?

That's definitely retail price and if you're starting out and not making money yet, you should definitely seek out a cheaper solution. Dropped you a pm.

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #9

(04-17-2012 11:23 PM)slubu Wrote:  The website would basically do the following: Have several pages (home page, about, FAQ, order page, thank you for ordering, contact us, etc.). Basically, person comes to website, gets information regarding service offered, decides to purchase service by submitting information online, pays fee, I get emailed the information and then contact customer via email from then on.

It would need credit card/paypal functionality and to transition from website to emails. Can these websites listed provide that?

Would you need the website to appear high on google search? Does the website have some sort of catalogue where you list a bunch of products which you then compile an order form with? If it does then I could understand the high price as you will need a MySQL/SQL backend for storing orders etc. If it is just your run of the mill dozen or so HTML/CSS pages with graphics and stuff then way overpriced.

Post: #10

As someone who has worked as a web designer, $5k is not a ripoff in the least. It might seem that way to you as the guy writing the check. But at my last job, we fucking spent 6 figures developing a major enterprise level site. $5k is a drop in the bucket.

Figure this, if the guy is working on your site for a month and charges you 5k, he has to pay for his own health insurance, he gets no 401k or profit sharing advantages of working for someone else so he has to save for his future, he has to pay both self-employment tax and income tax. He gets no paid vacation/holiday hours, he gets no workman's comp if he gets injured. He has to buy his own software and hardware. There's a lot shit that goes into being a freelancer that's totally invisible to people price-shopping for the cheapest guy. So let's say he spends a month developing your site from your first handshake until launch. Let's say he does one of these every month with no break in the action. Well he's only making $60k a year BEFORE tax. Now when you factor in all the shit he has to pay on his own, that amounts to more like 45-50k a year. Keep in mind developing a web site is a highly skilled professional service, that is if you are doing the job right without bugs, properly UI testing, etc and doing a a high level of creative work. It can be as complicated in some cases as being a software programmer depending on the complexity of the task.

If you look up salary surveys of web designers in America, when working full a company they typically expect to make around 70k a year if they live in a major city. That's in addition to the regular benefits of being a full-time employee. Divide that by 12 to get an idea of what it would cost to buy a month of that person's professional time. In this case about $5830. Once again, factoring in that this person SHOULD actually be charging more than that to compensate for lack of benefits. You would have to be making about 20-25% more a year as a freelancer to be at parity with someone doing your job as a full-time employee. People who complain about the prices are people that don't have no background in that field, don't know what the value of the work is and have no idea what it takes to be a successful freelancer.

Just because some slapdick in India will do it for $2 an hour doesn't mean 5K is a ripoff. Btw, the quality of most design work in India is atrocious. The coding may be fine, but if you want something incredible, India is the last place I'd turn too. But I understand that's all some people can budget and that's fine I suppose. But don't expect designers who live in Western countries with Western costs of living to be able to charge you what some guy can in India living with his parents using pirated software. We can't compete price-wise with people who live in countries where you can live off $5 a day. Do what you gotta do man, but the guy is not ripping you off at that price. Trust me.

Post: #11

The requirements he asked for don't take a month of work. It's a really simple site.
Sure your points make sense but you have to understand $5k is just way too much for what he needs.

Post: #12

(04-18-2012 01:28 AM)Dansmedia Wrote:  The requirements he asked for don't take a month of work. It's a really simple site.
Sure your points make sense but you have to understand $5k is just way too much for what he needs.

I'm just using a month to illustrate an example and show how the math may look from the freelancer's perspective. It could be shorter it could be longer.

Oftentimes people think something should only take a week, but it can take much longer due to revisions and such. I know from experience that it's the norm that project times tend to be way underestimated, both in time and complexity. I once designed a logo for a dude and the shit dragged on for many weeks because the fucker kept changing his mind every day about what he wanted. Then he was shocked at the bill.

Post: #13

(04-18-2012 01:25 AM)speakeasy Wrote:  As someone who has worked as a web designer, $5k is not a ripoff in the least. It might seem that way to you as the guy writing the check. But at my last job, we fucking spent 6 figures developing a major enterprise level site. $5k is a drop in the bucket.

Figure this, if the guy is working on your site for a month and charges you 5k, he has to pay for his own health insurance, he gets no 401k or profit sharing advantages of working for someone else so he has to save for his future, he has to pay both self-employment tax and income tax. He gets no paid vacation/holiday hours, he gets no workman's comp if he gets injured. He has to buy his own software and hardware. There's a lot shit that goes into being a freelancer that's totally invisible to people price-shopping for the cheapest guy. So let's say he spends a month developing your site from your first handshake until launch. Let's say he does one of these every month with no break in the action. Well he's only making $60k a year BEFORE tax. Now when you factor in all the shit he has to pay on his own, that amounts to more like 45-50k a year. Keep in mind developing a web site is a highly skilled professional service, that is if you are doing the job right without bugs, properly UI testing, etc and doing a a high level of creative work. It can be as complicated in some cases as being a software programmer depending on the complexity of the task.

If you look up salary surveys of web designers in America, when working full a company they typically expect to make around 70k a year if they live in a major city. That's in addition to the regular benefits of being a full-time employee. Divide that by 12 to get an idea of what it would cost to buy a month of that person's professional time. In this case about $5830. Once again, factoring in that this person SHOULD actually be charging more than that to compensate for lack of benefits. You would have to be making about 20-25% more a year as a freelancer to be at parity with someone doing your job as a full-time employee. People who complain about the prices are people that don't have no background in that field, don't know what the value of the work is and have no idea what it takes to be a successful freelancer.

Just because some slapdick in India will do it for $2 an hour doesn't mean 5K is a ripoff. Btw, the quality of most design work in India is atrocious. The coding may be fine, but if you want something incredible, India is the last place I'd turn too. But I understand that's all some people can budget and that's fine I suppose. But don't expect designers who live in Western countries with Western costs of living to be able to charge you what some guy can in India living with his parents using pirated software. We can't compete price-wise with people who live in countries where you can live off $5 a day. Do what you gotta do man, but the guy is not ripping you off at that price. Trust me.

He needs a relatively simple website.

From what I can tell he needs a storefront where he sells products with email integration. This is simple stuff.

He doesn't seem to require anything complex or amazingly high quality that would justify hiring a 5k web designer.

I don't have tax costs, healthcare or any of that to worry about. I could do this for 300 bucks easy but I'm sure he could get it for even cheaper(200 bucks).

My point being that web design is simply not worth paying 5k for unless its something that requires a lot of custom coding and deep customization.

The amount of knowledge it takes to create a storefront website is quite little and not much work.

I don't even think I should be saying this but I will since its Rooshvforum and its already been said but people overpay for many simple web design jobs.

Post: #14

If you say so, man. $300 bucks??? The minimum a freelance web designer in the US should be charging if he has any expertise and experience is $50/hr. That's like the absolute minimum. Many charge $75 and up. And don't tell me that's a lot of money. Hell, the mechanic charges $110/hr at the dealership. Plumbers and electricians can easily charge $100 an hour, and these guys didn't even go to college. If even an mid-level designer took on the project for $300, that would mean you'd have 6 hours from first conversation to live site. And if you overrun your 6 hours your effective hourly rate starts dropping.

Now do you SERIOUSLY think you can consult, draft up a scope, have it reviewed and signed off, work on a custom layout, break out into code, allow for a few rounds of revisions, test it out and have it live in 6 freaking hours? I seriously, seriously doubt it man. Now maybe you are starting at a base of a much cheaper hourly rate, but I'm talking about what's average for professionals in the United States, not India.

Not saying HIS site SHOULD cost $5000, just saying that $5000 is not uncommon at all for a small business website that is custom designed. Now if you're talking about something built from a template, that's another story. $300 is ridiculously low and would only make financial sense if it could be done in one day from start to finish and would involve no custom design work whatsoever. Just a bare bones template with his logo stuck on it.

Another problem I've seen come up with using these guys in India is that in order to do shit for that cheap, they will be reusing the same design over and over. So you may think you are having a unique site designed, then find out there are 50 other sites with the same exact design but a different logo slapped on. I've seen that shit happen before.

http://adamscottcreative.com/why-profess...snt-cheap/

Post: #15

Speakeasy you're looking at this from the perspective of a web designer, not a startup. A startup doesn't have 5k to spend on websites(unless they have Angel investments).

First of all these pre-made Wordpress themes are fine. There are so many of them you can get practically whatever you want. Many of them are very powerful and can be customized to a great degree.

Its very hard for me to tell when a website is using a premium theme or is completely custom made. I doubt the average visitor can tell the difference either. I've been involved in online marketing for a quite few months so I have a keener eye for web design than the average user.

As for that link, the examples of cheap websites are laughable.

Here's a website my friend created for his client for 300 bucks(in exchange for a testimonial)-

http://www.totalitcommand.com/

Not exactly complete shit? This was made with a Wordpress theme that he installed and customized. He then installed a bunch of plugins on that.

I'm just giving the OP a solution for what he needs, a cheap but good looking and fast website. Spending 5k when he could spend it on better things is a bad idea. He's not a big business, he's a startup in its birth stages, saving 4.7k is a huge deal.

Post: #16

Well this led to a fun discussion, haha.

@speakeasy: I definitely do not want a template website. The website will be the main part of the business, so I'm not afraid to spend on it. I just don't know if it warrants a 5k price for how uncomplicated it will be.

Post: #17

(04-18-2012 01:06 AM)LifeBeginsAt40 Wrote:  Would you need the website to appear high on google search? Does the website have some sort of catalogue where you list a bunch of products which you then compile an order form with? If it does then I could understand the high price as you will need a MySQL/SQL backend for storing orders etc. If it is just your run of the mill dozen or so HTML/CSS pages with graphics and stuff then way overpriced.

Yes and yes. So that maybe means I do need a higher end site. Sadly I have no idea what all these acronyms mean, so I can't comment on what I need if its SQL HTML CSS SOL HIV, etc.

Post: #18

(04-18-2012 01:54 PM)torontokid Wrote:  Speakeasy you're looking at this from the perspective of a web designer, not a startup. A startup doesn't have 5k to spend on websites(unless they have Angel investments).

Some startups do, some don't. It doesn't necessarily have to cost $5k, but $300 is ridiculous as well.

Personally it surprises me how people balk at the prices of web sites. Consider that a full page black and white ad in the L.A. Times goes for about $70,000. Even in towns with small markets, a full page ad will run you over $10,000. And that's with a limited run. A website is also a form of advertising. Yet people expect to pay a tiny fraction of what a newspaper ad would cost even though a website does a million things more than a static newspaper ad and has no limits of run time. But nobody is up in arms about what printed ads cost. I know they are totally different in nature, but I'm just trying to put numbers in perspective.

Quote:First of all these pre-made Wordpress themes are fine. There are so many of them you can get practically whatever you want. Many of them are very powerful and can be customized to a great degree.

Its very hard for me to tell when a website is using a premium theme or is completely custom made. I doubt the average visitor can tell the difference either. I've been involved in online marketing for a quite few months so I have a keener eye for web design than the average user.

As for that link, the examples of cheap websites are laughable.

[quote]
Here's a website my friend created for his client for 300 bucks(in exchange for a testimonial)-

http://www.totalitcommand.com/

Not exactly complete shit? This was made with a Wordpress theme that he installed and customized. He then installed a bunch of plugins on that.

I can tell the difference rather easily. Logo design, composition, color, layout and use of typography are a quick giveaway to me. I'm not trying to belittle your friend in any way, but it's obvious amateur work to me. It may be sufficient for that particular client, but I'm coming from the perspective of someone who was formally trained in design and had to have my work critiqued in front of a classroom by a professor. I also worked for a well-known industrial design firm in Southern California.

I realize there's a market for people who want extremely cheap work and don't know the difference between an amateur and advanced designer(or don't have the ability to understand/appreciate the difference). So be it.

Quote:I'm just giving the OP a solution for what he needs, a cheap but good looking and fast website. Spending 5k when he could spend it on better things is a bad idea. He's not a big business, he's a startup in its birth stages, saving 4.7k is a huge deal.

I think you're looking at it the wrong way. You're looking at a website as an expense rather than an investment that generates revenue. Even though I don't like the design work of your friend's site, I still think the value of it is much more than $300. I'm positive that your friend way undersold the value of his work. Like I said before, he should be charging no more than $50 an hour for this type or work as a starting point. I have my doubts that the entire project from start to finish took him a mere 6 hours(and I don't mean just the actual work of coding, I mean everything from talking on the phone with client, revising things, writing up a contract, etc). And even if by some miracle he did go from initial consultation to fully uploaded and functional website within less than one working day, the value of the work is still vastly more than $300 given the revenue that client will make from it.

Consider hypothetically that a startup generated 100k in one year of new sales from a website that cost $300 to build. That's a great deal for the business owner, but a shitty one for the designer. The cost would only be 0.3% of the profit it generated. In full-time business with employees, the cost of labor is typically around 50% of the operating costs of a business. Once again, put it in perspective. Your friend was clearly ripped off.