How much to charge for a website?

[majkkali]

Hi everyone.
So basically, a person I know has asked me to create a website for his business (it's a very small company, 2 people work there). He just wants a simple brochure type website (description of company, some photos, contact form, etc.).
I used to play around with Joomla CMS a few years ago but haven't touched it ever since. I do know HTML quite well and some CSS too. I work in IT so tech isn't something new to me (though my job doesn't reallty involve creating websites). Generally, I believe I could create a nice website using WordPress or Joomla.
The question I have, however, is this: how much should I charge him? I've asked different webdesign companies for a quote and prices vary greatly (from £200 to even £3000). Now, as I'm not a professional web designer/developer I was thinking that £250 would be a reasonable price (I might need to buy a premium template and a couple shutterstock images). What do you guys think?
Also, how long do you think this should take me? A couple of hours? 2 days? A week?

Thanks a lot for any help

 

[meandu229]

Hi everyone.
So basically, a person I know has asked me to create a website for his business (it's a very small company, 2 people work there). He just wants a simple brochure type website (description of company, some photos, contact form, etc.).
I used to play around with Joomla CMS a few years ago but haven't touched it ever since. I do know HTML quite well and some CSS too. I work in IT so tech isn't something new to me (though my job doesn't reallty involve creating websites). Generally, I believe I could create a nice website using WordPress or Joomla.
The question I have, however, is this: how much should I charge him? I've asked different webdesign companies for a quote and prices vary greatly (from £200 to even £3000). Now, as I'm not a professional web designer/developer I was thinking that £250 would be a reasonable price (I might need to buy a premium template and a couple shutterstock images). What do you guys think?
Also, how long do you think this should take me? A couple of hours? 2 days? A week?

Thanks a lot for any help

Whatever you do factor in any updating and such they will want, even things like renewing domains, adding content changing contact details and keeping the website upto date with the latest version of whatever cms you use to prevent any security issues would probably come under your job role. I wont make anyone's website because of this I dont want to get emails saying, ohh can you just add this new picture of x for me followed by that doesnt look quite right on mobile. Months after finishing.

 

[majkkali]

Whatever you do factor in any updating and such they will want, even things like renewing domains, adding content changing contact details and keeping the website upto date with the latest version of whatever cms you use to prevent any security issues would probably come under your job role. I wont make anyone's website because of this I dont want to get emails saying, ohh can you just add this new picture of x for me followed by that doesnt look quite right on mobile. Months after finishing.

Thanks for your reply. Actually, I'm thinking of showing him a very basic navigation in CMS so that he can edit some content or upload a picture himself. I'll also make it very clear that once I handle the finished website to him, I will no longer be responsible for it and I will not feel obliged to edit it or update it.

 

[nightwish]

Whatever you do factor in any updating and such they will want, even things like renewing domains, adding content changing contact details and keeping the website upto date with the latest version of whatever cms you use to prevent any security issues would probably come under your job role. I wont make anyone's website because of this I dont want to get emails saying, ohh can you just add this new picture of x for me followed by that doesnt look quite right on mobile. Months after finishing.

Thanks for your reply. Actually, I'm thinking of showing him a very basic navigation in CMS so that he can edit some content or upload a picture himself. I'll also make it very clear that once I handle the finished website to him, I will no longer be responsible for it and I will not feel obliged to edit it or update it.

Better idea: charge an ongoing fee for updates. Whatever seems reasonable for the scale of changes. For something small like this, say £20-40 per month for updating a couple of pictures, some text, make sure the domain name is renewed etc. Easy money!

 

[majkkali]

Better idea: charge an ongoing fee for updates. Whatever seems reasonable for the scale of changes. For something small like this, say £20-40 per month for updating a couple of pictures, some text, make sure the domain name is renewed etc. Easy money!

That's a fantastic idea, thanks a lot!

Regarding my original question - do you guys think £200 - £250 is a reasonable price? Or should I ask for less/more?

 

[jsmoke]

It's reasonable if you can make a profit after buying the template, it's would be regarded as the lowest price you could pay for a website. Need to do all the graphics also, even if it's a button or some kind of graphic, you would need to buy them or find free ones as these things take skill to make. Give it a go and post updates here.

 

[Dup]

At my old company we charged ~£50 an hour as a rule of thumb. This was bespoke sites built in CMSMS (dislike Wordpress). For what you describe we'd aim for £300 or so but stock would be charged on top if we had to purchase it.

There are plenty of sites like Unsplash with royalty-free quality stock photos which may be suitable although not your usual random chick with a headset stuff, which I personally would never ever use.

As for ongoing changes, they were charged on a per-hour basis as and when they arose. Something quick like a simple copy & paste text change was usually free and anything that was moderately quick say 30mins was quoted at £25.