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MenuHow much should I charge to develop a WordPress site?
I'm a 20 year old student studying Graphic Design. I occasionally get clients who would like me to completely redo their website such as designing a custom theme, adding plugins and doing it all with wordpress.
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Take the # of hours it takes you to do it and charge $50/hour. That's the price. Eventually you can charge $100/hour but that will require a bigger customer.
If the customer is small < $1M in gross sales per year - charge $50/hour
If the customer id medium < $1-5M / sales - charge $75
Over $5M - charge $100
The challenge you'll face is clearly defining the expectations and handoff so that you're not stuck doing stuff that you can charge for and always getting interrupted from past customers.
I don't agree with the logic behind charging different customers different prices based on their revenue. If I want to buy a car, the price is not determined by my income. Same with a house. Same with legal services. I guess in some extremes that's not the case (subsidized housing, state-provided legal resources, etc) but in general the price is the price and your income has nothing to do with that. Charging customers with less revenue a lower rate is, like it or not, a subsidy.
If you did provide lower rates to customers with less revenue, your higher revenue customers would be quite right to ask you why you're charging them more, if they ever found out you were doing that. Pricing practices that I can't defend if they become public are, in my mind, not a good idea.
That being said, whatever rate you pick, here's one bit of advice I'd very strongly encourage you to consider. Pick your normal rate, the one that applies with a (say) 3 business day turn around. Multiply that by 1.5. That's the priority rate - within 24 hours. Multiple the priority rate by 3 That's the emergency and weekend rate.
So, with $50 as the normal rate, the priority rate would be $75. The emergency/weekend rate would be $225.
The idea is, a single unreasonable client who wants everything "right now!!!!" can ruin your customer service for everyone and make your life miserable. Make "Right now!!!!" extremely expensive relative to your other rates, and incentivize reasonable expectations on behalf of your clients. You'll sleep a lot better at night if you do that, it'll be easier to stay focused on school (since you're not constantly getting "right now" requests), and (if your experience is anything like mine) your clients will understand and appreciate the rate sheet. It does in fact protect reasonable clients from very unreasonable ones, and it gives clients the option to prioritize things when they really, really need to.
I agree with Dan. The hard part right now will be estimating the time, so I suggest padding your estimate by 20-25% to account for that. If/when you come in under budget, your client will be pleased.
Be sure to use a contract so both sides are in agreement on what the project entails. And if a client balks at signing anything, avoid them. I suggest using Contract Killer 3 as a template for the contract. It helps make clear, in plain English, what the project expectations are, what happens if someone changes their mind and covers legal obligations.
Lastly, don't work for free or less for 'exposure' unless it's a non-profit you care about. Your time has value and most 'exposure' will not return a commensurate value unless it happens to be an incredibly high profile website (in which case they'll be able to afford you).
Sounds like you are playing the role of the web designer and web developer in those situations. If you consider yourself very very good with UI UX design people are willing to pay big bucks for quality work there. As far as the development side it's more about the timeline for development and how many bells and whistles. I've worked with small to medium sized businesses and do not think $250/hr is unreasonable or unusual for top quality design and development on a normal timeline.
Happy to discuss more just wanted to get my thoughts out to bring a bit more perspective in.
It depends on quite a few factors:
- How much experience do you have?
- How much available time do you have?
- What do you like doing?
If you can't commit full time to a project during the week because of school, you can focus on one element of a site design, and outsource the rest.
Will you be customizing existing themes or writing new ones completely from scratch? Pricing will vary based on all of these answers, and it's a broad spectrum.
I recommend some of these resources:
http://chrislema.com/tag/pricing/ (he's on Clarity too and you could chat with him)
http://www.winwithoutpitching.com
https://www.freelancelift.com
I also recommend figuring out the ideal rate for the lifestyle you have or want: http://www.yourrate.co.
Good luck - happy to chat more if you'd like!
It is better to charge them for whole project not according to per hour. Lets say a client have PSD of website and he/she wants you to convert it to wordpress. If that site is limited to 5pages then you should charge $500. If your client requires design mockup from scratch then you should add $100 , which makes $600 in total.
Another possibility here is that it requires more than 5 pages ,then you may charge $50 according to per page.
It is a good practise to charge with fixed amount as it satisfies clients by letting them know what total amount they are going to spent.
Happy coding !
This depends on who your client is, how much their revenue is, if the website will give them a ROI (return on investment), and how talented you are.
My agency (https://www.brotskydesigns.com) does pricing based on what we estimate the time commitment will be. If we estimate the job will take 40 hours and our hourly rate is $x we simply charge $x * 40. We make sure to cap off the hours so clients don't take advantage of us and we don't end up stuck in endless projects.
To understand how much you should charge for a WordPress Website you must answer the following facts one-by-one. The cost of a WordPress site can be broken down into following categories:
I. WordPress hosting
II. Domain Name
III. Design
IV. Plugins and Extensions (Apps)
To create a self-hosted WordPress site, you need web hosting to store your files. Every website on the internet needs hosting. This is your website’s home on the internet. There are different hosting plans available for all kind of websites. You need to pick one that suits your requirements and fits your budget. Next, you will need a domain name. This will be your website’s address on the internet, and this is what your users will type in the browser to reach your website (example, wpbeginner.com or google.com). With WordPress, there are tons of free website templates available that you can use. However, if you want something more advanced / custom, then you can purchase a premium template or have one custom made which will raise the cost. There are 54,000+ free plugins for WordPress. These are apps and extensions for your websites. Think features like contact form, gallery, etc. So, while you can build a website with just the hosting and domain cost, based on your situation, you may end up paying for additional tools and services. That is why it is often confusing for people to find out the real cost of a WordPress website.
Estimating the Real Cost of Building a WordPress Site.
Depending on your needs, your cost to start a WordPress website can range from $100 to $500 to $3000, to even as high as $30,000 or more. It is important to know what type of website you are building, and what you will need for it because that will directly affect your cost. But do not worry, we will show you how to avoid a financial disaster and make the best decisions.
For the sake of this article, let us break down websites into different budget categories:
I. Building a WordPress website (low budget)
II. Building a WordPress website (with more features)
III. Building a WordPress website for small business
IV. Building a WordPress eCommerce website
V. Building a custom WordPress website
Now let us see how much each of these projects cost and how you can avoid spending any more than necessary. You can build a fully functional WordPress website for yourself and keep your costs under $100. Here is the cost break down of a WordPress website on a low budget. First, you will need a domain name and web hosting. A domain name typically costs $14.99 / year, and web hosting normally costs $7.99 / month. Thankfully, Bluehost, an official WordPress recommended hosting provider, has agreed to offer our users a free domain name and over 60% off on web hosting. You can continue to use Bluehost for WordPress hosting to keep the cost low and get a free domain name.
However, since you will be adding more features to your website, it may make sense to get a more powerful hosting configuration like SiteGround’s GoGeek plan. This will cost you a little more, but it comes with premium features like staging, faster performance, and can handle up to 100,000 visitors per month. You can use our SiteGround coupon to get 60% off for the first year of your hosting. You can also go for a premium WordPress template for your site. Unlike free WordPress templates, these templates come with extra features and priority support. Here are some essential premium WordPress plugins and extensions that you’ll need as your site grows:
Features
I. WPForms (Pro) – Adds a drag drop form builder to your WordPress site
II. WP Rocket – Premium WordPress caching plugin to speed up your site.
III. Beaver Builder – Adds a drag and drop WordPress page builder.
IV. WP Mail SMTP – improves email deliverability and fixes WordPress not sending email issue.
Marketing
I. Constant Contact – One of the best email marketing services
II. OptinMonster – Converts abandoning website visitors into subscribers. Lead generation for WordPress.
III. MonsterInsights Pro – See how visitors find and use your website.
IV. All in One SEO Pro – Improve your website’s SEO ranking.
Security
I. BackupBuddy – For automatic WordPress backups
II. Sucuri Firewall – Website firewall and malware protection
There are many more WordPress plugins and services that you can add. Each paid service or addon that you add will increase the cost of your WordPress site. Depending on the premium WordPress plugins and services that you add, it can be anywhere between $500 and $1000 per year.
Besides if you do have any questions give me a call: https://clarity.fm/joy-brotonath
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