charging for website design

Hello everyone,

This is my first post to this forum, so if I posted to the wrong area please don't send me to the gulag.

The company I work for is interested in redesigning their corporate website. As of right now, the website belongs in your "horrible design" forum. It's an abomination beyond compare. But anyway, my company has approached me to do the redesign. My problem is that I don't know how much to charge a corporate client.

Several months ago, before I was a twinkle in their eye for site redesign, management made a quick comment to me that they had set aside 10K-15K in the budget for this new project. That sounds rediculous to me, but hey, at least now I know how much they have on the table. I want to be fair and have no interest in gouging my employer.

The site should be relatively basic - no backend SQL DB's or even PHP/scripts for that matter. I can see perhaps somewhere around 15-20 pages total. My web design experience level is probably about a 5 on the 10 scale. My graphics and design experience is more like an 8 on the 10 scale.

What that information in mind, can anyone lend some advice on how much I should charge for this site redesign? Even just a rough estimate would be good.

thank you

I'm generally more expensive than most people on here, but in the long run, I think I charge a more than fair price. I start out with 100USD per hour and then drop between 70-80USD per hour depending on the type of work after the third hour of work. I charge 30USD per hour for programming. 10K-15K sounds great! You should let me gouge them!! Just kidding

Ryan,

Thank you very much for that information. At least it gives me a starting point. Just out of idle curiosity, how many hours do you think it might take to do a website with as many pages as we have? (15-20) I figure I will have a static header and perhaps a top or left side menu. The rest should be images and text info just plopped in place.

thanks again

And on the flip-side of Ryan, I charge really cheap and by project instead of per/hour

This might help - Pricing a Project

For the most part, I'm really fast at coding websites, so it would probably take me between 3-6 hours to come up with a design and code the template. I do everything in straight up text editors, so when you know CSS and XHTML as well as I do, things go much more smoothly than say, making something in Dreamweaver. Then maybe an hour or two to stick in the rest of the content and finish up the CSS with extra markup for the elements not used in the templates.

I don't want to sound like a shark or anything, here Whenever I get approached by a non-profit company, I always do a superb job for free

It didn't sound like you were a shark Ryan. You are talented, professional and reliable so you deserve to charge what you are worth. If your skills are top notch and you are fast, then it's not too many hours billed!

I need to up my hourly price but I hate to .... I don't want to anger any loyal clients.. but it's been years...

I need to practice my skills a bit more to get comfortable with ALL CSS code. I should practice more. For my rates as a beginner I was advised 20-25/hour, but my competition charges around 10/hour out of his company. I am aiming for the 15/hour range with the minutes divided up. As for you, shoot high because they got the money and they showed you that. Lucky you! My cliant is a beginner in business with a small skate company. I cant push him hard untill he gets his own stuff off the ground :P