Affiliate Marketing Tycoon

**telliseed** · 02-09-2005, 11:57 PM

I guess this is kind of a newb question, but it's appropriate. The owner of a local business, who I know on a personal basis, hired me to be the webmaster of his site. He doesn't know anything about computers, so I do everything related to it. He says he will pay me monthly, but how much should I ask for? Should I ask for a price up front for the design and all, and then some for a monthly fee, or should it be by the hour? I've never been paid for working on a site before, so I have no idea as to what kind of money comes out of it. Any help would be appreciated- thanks!

**NagiWKI** · 02-10-2005, 12:13 AM

I usually do a pre-agreed price for the basic site set up, then charge an ANNUAL maintenance fee. I base the maintenance fee on their estimate of how frequently they'll need to add to or update their site. I exclude subdomains they might want to add later, new scripts, etc.

V. Ohle
Fire & Ice Designs
www.nativepages.com

**ezyweb** · 02-10-2005, 01:35 AM

If you are designing a site you should ask for an up front fee for all other work you should charge by the hour. The ensures you get paid for the work you do.

**telliseed** · 02-10-2005, 05:54 PM

Thanks, but would you happen to know a general price range? He's saying he'll pay me 10 dollars a month, should I be asking for more?

**DevelopedWeb** · 02-10-2005, 06:38 PM

Ten dollars a month is sick--if he pays you that, he's ripping you off. I've never seen the work that you do personally, but I can say with much certainty that no web design work out there is worth as little as $10/month. If it weren't for the fact that I've actually seen figures this low before (usually in outsourcing), I would have thought your $10 comment was a joke, and for your sake I hope it is!

I usually charge $100 - $150 a month for maintenance, depending on what's involved. Any new additions to the site are extra ($60 a page, $150 a form, etc.). Everyone has different prices, but I would make sure that you get at least $70/month as a minimum figure for any amount of work done. Just keep in mind that what you get paid should be dependent on what you do for the site each month.

**telliseed** · 02-10-2005, 09:11 PM

Sorry- one more question. If I'm asking for money like that, should I be paying for the domain name, etc.? He's paying for that now.

**DevelopedWeb** · 02-10-2005, 09:14 PM

My opinion is that you should not; domain name and hosting should be seperate charges from any design work that you do. And don't apologize for asking a question--that's what these forums are here for!

**webspace** · 02:05 AM

If you have reseller hosting you could just add the site and create a billable account. I use Hosting Zoom. They has some good hosting plans.

I think you should bill him for at least 1 hour of maintainence per month you should charge $30-35. I'm pretty sure that is the going rate. You should charge be the hour or by the page.

**webseo** · 03-07-2005, 07:28 PM

Hi
A trap a lot of young designers get into is what should they charge for their services? $10 per hours is certainly a joke and I wouldn't click a key for that. 10 bucks in Australia would buy a burger and a coke and nothing else.

I charge a flat fee of $45 per hour for general stuff and $65 and hour for more specialised scripting. As far as website maintenance is concerned, I charge a minumum fee of $200 a month for general updating and then I quote on any extra hours over 5 hours a month.

We are in this business to make money. But have said all that, when i first started, i did do a couple of portfolio sites for free and another 1/2 dozen sites for break even money. So i suppose it all depends on how confident you are with your own work.

My 2 bucks worth....

**brokensoul2271** · 03-07-2005, 07:55 PM

I am also curently in the middle of my first website design job! I have been trying to pursuade the guy that i don't want paying as i believe that he is doing me the favour by giving me experience and a chance to show myself. Hes my girlfriends boss and is forcing me 2 take his money, oh well guess i shouldnt complain really... heh heh

**Brendan22** · 03-15-2005, 04:22 PM

i usually charge between $20-35/hour depending on how much i think i can get out of the company/person

very small businesses or say, a resume site for an individual i keep it around $20 because they usually don't have lots of money to throw around to begin with, especially for a website. They'll usually trade cost efficiency over quality.

Since i'm a one man operation on the side and i'm not very established (yet) i try to keep it low cost to underbid the pro guys

The biggest thing is figuring out how much your time is worth, not just to them but to you... i can be cheap becuase i already have a fulltime job, and freelance for beer money and cause i enjoy it, as opposed to webseo who sounds like he does it for a living

bottom line never sell yourself short, what maybe takes us 10 minutes to do is completely beyond people who don't know a thing about the internet