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Pricing 1

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snowboardr

snowboardr

Programmer
Feb 22, 2002
1,401
PH
For those have you who have gone through a few projects, what have you found to be the best pricing technique for a website that is medium in size and dynamic in asp / mysql.

- Jason

www.vzio.com
ASP WEB DEVELOPMENT



 
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Ten thousand and one high school boys named Chip can code an html page - should not be an expensive charge no matter how long it takes

Ask yourself one question, when all of these people can do it, why is the client coming to you? They could easily find someone that would charge them £10 an hour to do the work, when you might charge £30. Should we all start charging £10 an hour for this type of work then? I think not.

Which is why a 3D animator gets paid more than a straight htmler. should someone whose job is to do straight html be paid the same as someone who utilizes oracles dbs, java and such in a web site? of course not...

Difference here is we are talking about people multi-tasking, not someone proficient in only one subject or only doing one job.

If you have 2 people in a company, both doing different jobs, then sure they might be on different money, but if you do their job for an hour each day, do you get an hour at their rate?

If you work for a company and do higher level jobs than your main one, you should be getting paid the higher amount full time, not one rate for a few hours on one job and a different one for another job.

The issue is not time but what you are doing in that time... most likely someone who charges the same rate for any type of work will greatly overcharge for work that should be charged at a lower rate...

Not true, you balance the amount. How can you overcharge someone when you are charging them based on how valuable your time is to you?

Only I know how valuable my time is to me, nobody else can put a different price on it.

Hope this help

Wullie


The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change.
The leader adjusts the sails. - John Maxwell
 
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<b>Should we all start charging £10 an hour for this type of work then? I think not</b>

If that is what the work is worth - ABSOLUTELY!

<b>If you work for a company and do higher level jobs than your main one, you should be getting paid the higher amount full time, not one rate for a few hours on one job and a different one for another job.</b>

My point is that you get paid for what you <b>do</b>... not everyone gets paid the same rate...

<b>How can you overcharge someone when you are charging them based on how valuable your time is to you?</b>

Dude, if I am your customer, I want to be charged based on what you are providing to me - the product - I honestly do not care what you think your time is worth to you. What if my job is to snap my fingers for people and I think my time is worth $5mil/hr. Would the economy validate that? No freakin' way. No one cares what you think your time is worth. What they care about is the product you are providing them. That is the only thing that matters.
 
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Should we all start charging £10 an hour for this type of work then? I think not

If that is what the work is worth - ABSOLUTELY!

Just because someone at school can do this for £10/hour in no way means that's what it's worth. So, developers in India can supply me with material at £5/month, where do you propose we stop lowering prices?


If you work for a company and do higher level jobs than your main one, you should be getting paid the higher amount full time, not one rate for a few hours on one job and a different one for another job.

My point is that you get paid for what you do... not everyone gets paid the same rate...

Thats what I said, but we are talking about working on multi-task projects. If you think your experience is worth £50/hour, why should you be charging £20/hour for HTML work?

Dude, if I am your customer, I want to be charged based on what you are providing to me - the product - I honestly do not care what you think your time is worth to you. What if my job is to snap my fingers for people and I think my time is worth $5mil/hr. Would the economy validate that? No freakin' way. No one cares what you think your time is worth. What they care about is the product you are providing them. That is the only thing that matters.

Ok, word of advice here. You are the customer and approached me, if you don't like my prices, go elsewhere. Why did you approach me in the first place?

You might not get much work, but thats for you to decide.

Ok, I am the customer and approach you. I tell you that the value to me of a site the size of Amazon was £1000, and I could get one of those poor souls in India to make it for me for £500.

What is your response? Now think, suprise suprise, you put a value to your time. [wink]

Hope this helps

Wullie


The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change.
The leader adjusts the sails. - John Maxwell
 
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where do you propose we stop lowering prices?

The market will decide this. You have to pick with what you are comfortable with. If you want to charge $100/hr, go for it. That is up to you.

If you think your experience is worth £50/hour, why should you be charging £20/hour for HTML work?

The issue is not time but what you are doing in that time... (are we talking in circles now : )

Ok, I am the customer and approach you. I tell you that the value to me of a site the size of Amazon was £1000, and I could get one of those poor souls in India to make it for me for £500.

I'd say &quot;Have fun in India!&quot; I am not saying you have to lower your charge to the lowest common denomenator... no way... what I am saying is charge what the work is worth... what the WORK is worth... not your time...

hope my bolds worked!!!
 
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what I am saying is charge what the work is worth... what the WORK is worth... not your time...

What you don't seem to understand here is that I am saying you should charge what you feel your time is worth to you. If you get contracts when you do this, great, otherwise you need to rethink your strategy.

I am in business to pay the bills and I dictate my own prices, nobody tells me what to charge. My prices are based on various factors, but never on the actual work I will be doing. If I did that then a long spell of low-end work would bankrupt me. It would also always make me choose coding over HTML work any day, which right now is not the case.

We are both pretty much on the same wavelength here, apart from agreeing on the differences in pricing.

HTML is easier to do, so therefor should be completed in less time than a project that requires more skill. So in the end they are paying less for a simple project than a more complex one.

Out of curiosity, do you work in this field? I mean work where you dictate your prices, not working in a job for someone else.

Wullie


The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change.
The leader adjusts the sails. - John Maxwell
 
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Ok....I kind of skimmmed those last bunch of posts, so this may have been addressed, but the way I see it, yes, you are worth a certain amount for your time, on the other hand, when you're a web designer, you can expect lots of prospective clients to want basic html,css and javascript websites with no backend work. Now, because that's what our clients want (maybe we're worth more, since we can do php, but that's what they want), if we want to win the bids, we're going to have to charge the going rate for html,css, and javascript. Now, if that same client wants extra php and database work, we should be able to charge a higher rate for that, the reason being that php is a lot harder and takes much more brains than html. Maybe the way to think of it is like this--we're worth $50 an hour for our php skills but we charge only $25 an hour because it's html work, and although we're worth more, we wouldn't win the bids otherwise (supply and demand, we're not lowering our worth, merely our going bid for the project). But then when we get that php job we've been hoping for, there should be nothing stopping us from charging the $50 an hour that we're worth. I think that the rate should be able to differ based on the work being done. Although my friend's monkey can do html, php is more complicated.

Rick

-----------------------------------------------------------
RISTMO Designs
Arab Church
Reference Guides
 
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My prices are based on various factors, but never on the actual work I will be doing.

we'll have to agree to disagree... if it works for you and you get the work... great... I know that I have gotten a lot of business from clients who felt over charged by previous designers... its not always about charging a lot, but rather having a volume of work

Out of curiosity, do you work in this field? I mean work where you dictate your prices, not working in a job for someone else.

Yes, mainly do DoD work (3D videos) and corporate Intranets
 
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I think that the rate should be able to differ based on the work being done.

well said
 
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we'll have to agree to disagree... if it works for you and you get the work... great... I know that I have gotten a lot of business from clients who felt over charged by previous designers...

I also get clients that feel overcharged by other designers, and have never lost a client to another designer yet. One thing to note, I have never lost a contract because I priced myself too high, although I have lost at least 1 in the past because I didn't submit a price high enough.

Yes, mainly do DoD work (3D videos) and corporate Intranets

Now, that's a different situation.

I would charge different between the 2 of those but for a few reasons that don't come into it with different types of coding.

The both of them involve different levels of responsibility amongst other things.

Hope this helps

Wullie


The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change.
The leader adjusts the sails. - John Maxwell
 
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[Bold]Did you get all that John[/bold]

Hope so.

AJ
[americanflag]

If at first you do not succeed, cheat!


 
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Dont you hate when you try to joke and ruin the [bold]punch line[/bold]

AJ
[americanflag]

If at first you do not succeed, cheat!


 
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am I the only one that didn't get the joke at start? [rofl]



onpnt2.gif
 
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Im sure no one got it thats why I am not a comedian.

But did you hear about the one blonde and brunette walk in to a bar...

Never mind.

AJ
[americanflag]

If at first you do not succeed, cheat!


 
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Now I want to hear the rest..

BUT, please spare the forums that factor. [wink]

14 months on top = pure excellence

onpnt2.gif
 
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My eyes are crossed from everyone agreeing and disagreeing.
Here are my thoughts.
I'm a contractor and this is roughly how a contract is figured.
1 identify the product or service
2 determine the number of man hours it will take to do that job.
3 review bids from contractors
3a to calculate a bid you must figure all the overhead which is the hourly cost of managers, managers benifets, your wage, your benifets, power bill, pens, pencils, computers bla bla bla. divide total dollar amount by number of man hours. all labour catagories are rated the same so as far as the contract is concerned the doorman makes $10/hour and so does the manager. (average hourly cost of all contracted employees and non productive employees ;))
4 take lowest bidder ;)

what I would do is this: since we don't have to worry about managers and junk, if you want to calculate how much electricity you use in the time you make the app, pens and pencils bla bla bla you go right ahead. as for the labour to create a webpage, if you charge:

$10/hour HTML
$20/Hour ASP, CGI, etc...
$30/hour DB admin
$15/hour maintnance
so on and so forth
the above average rate is $18.75
if you add in how much your computer costs per hour, and your pens, paper, power... you get the point it'll be a little higher.

I say, &quot;Sir, (or ma'am) i'll do everything from HTML to your DB admin for $18.75(+plus your paper and junk) and it'll take 20 man hours so the total will be $375(+plus your... you get the idea) to do the job




A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
- Quote by Douglas Adams
 
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Actually I forgot that one but

A man walks into a bar.

Sees a midget playing a piano on the bar next to a guy. He walks up to guy and says, &quot;Thats neat where did you get the little guy.&quot; He said there is a genie in the back granting 1 wish to everyone.&quot;

The first guy goes &quot;really&quot; and runs to the back.

Guy : Genie I want a million bucks.
Genie: Your wish is granted.

Just then a million male deer run by.

Disappointed the guy walks back to the bar. And says the the guy he saw before, &quot;that genie stinks&quot;.

The man at the bar says, &quot;I know, you think I asked for a 12 inch pianist

AJ
[americanflag]

If at first you do not succeed, cheat!


 
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1 HTML page --> $1.00
knowing how --> $50.00
pain in the a** customer --> priceless :-D

> need more info?
:: don't click HERE ::
 
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