How Much Should a Web Design Cost?
June 11th, 2008 Posted in
GREAT READ for those who want to get a better understanding on why web design can be expensive, or don’t believe that our prices are more the reasonable. Maybe too reasonable.
Every week, I get emails from potential clients who all want to know one thing: How much for a design?
Nine times out of ten, my answer causes them to run for the hills. Scary thing is, based on industry buzz, my prices could actually be considered totally reasonable by comparison. Don’t believe me? Well, today you get the whole scoop - my prices, their prices, and my always-priceless editorial commentary on the subject
My Prices
For the sake of argument, I’m going to constrain today’s post to blog design only.
When people email me and ask for a quote, I always follow the same process. I visit their current site and determine the following:
The current CMS platform (WordPress, MovableType, Drupal, etc.)
The scope of the site - how many unique styling elements will be required for specialty pages?
The perceived complexity of the re-design. Does this person want a graphical masterpiece with all kinds of bells and whistles?
Generally speaking, there’s not a whole lot of variance in these areas from blog to blog, so after checking out the site in question, I usually have a good idea of how much to charge. Now, to answer the question you all want to hear…How much is all this gonna run ya?
At this time, blog designs start at $1500. This price is for a blog that has minimal graphical complexity, no customized icons, and no logo production. What you do get at this price is rock-solid, hand-crafted, browser-tested CSS, XHTML, and simple (but striking) graphic design.
In most cases, bells and whistles like plugin support, unique page designs, and extra graphics push the price up into the $1800-$2000 range. From there, the price is largely dictated by page-specific CSS/XHTML production and custom graphic design. It’s totally conceivable that a pimped out blog could run as much as $3000. Rest assured, though, that it would be totally badass, and the recipient of the design would receive mad props for having such a killer online abode.
