This is golden advice. I agree whole heartedly. As a web designer you gotta either join the fray of someone else’s venture or create automated solutions that will make up for any lack.
Here is one for you to chew on. I am on the opposite side of the spectrum. I need a website built. A real website, not just 5 or 10 pages. The focus is to have articles on the front page that are writer created and then placed weekly as the site is updated. These articles need links to reach the continuation of the stories on other pages. They would also have to “fit” into the site like can be done on wordpress. It will also need a forum, and the one on this site would be a good example. I would hope for these things in the site. Front page with articles, buttons and banners, about page, sponsors page, contact page, news release, member database, login, admin control panel, editorial page, guest speaker page, polls, member submitted articles section with polling, and a seamless shopping cart to Amazon, Cafepress, and possibly others. I would prefer high exciting colors on the pages. What could someone build this for?
Thats a broad questions with a broad answer.
NOTE: My figures are speculative. No numbers I have here are based on any real prices for any software. Literally just numbers in a spread out range for the purposes of example.
You see everyones prices are different and if you were to stick that in the looking to hire forum here on Sitepoint you would get quotes ranging from a few hundered bucks to several thousand dollars (and above).
So, between $500 and $10,000… and higher
Now for the broad part, like if you are seriously interested in getting someone to build that. My advice before you stick it up in the LTH forum or whatever.
Lots of people fall into this trap of thinking, oh I can get it for a few hundered bucks so go for it, I got a bargain. With such a huge price range what one do you go for?
In reality, let’s look at something we are all familiar with, TV’s. 99% of us have purchased a TV before right?
Yeah I am going somewhere with this…
Well lets say you want a nice TV for your lounge.
You saw a TV for $50 at the market, chances are it isn’t going to work when you get it home.
Theres even a Sony HD TV on the market for $500.
You go into a store (reputable one) and you have lots of different brands of TV.
They are ranging from about $300 to $7,000 for the big Sony ones.
Since its for the lounge and you have a big lounge you want to go for a decent sized on thats a decent brand. You end up spending say $2,000 on a TV or something.
Same with websites, you will get people quoting insanely low prices for something worth a lot more. Chances are its too good to be true.
Now if the TV was for the kitchen, so you can watch the news as you make breakfast then fine. Fork out a bargain basement price. But if its for your lounge you just wouldn’t.
Now if you want this site for a hobby, then you can afford to go low, under $1,000 for a site like that is low. Over $1,000 is reasonable, beyond that mark you are talking the quality of the company.
So, there will be a margin, a sort of minimum price for quality of it were, then beyond that its all down to how good it will be beyond meeting your minimum requirements.
So yeah, anywhere between a few hundered bucks for something that wont work to a few grand for something that will be great.
This discussion of how much a particular site would cost is totally off topic.
He asked a question so I answered it 
Being in freelance you won’t make a huge amount of money but you will make some. If you went to college and graduated your best bet would be trying to get into a firm. In the firm you dont have to spend all of your time looking for jobs. The jobs comes to you, So you spend more time on making better designs, and more money.
It may be a little off topic I agree, but not that distant actually. In his question was asked how much can be earned as a freelance builder. Well, this is definitely freelance, and most definitely how much was asked as well. I just thought maybe someone was hungry, and could use a site for future advertisement. Good business sense. I didn’t expect any real discounts or anything, but did want a hands on approach. I have approached professional web designers and yes I am well prepared to spend more than a thousand bucks. I have also talked to cookie cutter website marketers and found this is way out of their league. So, I am searching for a bargain, and possibly help someone get started as well, not a bad impetus, and create a situation where there are two winners.
There are specific sub forums of Sitepoint where you can post up projects and receive quotes, i.e. ‘looking to hire’ forum etc - please don’t hijack threads in other forums, this thread is about what a freelancer can earn in a month, not about you finding yourself a new web developer for your project.
Ok I am very sorry. FYI, you’re probably right, and I do apologize.
Why waste time on building other people’s websites while you can build your own and make money with it? Why get stressed dealing with clients? Why get stressed in finding stressful clients? Why get stressed explaining your clients what HTML is? Web designing is too stressful.
LOL - yep, I have those thoughts all the time - i.e. whenever a client is giving me grief. Of course, creating businesses for yourself requires the initial business ideas (that’s the trickiest part), drive, time, funding and correct marketing, so it’s not so easy to just sit there creating endless web sites and expecting to make money from them.
But I definitley understand your line of thinking
I have 2 pieces of advice:
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3 words. Repeatable sustainable revenue. Its better to charge less up front and more on an ongoing basis. Get as many $200 a month clients as you can.
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Think big and act big. Think like a web design company and treat your clients as if they are working with a real company no matter where you work out of. That means professional invoicing, professional communications (including well written emails), and a professional project pipeline. I have found that this is what my clients have appreciated most about their service.
Now what is a professional project pipeline? I think that deserves its own thread!
I agree that getting long-term clients is a great idea. That’s one of the reasons I don’t don’t fixed bid with clients - it would generate a higher initial profit, but over the long term clients who are getting better deals will spend more and that means I make more money in the long-term.
But, $200 a month? We can be more ambitious!! I consider any client who spends less than about 5 times that to be an inactive client. If you have too many clients, it can really generate overhead and it’s hard to keep track of. I agree with your sentiment, though!
Yes good point but my comment was meant for people starting out. $200 is a minimum maintenance fee and for mom & pop clients its actually a lot of money. I should have said minimum. Some clients, like car companies for example, will pay $10k a month for almost nothing.
Yes, I believe you can make a lot of money working as a freelance web designer.
There is a lot of needs for web designers but the competition is getting tougher.
Instead of competing globally, try competting locally. Ask businesses around you is they need web designers.
If you want to earn a significant amount of money, you would need to work very fast and be able to recycle portions of your own code/design.
Best of luck.
Some numbers from my experience:
First year freelancing = $30,000
Second Year = $48,000 ~ $72,000
And up and up.
But the growth of the business depends on your willingness to grow…and more importantly your knowledge of how to grow.
Hope that helps.
Those numbers are from my experience, I am in my second year of doing it, and this year I am doing it full time. Anyone else kind of reach the same numbers? (I bet a lot higher lol)
It’s all about where you live and who you know. If you just moved to small town in Idaho you might have a little more trouble getting business as opposed to living in a big city all your life and knowing all the top execs/entrepreneurs there.
There is money to be made in web design/development however you are really getting yourself into a saturated market. Use your skills to develop websites for yourself and learn how to promote them!
Good luck to you!
REPUTATION???
Well I dont think a freelancer can ever become reputed among end clients.
If you are good at work you can have some reputation in online communities like sitepoint, or maybe among your friends and there friends and so on, but its never going to bring CASH.
So according to me reputation is a BRAND thing, people love big names with huge advertising budgets.
Moral : If you are good @ COMMUNICATION SKILLS, Sales and if you know how to use WEB to get clients, you can try to find your clients online or in your local area, and stay FREELANCER for LIFE.
BUT if you are not ( LIKE ME ) Start thinking of building a small firm with some good business model.
I hope you know these words: Joint venture, Partnership ( maybe with people good at sales and SEO )
- VIVSIN
Just noticed one more thing : The term GOOD MONEY is little more complex then it seems, How GOOD is GOOD? and What is your own definition of GOOD MONEY.
I totally agree! On the one hand you can make a lots of money in a big city (as for example dylanjones obviously does…) and on the other hand you can hardly ‘survive’ in a small marketplace. I can not even imagine earning (in some small town in Slovenia) half of that, what someone else would in… let say Toronto. Even though I’m good at what I do.
I think, at the beginnig, when you hardly came out of school, it’s best to work for someone else -a firm- and learn as much as you can. Only than you can tell how all works and what to expect.
Designing sites for other people sucks, imho
just build sites for yourself and figure out a way to make money off them