How much would you charge for this?

Business
1

Hi,

I’m currently in talks with a Charity about setting up a new website for them.

They have a domain name and hosting already, it seems these are free for charities (domain name anyway).

So what I will be doing is, purchasing and installing a WordPress theme. They have an online store so I will be setting that up too, although the WordPress theme that I will get will more than likely have some e-commerce solution with it, but I’m sure there will be a bit to setup anyway.

After that, it will be the usual adding content etc. teaching them how to use WordPress and they also want me to make any changes in the future if needed.

I’ve never really done any work for anyone other than family or friends and since this is a charity I didn’t want to be charging too much.

Anyone have any input on prices?

Cheers.
Al.

2

For the above WordPress work I will charge 600 USD for them including the theme. After all its your choice as this is a charity.

3

How many hours do you estimate that this’ll take you?

4

Thanks for the replies.

Pullo, I would estimate that what was discussed so far would take about 3-4 hours maybe a little more, for the moment it seems that I would be purchasing a theme, installing WordPress, setting up admin panel / plugins etc and copying everything from the existing site over to the new WordPress site.

They did mention that they would like to be able to come to me if they ever had anything they needed done, updates, maintenance etc in the future.

5

I would charge my usual rate of 37.5€ per hour.
4 x 37.5 = 150€

If I was feeling generous and wanted to set myself up as their goto website guy, I would maybe give them a one-time discount (say 125€).

I wouldn’t do it for free (even though it is a charity), but I would be prepared to take a cut in rates.

HTH

6

Great thanks for that Pullo!

7

Make sure to make it clear what you’ll do for that money. That will prevent illusions when they start asking for that neat photo gallery they saw on that one site, or a newsletter register form in the footer like that other site has, etc.
Been there, done that (although it was for a good friend, so I didn’t mind, but that’s what happens).

And tell them future updates, maintenance, etc, will have to be billed seperately, because you never know what they will be asking for, and how much time it’ll cost you.

8

Four hours max seems like a gross under estimate. Especially if you have to do any type of customization work or run into plugin conflicts. This being your first job you will probably get shafted anyway just due to inexperience alone and fear of charging what your time is really worth. Not to mention most likely grossly under estimating the time associated with tasks. It seems any beginner who really wants a job always ends up working for pennies and that is probably something you’re going to have to accept unless not afraid to make a stand and loose the work.

Though don’t commit to future changes without charging for them. What if they want X and no plugin is available and you have to build something from scratch? That project that was initially “4” hours is now 10, 20 without any compensation. Make future upgrades a separate cost not associated with the initial project. At the very least you might end up working for pennies initially but avoid being stuck working to the “end of time” for free as well.

9

I’d probably charge $200.00 for this. My rate is $20/hour so that’s around 10 hours work to get it all working correctly and customized to their liking.

10

Right, I hate estimating how long stuff will take. It’s really only something that comes with experience (at least for me).

11

Thanks for all the replies guys, it really helped me.

As Patchie and Pullo have noted I think about the 150-200 mark would be sufficient enough. I’m in Ireland so will be dealing in Euros.

I guess I was also wondering if the majority of people would charge about half the price or so because it is a charity.

12

I have done a couple of sites for small local charities and in each instance I gave a substantial discount. My thinking behind that was partly that most of my business comes by word-of-mouth, so gaining goodwill with these groups by giving them a discount would get me recommended to all their friends and relations. :slight_smile: It worked pretty well, too.

13

Great TechnoBear, that sounds good.

Looking at the above posts, I’m thinking about telling them €150+ for what they want initially and then anything else down the line will be extra, sound ok?

14

In all honesty it just sounds like you’re looking for a reason to charge less because you’re afraid of loosing the work. Be careful going in with that mentality because you will get taken a complete advantage with that mind set - charity or not. I can tell you for a fact that 200 is a gross under estimate of time unless perhaps you’re working for below minimum wage. Especially, for some charity that probably has the mindset that they are doing you a “favor”. Those are the types of clients that are going to step all over you and grossly underestimate worth of your work themselves. When they should probably be lucky to find someone like you because I or most professionals wouldn’t even walk in the building for a client with a budget of 200 dollars.

15

I’ve been working with WordPress almost exclusively for the last four years and I would go for at least three days work, assuming everything worked flawlessly.
My experience comes from having to work on projects in different ways; I’ve worked alone, with freelancers, and supported after freelancers worked alone. In every case, I have been the support after and I know there’s a lot of lazy people out there because they want to rush through the job and I have often rebuilt the entire site in order to fix huge issues that weren’t found til after (Q&A was not something my former employer indulged in :frowning: ).

Day 1/2 -
I’d setup in a dev environment first and test, including all plugins, some basic content and show it to them. I’ve never worked on a site where they are 100% happy with everything as it is, there’s always some tweaking or extra configuring.
Are they adding content, or you? This can be extremely time consuming depending on the client.
Ensure content is up and verified.

Day 3 -
Transfer content and full site to the live server, as it is all verified there should be no issues from them. Check each page, test, test, test!
Now show them how to use it!
(If they are putting up content then you need to show them how to use it beforehand).

It doesn’t take long to setup WordPress in a basic form, but all the fiddly little customisations can take a while, and content is always a pain.
You might use a form plugin and then find it doesn’t work correctly on the live server (happened to me many times), or maybe the live server is missing something so that could be another few hours of troubleshooting (also happened many times).

I’m guilty of under charging slightly and I would probably give a charity a discount, just be realistic about how long it will take even if you under charge as it will affect the next job and if you get delayed by three more days the client may get frustrated.

My Dad was a software developer and IT manager for some pretty big companies over the course of his career and was well known as being thorough and honest, he always said if you’re not sure how long it will take add 50% more time (I personally think that 50% is excessive). It doesn’t mean you have to charge for 4 or 5 days, it just means you are prepared for it.

Remember there’s 24 hours in day if you need them, not 8 :slight_smile:

Hope this helps a little

16

Thanks for that detailed reply, that does help a lot. As I mentioned I haven’t done many sites for anyone outside of family and friends, so I’m still getting to grips with all this. Maybe a stupid question, but do you do up contracts too for any work you do?

I had sent an email back to them a few days ago saying it would take about 10-12 hours to set WordPress up etc and it would cost about 200+, heard nothing back from them yet.

17

I’ve worked with charities before and found them to be incredibly demanding clients. If you think it’s going to take 12 hours of your time to get this done and signed off, think again. Even a seasoned pro is going to struggle with that kind of time frame.

Expect them to desire many changes to the design and functionality - they’ll often have internal meetings about every decision and will often expect you to visit them on site to discuss many of these. You have to be very clear about what is covered by your pricing and how much everything extra is going to cost. The fact that you are discounting them will hold little or no favour for you, so you should definitely draw up a proper agreement that details everything. Do NOT agree to any kind of long term maintenance plan until you know what you are letting yourself in for (i.e. leave discussion of this until after the project is completed).

If you are looking to use this for any kind of promotional benefit, make this clear and discuss what might be possible - for example, putting out joint press release, having your link on their site, detailed testimonial etc. Don’t be shy to ask for stuff.

And remember there’s no word of mouth benefit if the experience of working together turns out to be a nightmare, so ensure good communication from the outset and set very clear and defined limits to what you are able to offer at the pricing quoted.

BTW, make sure you follow up regularly, but don’t get disheartened if they never get back to you - they will no doubt be talking to many other developers. In the future, never agree to any form of quote or proposal until you have arranged a specific day and time to discuss that quote with the prospective client.