1) Price Ranges
First up… figuring out WHAT TO CHARGE. Web design pricing is all over the place. There are so many variables that come into play (like location, market, local or regional economic situation) and it really completely depends on the value of what the designer deems his or her services & expertise worth. When I have clients shopping around with different freelancers and agencies, they may get one quote for $500 and another for $5k. It’s really all over of the place.
Before we cover anything here, let me recommend, nay implore you to do something right now…raise your rates. Right now! No matter where you’re at. As web designers, it’s in our genes to undervalue our services, especially when starting out so whatever level you’re at right now, raise your rates. Even if it’s just slightly. If you’re just starting out or in a location in the world where you’re charging $300-$500 doing sites, bump it up by $100 or so and see what an impact it’ll make.
When I started out, I started charging $300 for sites. If I have just bumped that up to say $497, I would’ve still probably landing 90% if not 100% of clients because it was still in the same “price bucket” I like to call it. It would’ve made a massive impact on me back then as well. I’ve applied that idea of pricing buckets to my business over the past 5 years or so as I continue to raise my rates and it’s worked wonderfully.
On a different but still practical scale, when I was often charging $1,500 for a site, I started bumping it up to $1,950 or $1,997 and still got all the jobs with those types of clients. Then, I started doing $2,497 and up. And while some clients will never get over the 2K range once you get to a certain point you’ll be able to sell higher end projects and find out that the tire kickers wanting a cheap site are generally not worth your time.
Before we start talking about price models and structures, I recommend identifying some “price ranges” and grouping your leads into those ranges. Again, you’ll be raising these as time goes on, as you become more valuable and as you learn to sell better so don’t worry if you start out at the lower end. But I’ve found that by having some standard price ranges (even if I don’t show them to the client) it helps me quickly determine where a potential project will fit into.
Currently, our price points are arranged in a small, medium or large range depending on page count, functionality, project type, etc.
1. Small = $2,497–$3,497
These are small 1-3, at most 5 page brochure, information style sites with basic functionality. Maybe redesigns or basic sites with a blog, etc.
2. Medium = $3,497 – $5,997
This is my most common range of builds and are for sites that are of a medium size (like 10-20 pages) with typical functionality for things like events, blogs, email sign ups, etc. Basic E-commerce may fall into there as well depending on the site of the project.
3. Large = $5,997–10k+
This range is for sites that are either very large in page and functionality and have more extensive, complex systems like membership, courses, E-commerce, advanced training/admin resources for templates, events, etc.
My pricing is right about in the middle of the spectrum, at least where I’m based here in Columbus, Ohio. We may not be as cheap as one person freelancers or beginners to the industry, but we’re not nearly as expensive as some other big agencies in town with overhead, 30 employees, payroll, etc.
You’re welcome to take my pricing structure and apply it to your business or adjust the “pricing buckets” accordingly.
For example, if you’re not as far along in your web design journey, maybe yours is:
Small site $1,497 – $2,497
Medium site $2,497 – $3,497
Large site $3,497 – $4,997+ etc.
Couple side notes:
There’s something to the number 7, particularly ending in 7. I can’t speak on exactly what it is but I know there’s a ton of research behind it and it’s proven very effective for me. I like pricing my web builds ending in 7.
Always keep the roof open to an amount higher than your top tier. Don’t limit yourself to 5K for example. That’s why I have the + in there ?
Since I have my general price points in place, I can then take the information may lead gives me and pretty well determine what range (pricing bucket) that project will fit into then I can adjust the pricing accordingly as to what functionality they have, if the site is a ground up build or a redesign, etc. To be transparent, most of our builds are in between 3-4K.
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