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Torger Angeltveit
11,228 PointsHow much should i charge?
Hello, i am new to the freelancer game and i finally find my self ready to take on clients.
I have a few soon to be clients lined up asking me to create simple websites like 5 page costume responsive portfolios, no fancy functions.
and i am wondering how much i should charge for sites like this? And when it comes to hosting, should i charge them everymonth? or put the hosting in their name? How would that go down in practical ?
Michael Bianchi
2,488 PointsMichael Bianchi
2,488 PointsIf you can charge them through you every month, do it. You can earn residual passive profits that way. There are plenty of free or cheap templates out there that do what you do, so consider "fancy functions" in the long term or else you will be relying on your name and reputation (which isn't necessarily a bad thing either).
However, for your other work, show them on your website what they get for fixed prices so they know what to expect. For fixed prices, charge a little on the high-end. High price equates to high quality, psychologically speaking. Do not put yourself on fiver or some site like that where people are looking for cheap labor - because you are not "cheap", you are professional.
5 pages with basic functionality - charge $199 and include some SEO in it as a promotional tool. Consider heading over to Crossrider and make yourself a browser extension with javascript and make something useful, then give it away to your clients for free - that'll get your name out there creatively and route backlinks to your own portfolio/website (which will help with inbound sales). Think of little things like that all the time.
Your top competitors on elance and odesk are charging $20-40 per hour for 5 page website designs and similar. If it takes you 8 hours per client to write, test and deploy a website, then that amounts to about $200 per client. Perhaps you could do a $99 special until you get your feet off the ground.