Ive recently hooked up with a friend of mine that makes cutom graphics for fantasy football players and their teams. He wants to start making websites for them as well, and thats where I come in.
But i dont what is standard for charging for a site. These sites will be pretty basic, nothing too elaborate. Mostly to post scores and stuff. Can anyone help me?

it all depends on exactly how difficult it's going to be, any extra features you might offer, and the scheduled time frame they'd like it completed. as thomas said, find out what their budget is first.

i do web design for a living, and i pretty much do a base rate, which increases in price for extra features:
- completion time between 1 day and 1 week: faster completions are more expensive.
- fixed width or liquid width: i charge more for liquid widths, because they adjust based on a visitor's browser.
- likewise, a fixed / liquid header & footer.
- vertical positioning. because everything is naturally vertically aligned, i charge more for aligning things to the middle or the bottom.
- compatibility: you can charge more to make sure a website works in less popular browsers, and different versions of browsers.
- font size: over fixed fonts, you can charge more for fonts that are displayed relative to a visitor's browser.
- css: short hand, css2, css3, valid standards.
- you can even add on an extra fee for including comments for HTML & CSS. that way, it'll be easier and more proficient if the page needs to be updated in the future.
- the DOCTYPE: XHTML 1.0 transitional is usually standard. HTML 4.01 transitional, XHTML 1.0 strict & XHTML 1.1 can be extra because they require extra knowledge / work.
- search engine optimization
- the graphics, navigation, extra content.
- if they need databases, PHP, etc.

all in all, it also depends on your experience. if you're just starting out and aren't extremely familiar with building websites, obviously people aren't going to pay what they would for a group of well-trained professionals.

usually, in the professional world, single web pages build in a week start at a base rate of around $100.

if you're going to check through and through to make sure everything works, everything is valid, and everything flows smoothly, then you can charge more. if you're just starting out, i'd probably set a base rate around $30-40.

So, basically, you charge a base fee for a shitty website, and then charge extra to do it right? C'mon, dynamic page sizing, position, browser compatibility, CSS -- these are all things you should already be doing if you even think of charging someone for a webpage!


What?! That's ridiculous! You're going to charge extra to comment your code?

go to any professional web designer. they'll be charging for the same thing. and basic doesn't necessarily have to be "shitty," as you put it. if you make it that way, then you're lousy at coding.

making all of that standard would be fruitless, because you'd be charging the same amount for something that takes longer to build in a shorter amount of time. i didn't say adding CSS would be extra. i'm mentioning the types of CSS. CSS3 is a beta code - if a client wants a designer to experiment with it, it should cost more because it's going to take longer and to make sure it works in ANY browser it requires more effort. working in EVERY browser takes even longer, because not every browser reads code the same. notice i said "less popular" browsers. if you're building a website on a tight schedule, and you're getting paid a base rate, are you going to make sure your website works in internet explorer, firefox, safari, opera, seamonkey, netscape, flock, galeon, epiphany, camino, and the rest of them?

also, adding comments can be beneficial to both the client and the designer. not adding comments takes less time. apparently, all you would do for a comment is say something like "this is to make your text green." i'm speaking of detailed comments. think about the future - if there are no comments, it's nearly impossible to go back and change anything. that means a client would have to pay for a brand new website to be made. or, they could pay a couple extra dollars up front to ensure a designer can change the site in a few years without having to start over.

obviously you don't know much about the world of web design. and i don't see the point in flaming ME for something that's generally accepted. try reading up on your facts, learn some things yourself before you start bashing people on their f**king careers.

Gimme a break. If you're not even making your website compatible across browsers or scalable across monitors, you are doing a shitty job. Leaving that stuff out isn't "basic" web design, it's web design. These days, people are accessing the web from large 30+-inch screens all the way down to the iPhone. If your page is scaled to one resolution and only looks good in IE or Firefox, you're cutting out a huge portion of web users. Making your website work reasonably well across browsers and screens isn't "value-added", it's simply what you have to do. Perhaps making sure your website is compatible with most browsers and most resolutions is time-consuming, but doing a good job is never easy.

Besides, sure, there are a lot of browsers, but there are only a few major web rendering engines: WebKit, KHTML, Gecko, IE, and Opera. Most browsers use these rendering engines. I mean, Camino, Flock and SeaMonkey are just spin-offs of Firefox, and Safari and Epiphany both use the same rendering engine.

I rarely do web contract work, but I did work as a web developer for, oh, about five years, and I would never have gotten away with only making my website work in one browser, at one font size, on one screen resolution. And most of my work was done in-house for a corporate intranet, so I wasn't even dealing with the web-using public.

And charging extra for comments? Please. Any time you write code, you add comments. It's just what you do. Commenting isn't a value-added service, it's just good practice. I've worked on everything from small programs to large web applications to even larger desktop apps, and commenting has never been optional. Documentation isn't just something you do as an "extra", it's a requirement. You don't make customers pay extra so that the code you give them is understandable -- unless you're unprofessional and unscrupulous.

And yeah, actually, I think I do know a bit about web design, since I got paid to do it for five years.

what a moot point. i'm well-aware of the variety of resolutions. if a customer doesn't need to have their websites displayed in everything from a 4 inch screen to a 42 inch screen, then why bother doing it? not every client has the same needs for what they're using their website, so why treat them all the same? i'm not saying give crap quality to people who don't need a lot, but you also don't need to design a simple web page with the same tactics you'd use for a corporate site. are you going to get to know your customers, or treat them as robots? it seems that's what you did.

at any rate, i'll say it again: this isn't about bashing me for what i do. i'm not the one who asked a question, so why respond to me? don't troll the forums, sir.

I'm responding to you because you're giving out shit advice like "charge money for adding comments to your code," which is completely f**king ridiculous. You're acting like you're a professional, but you're obviously not.

And you only consider it a "moot point" because you clearly cut corners if you think you can get away with it.

Oi, knock it off both of you. The OP asked for advice on website prices - they haven't asked for WW3.

fatbottomgirl, it really does depend on the amount of time you spend on these designs. Clients generally pay both for time and quality, with a base price of about $50 for a fully coded, functional webpage that takes a few hours max to do. As you're doing a website that just displays score updates, I'd look to charge a reasonably low price for coding - plus the extras if you decide to include graphics.

As it is, there's no fixed price - certain companies paying for online webpages to be designed by a third party often pay thousands.

Thats about right.

Also realize getting the website up and running is just the beginning. There's always hosting issues, email issues, keeping registrations updated, keeping software updated, keeping the content updated, it's never ending, which is why you need to charge a monthly rate, which means you're going to be sending monthly payment reminders. It's very time consuming.