An £x,xxx website!

[bb99]

A friend of mine is in the process of getting his pants pulled down by some cowboy web designers! He's been given a draft design and quoted some ludicrous prices for the coding of that design and implementation of various bits of functionality that sit behind it.

He's asked my advice and I'd like to be able to show him some examples of recent websites in designed and built in the mid to late £x,xxx range. If they have Wordpress as a back end then that's a bonus.

If you've got a site that's cost roughly that much to design and implement I'd love to see a link here that I can pass to my friend to show him how the designs he's got are, hopefully, not in the same league as these!

Thanks in advance

 

[Tricky1]

Would love to see the design..

Does sound alot for a Wordpress design and build.. can you send me the full spec

 

[max99x]

if it doesn't have many features coding a PSD to wordpress shouldn't cost more than £150-200, if it's got lots of features £3-500

 

[bb99]

Would love to see the design..

Does sound alot for a Wordpress design and build.. can you send me the full spec

I don't think he will let me at this stage, but I will ask...

 

[Tricky1]

I don't think he will let me at this stage, but I will ask...

Ok, no problem, send me a PM if I can be of assistance at anytime

 

[bb99]

if it doesn't have many features coding a PSD to wordpress shouldn't cost more than £150-200, if it's got lots of features £3-500

Thanks, these numbers are about right.

Where I'm struggling is the "design" element which comes before all this.

I want to see an example of a site that's had some really good design input into i so I can show him that his designs aren't in the same league.

 

[denchomsky]

if it doesn't have many features coding a PSD to wordpress shouldn't cost more than £150-200, if it's got lots of features £3-500

Without knowing the fulls specs and functionality you can't make a statement like that.

If he is going through an agency they generally charge their devs out at 2-3x times what they actaully earn so that will be around £300-£600 per day.

Even a lone dev is going to want to make £100 + a day.

 

[bensd]

Depends what type of site it is eg. a lot of agencies will charge £5k min for an ecommerce site

 

[Aegean]

Without knowing the fulls specs and functionality you can't make a statement like that.

If he is going through an agency they generally charge their devs out at 2-3x times what they actaully earn so that will be around £300-£600 per day,

If it is a lone designer/dev then unless it is going to take less than 2 days then you wont get it designed and coded for £150-200, thats a joke.

I completely agree. There's also a massive difference between dealing with amateur web designers and professional web developers.

 

[retired_member32]

if i was spending £x,xxx for a site i would expect it to be built from scratch and not built on a wordpress theme with its vulnerabilities

 

[max99x]

Just to clarify my figures were purely for the coding of a PSD into Wordpress, not the design stage

 

[babrees]

Really impossible to say anything without knowing the ins-and-outs and what's included.

What does your friend want/need?

 

[bb99]

To clarify, what I'm looking for are some examples of sites that have cost £x,xxx with a nice chunk of that going towards a top notch design. That is all I want at this stage

 

[Aaron Clifford]

To clarify, what I'm looking for are some examples of sites that have cost £x,xxx with a nice chunk of that going towards a top notch design. That is all I want at this stage

That's going to vary massively on the designer, the design, the coded features, designers can charge anything from £200 to £5,000+ (and the rest) for just a design.

Then the word press coding could be £xxx-£xx,xxx depending on what features the site has. I don't think people will be able to give you an example of something that cost £x,xxx (1,000-9,999).

 

[babrees]

Here are some that charge 4 figures, albeit dollars. Their prices are for wordpress design and installation, and I believe they do responsive designs these days...

http://dreamwhisperdesigns.com/design-portfolio/
http://www.kickstartmedia.org/portfolio
http://www.restored316designs.com/

 

[martin-s]

As with anything in this world, if you want a professional, you have to pay an appropriate price.

(From someone fed up with bargain hunters who expect professional quality for peanuts!)

 

[martin-s]

Do you tell your customers that you're charging peanuts so they should only expect low quality or do you quote peanuts and then ask them what they were expecting when they're not happy?

Quite the opposite - we refuse to charge peanuts and turn down projects if they can't find the necessary budget.

We've also stopped responding to enquiries from potential customers who show signs of being that type of bargain hunter.

There's no money working for that type of customer. And if there's no money, sooner or later you'll have to compromise on standard.

 

[Aegean]

Fair play.

My experience is that many (not all) designers will tell you exactly what you want to hear to get your work. I discovered a long time ago that if you pay peanuts you get monkeys but then I discovered if you pay gold you sometimes get monkeys.

Sean that may be true on occasion but then again that's the same with any kind of business.

I have an 8 man development team which I put together some years ago for larger web jobs. These guys are top end programmers and frankly they wont deal with anyone who doesn't want to assign the appropriate budget. They would never use WordPress for a serious commercial site either, unless it was specified or for a supplementary website (for example content based), we have our own set of custom built content management systems.

Professional development costs money and most businesses who are serious about their websites know that. I too, on many occasions, have been approached by people with a £2K budget but they want the earth for it. My old boss spent £15K just on his site logo and colour branding, for example.

In this industry there are too many armchair bullshitters who think they know it all when they actually know nothing. The best thing to do with them is take them into a corporate environment and suddenly they realise they don't know what to do.

There is a degree of responsibility with the customer too, you should check out companies before you commission them on valuable work, have a look at what they have done and ask for some references you can call. It should become apparent if they know what they're doing.

 

[retired_member34]

To balance things out, I've also enjoyed some good successes. I had someone produce a logo that was chosen for the LogoLounge book (the designers annual bible of the best logos) and one that was picked out for praise by well known corporate identity specialist, Tony Spaeth ( www.identityworks.com ).

Could you share a link and the cost? It's something I'm looking for.

 

[murph]

Could you share a link and the cost? It's something I'm looking for.

I'd be interested in this too...