What to charge this customer?

Question

What i decided:

I decided to reject the project for the main reason of the fact the ground me and my girlfriend were on was getting extremely uneasy and i didnt want to loose a cheerleader GF. How often does a programming geek (and proud) get a cheerleader girlfriend haha.

Heres the situation:

Its my first actual freelance project I am going to embark on and up until now I have only done personal projects.

The client wants a cheerleading website that sells cheerleading bows and equipment. They said they must have a shop, bright colors, a fantastic design and be at the top of google for ALOT of terms.

Heres the catch, my girlfriend is a cheerleader ( i know a programmer with a cheerleader gf ay, as if) and the client is her coach, so i feel if I over charge her then my girlfriend wouldnt be happy with me because its a friend of hers and her coach.

Here are my thoughts, its alot of work and what she wants is not bottom dollar stuff i.e. shopping cart, SEO, killer design etc and website revisions in the future so if she ever wants anything changed she can just email me and i would do it.

I said to my girlfriend I was thinking about charging her £200 which i thought was pritty reasonable considering the amount of work I would have to do. But my girlfriend thinks £50 is more reasonable or to do it for nothing.

What should i do? what do you think i should do in this situation? do it for free for the experience and to put it on my portfolio or charge a little bit because something is better than nothing or charge a little bit more, i.e. £200

Update:

£200 for the whole project

My gf would not be getting any benefit. i.e. no extra cheerleading, no free equipment etc

What would you charge for this? considering the situation described above, but keeping the programmers pride in his skills intact?

**Update 2

Does anyone know of any templates or resources so i can begin making my invoice and quotes and proposal etc.

Also from your answers it sounds like I am going to need a contract? are there any free or cheap standard contract templates i can configurew etc? or how would i go about getting one done?**

Right, so I have just got off the phone to my girlfriend and said im going to charge at least £200 instead of what she wanted £50, and she got in a huge strop and is now annoyed at me, Do you now think it is best to say no to this project altogether, or stick to my guns and earn myself some money

Answer 1

Don't work for free - and women don't respect men that let others walk over them.

200 pounds is reasonable.

Answer 2

Are you serious?

There's at least (and I'm being so optimistic with this estimate you have no idea) 100-200 hours work there (without the free modifications for the future you're implying) and they are vastly undervaluing the amount of cross-discipline professional expertise required to have a website perform on all fronts (off the top of my head: visual design, UI experience, markup, database, security, SEO, genuine marketing, testing, usability, copywriting, photography, server admin and that's before you even get to coding the thing).

Even at £10 an hour that's £1,500 if you want to be charitable.

Let's say you grab existing solutions, deploy them, put a very basic theme on it that you somehow design, create and load content, organise hosting/domain stuff, train the users and deploy it, I don't see you doing this under 100 hours.

Are you going to be on call when their email or server goes down? What about when they just have to get that news release out in 10 minutes time. What about when they put up some content they shouldn't (e.g. copyright or defaming), have you got a contract making sure it's clear you aren't responsible? What if you were the one that put that content up for them? Who is going to keep prices updated (i.e. who reads through supplier pricelists to keep it updated). How are orders going to be processed? How are customers going to keep track of their past and current orders? etc. etc. etc.

Would the coach spend 1-2 months of working weeks with your gf for £50?

Answer 3

Whats your daily rate, how long will it take ?

Why should you do it for nothing ? Does the coach, coach for free ?

How about taking a percentage of sales, from the website obviously.

Answer 4

Hi there.

£200 for an e-commerce is more then reasonable (in fact it's a way too cheap). I'm assuming she does not have experience in writing websites, and thus it's not fair for her to determine how much it should cost.

If you do the work for free, you're going to make things tough on yourself since that would make it easy pickings for your gf, or her coach, to twist your arm to doing other work for a five finger discount.

Cheers. Jas.

Answer 5

Ummm... top notch graphics, selling stuff, seo... you missed a trailing 0, didn't you?

Adding some hints:

1. Don't engage in credit card processing: it's too much responsibility for a first-time site builder. Rely on an external shop provider or PayPal.
2. Prepare the layout project (a mockup with photoshop) and present it to your client before the final agreement. You could get stuck with it later, if they start asking for changes or redesign. If they don't like it you can try again, or retreat if they demand too much. If you are charging that little, you could as well do this phase on your own risk (meaning that if they don't like it you could get nothing for it).

Answer 6

It's a shop. Things like this are very clear examples of when being cheap for lots of work is not a reasonable thing to do. This is directly aimed at making lots of money, so you should charge what you want - not what your GF wants. If she whines that it's a 'lot' of money, point out that what they're getting should allow them to make it back many times over.

Answer 7

Be very careful about this. I would be especially worried by the revisions part (i.e.: "...so if she ever wants anything changed she can just email me and i would do it.").

People (especially non-technical people) seem to have unrealistic expectations about this, especially in terms of timeliness, so you risk having your "customer" getting upset because they may want the site updated for matches or other planned events but will tell you late, or won't take in account that you may be busy or away from your PC and so on.

In other words, regardless of the initial investment, you risk being pestered with "minor" change requests.

My suggestion: ask 200 and use some "Lite CMS" products to make sure that the site will not need you, at least for minor updates.

Also, if you agree to this suggestion, provide a "hidden" sandbox page (or even a sandbox version of all the pages you put under CMS) because, again, non technical people may need some places to experiment a bit before defacing their own front pages due to html inexperience)

Answer 8

Do it for nothing, and 20% of the profits. Nobody can grumble about that, can they?

Answer 9

Make sure they know the cost of hosting, domain registration etc is extra and not part of the fee you're charging just to code the site (if they don't already have a domain/hosting package that is).

Answer 10

Don't mix your private relationships with job. £200 is too cheap.

Answer 11

Prepare a written offer with reasonable time estimates, support fees (for updating), additional costs for hosting etc. Try to write down the real costs.

Then you can subtract a 30% rebate. I bet the result will be far more than 200P. AND the client will get a feeling how much work it is. AND he will be grateful because of the 30%.

I try to write down numbers in cases like this, because this way both the client and I know exactly how big the favour is that I'm doing.

Answer 12

Even £200 is ridiculously low.

Value yourself more highly. This should be a job you'd charge £1000 or more for. I personally would charge more like £3000 for the scope of work involved - I also had problems estimating and pricing in the beginning, mostly because I always underestimated how much time building a site would take up. I'm still not quite there but now at least my prices are a better reflection of the time spent.

If you must do it for £50, set her up with a Shopify account or something - at least that way, the day-to-day stuff is all her own responsibility. For that price, she shouldn't expect the world. And staying at the top of Google... no damn way.

Answer 13

I suggest you chunk the project down into more managable parts. This gives you a better chance to focus and deliver something valuable and gives the client a clearer perspective of what you will do and when.

Start with offering what you think is most valuable to them and what you are confident you can achieve in a reasonable period of time.

In that way you are getting clear on what you can deliver and then once you've done one thing well you can all look at what's next.

IT development always takes much longer than you think and as the old saying goes it's better to underpromise and overdeliver.

Answer 14

As a general rule, I can't see a job like this costing you less than £1500 and upwards. Realistically some of your friends and contacts will be your first customers but you have to step away from the friendship and think business.

I did a load of sites years ago that were essentially static for £300 ish but I reckon I spent at least £1000 worth of time on each.

If you know your onions then people will have to pay. Think of it as a filter. Clients that want the earth for a fiver are seriously not worth bothering with. That's about 10+ years' experience saying that.

If you need the money, at least charge upwards of £500 and clearly define what you are going to deliver. Some jobs never end unless you clearly define the job spec.

Don't be afraid to say that something they suggest will cost more and add more time.

If you have the time, read a couple of good books on the subject of freelancing. I read 'How to be a graphic designer without losing your soul' by Adrian Shaughnessy amongst others.

I don't want to pick at your relationship but perhaps you girlfriend could do with a little insight into what comprises a website design and build job.

You're making this leap into freelance because you like doing what you do and it has to make you money in the process. If I could work for free and still pay my mortgage I would because I love it so much. That doesn't work so I have to realistically price a job and include some buggeration factor in there too.

Good luck with it and I hope it takes off. If you can get past the first 3 (hardest) years then you've essentially made it. From there all you can do is do what you do but better.

Answer 15

Honestly?

Don't do it. The requirements are totally unreasonable.

They want a "fantastic design". Well for that, they need to employ an absolutely top notch web designer. Either you are a top notch web designer or you are not. If you are not, you will fail no matter how little you charge them and even doing it for free won't stop them from being disappointed. If you are a top notch web designer, you must charge them a top notch designer rate.

They want to be at the top of Google. Well you can't possibly guarantee that. After all, every site wants to be at the top of Google.

If you are going to do this, you need to charge a realistic commercial rate. As others have said, you are looking at thousands of pounds. If they don't like that, you can invite them to get quotes from elsewhere. Then they'll find out that £200 is laughable.

You should also take proper advice about setting yourself up as a commercial web designer. I can think of all sorts of pitfalls. For instance, what if, as a result of your programming mistake, one of their customers loses some money? Would you be happy with the coach suing you to recover it?

Answer 16

OK so everyone is different, but here's what i'd do:

1. Initial brief, requirements gathering
2. Document requirements, construct quote and get signoff from client. to quote - assign number of hours each of the bullet points below will actually take you, and total the hours. multiply by two because your estimates will be wrong. this is not a joke. seriously multply by two. then multiply by your hourly rate. that's the estimated total.

Obtain 1/3 of total as downpayment from client. not optional. do not proceed without downpayment.

1. Install and configure development environment with database and off-the-shelf CMS
2. Slick Graphic Design, through several iterations up to signoff
3. Implement design as HTML and apply to CMS as a theme
4. Develop/Integrate product catalogue including administration
5. Develop/Integrate shopping cart/checkout process including administration and notifications
6. Populate and revise content pages/order confirm emails/etc. through several iterations with client
7. Populate and revise product catalogue content including slick photos
8. Test everything thoroughly and allow for a round of revisions from testing
9. Make available to client for their testing and allow time for revisions from their testing

I may've missed something above so add bullet points as you need to, and estimate against them.

Obtain signoff on development from client, along with the second 1/3 of the total before go live. do not make live without the second payment.

1. Make ready the production server and push the site live
2. Live site testing and any necessary issue resolution

Invoice client for remaining 1/3 of total (OR, if you come in under budget, whatever they owe you.)

I cannot stress enough:

1. Make sure you quote thoroughly and transparently so the client knows what they're paying for
2. Don't proceed to a new phase without a progress payment
3. At all times maintain communication with the client. If you're running late, let them know before hand. If the estimate was wrong, let them know before hand. The easiest way is to schedule regular updates to the client, letting them know what you've done, what's coming up, and how you're tracking.

This may seem daunting but trust me it doesn't have to be. "Requirements gathering" is just having a chat about what they need. "Documentation" is just notes about what they told you they needed. It's really straightforward stuff. Knock it out and nail it down for everyone's peace of mind.

Once the dev is done and the site is live you can begin work on SEO. I don't know SEO so maybe someone else can tell you what's required there.

Hope that helps.

Answer 17

I'd stay well away, it's only going to end in trouble one way or another.

If you feel you have to go ahead with it, make them get a quote from someone else so they might realise what they're asking - I can't see it being much less than a few $k from anybody established.

Some of those things are just unreasonable to ask for. High search rankings? That's a lot of work & money (if possible on a single site). A lifetime of free support?! No chance.