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I’ve been at this since the ninteies. At the peak I was getting $2500 for a ten page Drupal site I could do over the weekend. These days you can get a ‘custom

by CareyB 8y ago

I’ve been at this since the ninteies. At the peak I was getting $2500 for a ten page Drupal site I could do over the weekend. These days you can get a ‘custom’ programmed site from a guy reselling the services of an Asian programming group for $100, so how are you supposed to compete? I have made some money ‘fixing’ those sites, but for the most part my business is dead agaist things like Wix (Ugh), or Goddady Site Builder. I still make money extending those sites when the business wants to do more with their Web presence than the basics, but essntially there doesn’t seem to be any way to convince the more frugal clients to spend ten times what the site builder guys charge. I have had some success selling functionality. I offer a basic, ten page Drupal site, with additional charges for added functionality, but you’ll never be able to charge more for adding pages. I will even advise a prospect to go with those services to start with, just so I can be a good guy, and have them remember me when they need more. Someone once gave me the advice to never offer a discount. You can do things for free, but never discount anything. If you do, you’ll end up discounting everything.

ryandoom 8y ago
Yikes, doing this since the 90s and your top price is 2500k?! You are focusing on the wrong opportunities and I bet you lose a lot of opportunities and you don’t know why. If you pitch a 2500k website to a 20+ person business there is 0 perceived value in that. That’s one persons time in their org for 2 weeks. What’s the value you are bringing? Decades of experience, marketing experience, conversion optimization, inbound marketing strategies, CRM integration... If that business is - say a law firm for 20 attorneys. A sale to them is 10K+ for a new legal gig. If your website can outperform others and you bring them 5 more leads a month, 50+ more leads a year ... 10+ more sales then you can charge much more! You are losing jobs to companies charging for the real value they bring. Let those small one to two person companies use wix or whatever And if that’s the only value you bring then you need to learn different skills Companies WANT to pay good money for good services. They are probably laughing at your 2500 quote and going with the 25,000 quote. Move of the value chain. They get a new website but that’s not what you’re selling. You’re selling leads, sales, new business, business growth, hands off / zero worries on their part. Start charging way more today.
- branweb 8y ago
  1. maybe not your intention, but this reads as quite rude 2. you mean 2.5k not 2500k. The latter would be a king's ransom for a wordpress site, even by your (apparently) high standards
  - ovx99 8y ago
    people involved in cold calling and selling expensive services to reluctant buyers who will tell you to f off should ideally develop a thick skin with regards to minor online snark -- take it as a skill-building exercise
  - Aeolun 8y ago
    Reads more like ‘tough love’ to me. It’s harsh, but definitely well intentioned.
nfRfqX5n 8y ago
i do very little freelance work but none of my clients have a custom site. it's all updating/tweaking squarespace, shopify, wordpress. people LOVE to have custom stuff, even on the pre built platforms.
- keypress 8y ago
  There's lots of mileage building on top of pre-built platforms. I know many people who are doing very well, who can barely cope with hosting their sites or write code, but can work and skin other systems.

by CareyB 8y ago

ryandoom 8y ago

Yikes, doing this since the 90s and your top price is 2500k?! You are focusing on the wrong opportunities and I bet you lose a lot of opportunities and you don’t know why. If you pitch a 2500k website to a 20+ person business there is 0 perceived value in that. That’s one persons time in their org for 2 weeks. What’s the value you are bringing? Decades of experience, marketing experience, conversion optimization, inbound marketing strategies, CRM integration... If that business is - say a law firm for 20 attorneys. A sale to them is 10K+ for a new legal gig. If your website can outperform others and you bring them 5 more leads a month, 50+ more leads a year ... 10+ more sales then you can charge much more! You are losing jobs to companies charging for the real value they bring. Let those small one to two person companies use wix or whatever And if that’s the only value you bring then you need to learn different skills Companies WANT to pay good money for good services. They are probably laughing at your 2500 quote and going with the 25,000 quote. Move of the value chain. They get a new website but that’s not what you’re selling. You’re selling leads, sales, new business, business growth, hands off / zero worries on their part. Start charging way more today.

branweb 8y ago
1. maybe not your intention, but this reads as quite rude 2. you mean 2.5k not 2500k. The latter would be a king's ransom for a wordpress site, even by your (apparently) high standards
- ovx99 8y ago
  people involved in cold calling and selling expensive services to reluctant buyers who will tell you to f off should ideally develop a thick skin with regards to minor online snark -- take it as a skill-building exercise
- Aeolun 8y ago
  Reads more like ‘tough love’ to me. It’s harsh, but definitely well intentioned.

nfRfqX5n 8y ago

i do very little freelance work but none of my clients have a custom site. it's all updating/tweaking squarespace, shopify, wordpress. people LOVE to have custom stuff, even on the pre built platforms.

keypress 8y ago
There's lots of mileage building on top of pre-built platforms. I know many people who are doing very well, who can barely cope with hosting their sites or write code, but can work and skin other systems.