I am actually looking for my first-time website project on Webflow, to start to feel a website design costumer and to explore the actual process - so at the moment I'll definitely take 800$ just for the experience of working on an actual project with someone. And I think it's like you said after once twice or third time you can raise the price, that's super legit. Oh and thank's man your videos are golden - seriously.
It depends on your level of experience. If it's your first professional I'd cut the price to $400 or less just to get the ball rolling. Now you have a sample of your work and hopefully a very happy client that will give you a testimonial and referrals.
My first web design client was just a redesign and I charged $1200 and she didn’t even bat an eye. I feel the more confident you are in your pitch, the more confident they are in being willing to spend more money.
I was caught off guard when I got a call and now worried I don’t sound confident as she said “you’re just doing this for your portfolio right?” And I blanked. How can I turn this around pls
“you’re just doing this for your portfolio right?” I think is the same as "It’ll be great exposure for your agency." Personally, if I hear anything like this the big red flag is waving in my head and maybe, "Thank you for asking, but no. I’m confident I’ve had enough exposure." You could follow up with, "I’d be delighted to set up an appointment..." But for me, I would not worry about trying to turn this around and just want to stay polite enough not to have them possibly rage on online reviews."
Something I learned in sales many years ago is that clients do NOT trust 3 figures. This meaning any price less than $999.00 is “un-trustworthy.” It’s perceived as shady and a client will try to micromanage every detail once they hire you because they don’t trust you. It’s a safer bet that a client will see you more as a professional at $1200-1500. This price point will help command more respect and confidence. You are SO correct never to throw a price out there straight off. That’s a recipe for fast rejection. Cheers on the great advice.
My first client I charged $2000 & then had an additional step which included another $1000 to date. I’m going to pause on that work. We’re about to enter another phase which is an SEO phase. I have a relationship with this client so I’m using it as a learning phase as far as SEO for future clients. I think I did pretty good.
I'm building two sites right now. I told the clients that I was new to this field and that they should pay me the cost of my tools and give me a testimonial to go on my portfolio should the end result be good. I need the practice and working with live clients is worth more to me than actual money for the moment.
Great job! Sounds like you are getting the ball rolling! I think there are a lot of benefits to being up front with your prospects! As long as you are getting paid enough to make it worth it to you (even if this is nothing) then by all means! Good luck and keep killing it!
Great video! I think $800 is enough for a first project. Although it's not a lot you need to start from somewhere and you can eventually increase it as you get better and have more experience.
Just discovered your channel, you're freaking awesome! The content in your videos is really useful and you're explaining everything really well and professionally! Thanks!!!
Thanks for the advice. Comes at just the right time for me. Did 3 designs for friends before, trading services, and just updated those designs so i have good work to show on my website. About to start outreach to get my first cash pay projects.
How has the outreach been going Paul? Have you been using any proposal templates? I'm just finishing up my portfolio and plan to use goprospero for my proposals. Wishing us all great success ❣️
@@HighGrade159 Hello. I'm about to sign up to start using goprospero. How has the experience been for you?? And how is your web design experience in general??
Hi Payton another great video. I remember charging £300 for my first website 4 years ago. Just been doing side projects now and then but now taking it serious. I know we are in different countries but I am impressed you get minium £3000 for a site. That is my top price at the moment. Just building out a new site and going to put 3 pricing tiers for customers to see what I charge and hopefully get rid of those people looking for £300 sites.
Thank you Craig! It has been crazy since I raised my prices. I feel like the more sites I do at the $3000-5000 range, the more referrals I get in that range. I feel like those people have connections with similar budgets so it has made it easy to transition into that next pricing tier! Anyways, good luck structuring your pricing! Keep me posted on how it goes!
@@PaytonClarkSmith It is taking that leap. I turned someone down the other day because they did not want to spend the money but I felt fine. Gave me a boost to get my personal site done. I will share it with you once have completed it. I hope to be the same as you and get the bigger clients. I will be Doing £1500+ then £2000 + and then £3000+ . Lets hope it works. Good luck with all your work.
Craig Thomas you are on the right track!! Sometimes you need to turn away a client like that to give yourself the motivation to look for bigger clients. Keep up the good work and send me the link to your site when it’s done!
I am a new web and media business owner. Thank you for the great tidbits. Question - what is your experience for hosting fees? Do you charge hosting - change fees or do you train the business owners on how to edit their won sites?
Hey Payton! Been loving your videos. I saw on your website that you offer SEO services to your clients. It would be awesome if you could do a local SEO tutorial.
Michael Groff awesome I’m glad to hear that! I appreciate the support. I have toyed with the idea but there is just so much that comes with local seo. I do offer this in my course but I will see if I can put something together! Thanks for the input!
I was literally about to create a website for a restaurant that includes adding an online ordering system. Didn’t know what to price it at so I was thinking $300… I’m so glad I caught this video in time !
WAY too low! You are talking about a complex system that will need data base, possible POS system, and some sort of secure payment structure, along with you are going to have to add all the items content, prices, etc. And what about updates? $2k bare minimum(even that seems low) or else you are going to be working for free for a while and end up hating the business. I've worked at a restaurant before and trust me they will pretty much make that back from a single server in a single day and if you are making basically a web application that will aid in the sales of their items and speed up their processes, they would gladly pay that rather than have to hire someone to manually do that on salary for x amount of time.
Good stuff I have price packages with setup prices minimum 1 page in my basic package page $2,500 and then $3,400 for 3 pages, and 5 pages for $4,900 it’s built based on psychology and $300 a page but differences like SEO 2 hour tutorial video my team will put together to show them everything about there website. but that package is gold pa late going to max of $10,000 and lots of clients rather pay more because I bring value to them, if my work is going to make them 20-30k a month it’s no problem for them to pay up $8,000 to $10,000 :)
Hey Payton, what are some good questions to ask or ways to bring up the value of the perceived cost of the website? For example some of the ones you mentioned at 6:00
In my opinion web designers should not charge anything less than $800 for a beautiful but very basic 3 page simple website for small-businesses. However, designers must charge extra for copy-writing, photography, logo design, SEO, embedding contact or appointment forms, photo gallery, animations, payment accepting features, and additional pages. BMW or a Mercedes is way better than a Toyota or a Mazda not because later won't take me from point-A to point-B in half the time but because I have paid double the price ;)
The only thing that I still don't understand is how I'm supposed to tell a client that he needs to pay me 5k for website will all those tools that let them make a website for free. I understand the benefits of having a custom website built specifically for you, but I'm not sure that benefit is worth 3-8k. I hope I'm wrong because I'd really like to start that kind of business.
They are focused on other things. If their business is making $10k a day, then their time is worth a fraction of that. They might be specialized in certain things, so they can't be bothered to waste 20hours on making an okay website themselves, because their time is more valuable than that. So that's why they hire you to waste your time, because that is something you are interested in. Where as they are interested in running and growing their company. TIME isn't free! It's the most valuable asset anyone can possess.
Great video! Just needed to know one thing. Can you help me determine the cost of my agency website? I want to provide something similar but I don't know how much to charge for it.
In your $800 first project, did you also provide copy for the website? And do your 3k projects include copy as well? Once again thanks for such valuable videos!
Great question. I think a lot of (typically freshman) web developers and probably the majority of clients don't consider the importance of good copy. Good copy takes time, and time is most definitely $$$.
Personally I'd rather do no business than bad business. If the client doesn't want to pay such a low fee, then they will probably cause more headache for you in the long run anyways and it will just eat up your time that you could have focused on finding another client that would gladly pay 2-3 times that amount for your services and be easier to work with anyway.
It doesn't matter where you live, you should never charge low for such skills that are hard to get. Don't charge like the minimum wage workers in Developed Countries, Charge like a Boss because you are million times more Skilled than a Janitor in the US.
Hey Payton! Thanks for all your videos - so much valuable information! 🙏🏼 I´m curious: if you are talking about the "price for a website" - what would it typically include from your point of view? There´s so much aspects to it, the planning/conceptual stage, structuring the content (and defining content types maybe), maybe even writing content, photography, the design stage (are you assuming the client already has a corporate design or will you create this too within this price?) and of course the development stage, then filling the page with the actual content, also of course seo (what "basic seo work" would be included in such a package), also dealing with legal stuff/texts maybe ... For me, I feel I first have to talk in depths with the client about his/her expectations, otherwise it´s quite hard to come up with any pricing. Especially the functional needs (like ecommerce, multi-language, login, whatever) can elevate a project to a whole new level (even if the site still feels kinda "small") but clients often don´t realize that in the beginning. I know, there´s also no precise answer to this, I am just curious how your approach this. And are you breaking down all the details with dedicated prices for the clients in your offer or do you prefer to give an all-in-one-package offer/price. Thanks again!
Guys! Do you think $800 is enough for a first time website? I feel like maybe this will set people's sites too low!! What do you think?
"I've asked $800 for the first project"
Cries in poor country
I am actually looking for my first-time website project on Webflow, to start to feel a website design costumer and to explore the actual process - so at the moment I'll definitely take 800$ just for the experience of working on an actual project with someone. And I think it's like you said after once twice or third time you can raise the price, that's super legit. Oh and thank's man your videos are golden - seriously.
Do you mean for create mockups and then develop with we flow for example?
I would charge more
It depends on your level of experience. If it's your first professional I'd cut the price to $400 or less just to get the ball rolling. Now you have a sample of your work and hopefully a very happy client that will give you a testimonial and referrals.
My first web design client was just a redesign and I charged $1200 and she didn’t even bat an eye. I feel the more confident you are in your pitch, the more confident they are in being willing to spend more money.
Nice how did you find that first client?
That's what I'm talking about! That's why you the goat...the GOATTT
I was caught off guard when I got a call and now worried I don’t sound confident as she said “you’re just doing this for your portfolio right?” And I blanked. How can I turn this around pls
“you’re just doing this for your portfolio right?” I think is the same as "It’ll be great exposure for your agency." Personally, if I hear anything like this the big red flag is waving in my head and maybe, "Thank you for asking, but no. I’m confident I’ve had enough exposure." You could follow up with, "I’d be delighted to set up an appointment..." But for me, I would not worry about trying to turn this around and just want to stay polite enough not to have them possibly rage on online reviews."
Something I learned in sales many years ago is that clients do NOT trust 3 figures. This meaning any price less than $999.00 is “un-trustworthy.” It’s perceived as shady and a client will try to micromanage every detail once they hire you because they don’t trust you. It’s a safer bet that a client will see you more as a professional at $1200-1500. This price point will help command more respect and confidence. You are SO correct never to throw a price out there straight off. That’s a recipe for fast rejection. Cheers on the great advice.
so must I charge $1000 for my first client
"Once the price is set it's almost impossible to raise the value"
Great point! Thanks for sharing.
My first client I charged $2000 & then had an additional step which included another $1000 to date. I’m going to pause on that work. We’re about to enter another phase which is an SEO phase. I have a relationship with this client so I’m using it as a learning phase as far as SEO for future clients. I think I did pretty good.
I'm building two sites right now. I told the clients that I was new to this field and that they should pay me the cost of my tools and give me a testimonial to go on my portfolio should the end result be good. I need the practice and working with live clients is worth more to me than actual money for the moment.
Great job! Sounds like you are getting the ball rolling! I think there are a lot of benefits to being up front with your prospects! As long as you are getting paid enough to make it worth it to you (even if this is nothing) then by all means! Good luck and keep killing it!
How did you source these clients if you don't mind me asking
NATWAD just did a video about how I found them th-cam.com/video/gx-1NGkpYYc/w-d-xo.html. I used Facebook!
Great video! I think $800 is enough for a first project. Although it's not a lot you need to start from somewhere and you can eventually increase it as you get better and have more experience.
Towtally agree! Thanks for your feedback!
800$
in India some dev charges only 800₹
@@ajiteshmishra I knew there would be an Indian talking about their low pay in the comments somewhere
@@ajiteshmishra you have to compare apples to apples. The cost of living in India (just googled it) is said to be around 70-80% lower.
Just discovered your channel, you're freaking awesome! The content in your videos is really useful and you're explaining everything really well and professionally! Thanks!!!
Thanks for the advice. Comes at just the right time for me. Did 3 designs for friends before, trading services, and just updated those designs so i have good work to show on my website. About to start outreach to get my first cash pay projects.
Let's go Paul! Great work! Keep me posted on things and excited to hear about your first paid projects!
How has the outreach been going Paul? Have you been using any proposal templates? I'm just finishing up my portfolio and plan to use goprospero for my proposals.
Wishing us all great success ❣️
@@HighGrade159 Hello. I'm about to sign up to start using goprospero. How has the experience been for you?? And how is your web design experience in general??
Hi Payton another great video. I remember charging £300 for my first website 4 years ago. Just been doing side projects now and then but now taking it serious. I know we are in different countries but I am impressed you get minium £3000 for a site. That is my top price at the moment. Just building out a new site and going to put 3 pricing tiers for customers to see what I charge and hopefully get rid of those people looking for £300 sites.
Thank you Craig! It has been crazy since I raised my prices. I feel like the more sites I do at the $3000-5000 range, the more referrals I get in that range. I feel like those people have connections with similar budgets so it has made it easy to transition into that next pricing tier! Anyways, good luck structuring your pricing! Keep me posted on how it goes!
@@PaytonClarkSmith It is taking that leap. I turned someone down the other day because they did not want to spend the money but I felt fine. Gave me a boost to get my personal site done. I will share it with you once have completed it. I hope to be the same as you and get the bigger clients. I will be Doing £1500+ then £2000 + and then £3000+ . Lets hope it works. Good luck with all your work.
Craig Thomas you are on the right track!! Sometimes you need to turn away a client like that to give yourself the motivation to look for bigger clients. Keep up the good work and send me the link to your site when it’s done!
@@craigthomas4565 did it work? would love to hear about the process
I am a new web and media business owner. Thank you for the great tidbits. Question - what is your experience for hosting fees? Do you charge hosting - change fees or do you train the business owners on how to edit their won sites?
This is the best videos I've watched on pricing websites. Thanks for sharing
Hey Payton! Been loving your videos. I saw on your website that you offer SEO services to your clients. It would be awesome if you could do a local SEO tutorial.
Michael Groff awesome I’m glad to hear that! I appreciate the support. I have toyed with the idea but there is just so much that comes with local seo. I do offer this in my course but I will see if I can put something together! Thanks for the input!
I was literally about to create a website for a restaurant that includes adding an online ordering system. Didn’t know what to price it at so I was thinking $300… I’m so glad I caught this video in time !
WAY too low! You are talking about a complex system that will need data base, possible POS system, and some sort of secure payment structure, along with you are going to have to add all the items content, prices, etc. And what about updates?
$2k bare minimum(even that seems low) or else you are going to be working for free for a while and end up hating the business.
I've worked at a restaurant before and trust me they will pretty much make that back from a single server in a single day and if you are making basically a web application that will aid in the sales of their items and speed up their processes, they would gladly pay that rather than have to hire someone to manually do that on salary for x amount of time.
@@Caden_Burleson I have literally built a similar site for 200 dollars. Was a student back then. But I really knew how to code.
Thank you, very solid, straightforward advice on how to price v.s. what to price.
Such helpful advice man. Thank you so much for making this video.
Great video .
i would like to see more videos on this topic.
Thanks
Good stuff I have price packages with setup prices minimum 1 page in my basic package page $2,500 and then $3,400 for 3 pages, and 5 pages for $4,900 it’s built based on psychology and $300 a page but differences like SEO 2 hour tutorial video my team will put together to show them everything about there website. but that package is gold pa late going to max of $10,000 and lots of clients rather pay more because I bring value to them, if my work is going to make them 20-30k a month it’s no problem for them to pay up $8,000 to $10,000 :)
Hey Payton, what are some good questions to ask or ways to bring up the value of the perceived cost of the website? For example some of the ones you mentioned at 6:00
Can you do a detailed video on how to increase the perceived value of the website? Thank you so much
Just found your videos. Such great info.
Amazing Payton! Thanks
In my opinion web designers should not charge anything less than $800 for a beautiful but very basic 3 page simple website for small-businesses. However, designers must charge extra for copy-writing, photography, logo design, SEO, embedding contact or appointment forms, photo gallery, animations, payment accepting features, and additional pages. BMW or a Mercedes is way better than a Toyota or a Mazda not because later won't take me from point-A to point-B in half the time but because I have paid double the price ;)
Great video. Thank you
The only thing that I still don't understand is how I'm supposed to tell a client that he needs to pay me 5k for website will all those tools that let them make a website for free. I understand the benefits of having a custom website built specifically for you, but I'm not sure that benefit is worth 3-8k. I hope I'm wrong because I'd really like to start that kind of business.
business owners dont want t be bothered with that
They are focused on other things. If their business is making $10k a day, then their time is worth a fraction of that. They might be specialized in certain things, so they can't be bothered to waste 20hours on making an okay website themselves, because their time is more valuable than that. So that's why they hire you to waste your time, because that is something you are interested in. Where as they are interested in running and growing their company.
TIME isn't free! It's the most valuable asset anyone can possess.
Great video! Just needed to know one thing. Can you help me determine the cost of my agency website? I want to provide something similar but I don't know how much to charge for it.
In your $800 first project, did you also provide copy for the website? And do your 3k projects include copy as well? Once again thanks for such valuable videos!
Great question. I think a lot of (typically freshman) web developers and probably the majority of clients don't consider the importance of good copy. Good copy takes time, and time is most definitely $$$.
Great video....
i have the same ikea table. the fact that you can't attach a monitor stand to it because of it's shape it's really annoying :))))
Thanks a lot sir 😌🙂
Loved it
my first project was 1200. he still owes me 100 haha
hahaha...I couldn't help but to laugh...Lol
Hey Clark. Do you charge monthly too?
What would be the cost to build an 8 page website
What about fiverr? There you can buy website for 5$ is it worth to sell first website for 5$
NO. Unless you don't want food on the table and just want practice.
I'm charging $250 for a very good ux website, clients are still thinking. I'm Looting them ☹️ I don't know what to do. Btw I live in India.
where that client is from?
Personally I'd rather do no business than bad business. If the client doesn't want to pay such a low fee, then they will probably cause more headache for you in the long run anyways and it will just eat up your time that you could have focused on finding another client that would gladly pay 2-3 times that amount for your services and be easier to work with anyway.
It doesn't matter where you live, you should never charge low for such skills that are hard to get. Don't charge like the minimum wage workers in Developed Countries, Charge like a Boss because you are million times more Skilled than a Janitor in the US.
For first timers, if they ask for examples of previous work, should I do a couple of sites free…to get something on the resume?
Did you ever find an answer to this?
Your website should be the baseline for your work
Bruh, I just charged $300 for my first website and now I see this
💯✅
I gonna charge 1800 Dollars for My First Website. Because I can show them the value I deliver for them.
Hey Payton!
Thanks for all your videos - so much valuable information! 🙏🏼
I´m curious: if you are talking about the "price for a website" - what would it typically include from your point of view?
There´s so much aspects to it, the planning/conceptual stage, structuring the content (and defining content types maybe), maybe even writing content, photography, the design stage (are you assuming the client already has a corporate design or will you create this too within this price?) and of course the development stage, then filling the page with the actual content, also of course seo (what "basic seo work" would be included in such a package), also dealing with legal stuff/texts maybe ...
For me, I feel I first have to talk in depths with the client about his/her expectations, otherwise it´s quite hard to come up with any pricing. Especially the functional needs (like ecommerce, multi-language, login, whatever) can elevate a project to a whole new level (even if the site still feels kinda "small") but clients often don´t realize that in the beginning.
I know, there´s also no precise answer to this, I am just curious how your approach this.
And are you breaking down all the details with dedicated prices for the clients in your offer or do you prefer to give an all-in-one-package offer/price.
Thanks again!