Freelance web devs of this country, how much do you guys charge for an organization’s website for a local client?

What is your payment structure, too—fixed cost or do you solicit monthly payments (which, I imagine, is the more reasonable one)?

Site features are likely just news, contact page, and then embedded tweets and YouTube videos in the news articles. Really just informational stuff for a small org whose profits I have no idea about. I may do this website with Wordpress (ugh), but Jekyll is an option.

Posted May 29, 2019, 9:17 AM UTC

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stranglingisfunChokes to Go•

Pwede mag share kahit di web dev? I do freelancing but focused on Excel (VBA) and Google Sheets (Appscript/Javascript).

I always go with fixed cost. Define muna lahat ng scope, features and user requirements then make a fixed cost estimate. Anything outside the defined project scope will be subjected to additional payment/cost. I am strict about this one because i fucking hate scope creep and unpaid work.

Nakikita kong common hourly rate sa Upwork ng web devs ay $10~$15 per hour. That's the low end of the spectrum. Kung maganda portfolio mo and you are confident about your skill you can charge more.

​

P.S. Madalang ako tumanggap ng work from a Filipino client. Usually barat at low budget e.

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[deleted]•

[deleted]

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presidium•

Scope creep is often a side-effect of having novice clients (people who either don't know what they want, or don't understand what they're making). I've been there before, too. And I prefer your way of handling it because it pushes back against my worst urges.

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stranglingisfunChokes to Go•

Yeah, most of the time, i really have to put my foot down. Kasi kung hindi, padagdag sila ng padagdag tapos libre lol. I have enough stress at my office work.

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presidium•

Actually, your best bet is to prey on my interest in shiny new things. If I ask for new features that are scope creepy, do a quick wireframe and then tell me that it's going to cost 2x your regular rate because "I didn't schedule this effort into the development plan, and I need to bump other clients... do you still want to proceed?"

That way, you win either way. Either I say "nah", or I get excited and say "hell yes, 2x it is!" and you're making way higher margin.

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lopezjessyTODAY I LEARNED IN PHILIPPINE HISTORY•

I may do this website with Wordpress (ugh)

bakit may ugh

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codevilOPDuterte supporters are inherently stupid•

Messy and unpredictable, not fun to tinker with beyond the basics. Then again, what about front-end web development is?

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presidium•

Only plus for me (as buyer) is built-in CMS, but I don't really do those types of sites anymore. As a dev, that must be a blessing and a curse. Probably easier to get a wordpress site to alpha stage, but also harder to get maintenance contract with built-in CMS.

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codevilOPDuterte supporters are inherently stupid•

I actually built one with WP once, and yes the CMS is a huge burden off the coder’s shoulders, but then once the client starts asking for more features (while also being willing to pay), it suddenly becomes difficult to justify why I can’t do something due to the architectural constraints of the code. To the non-techie client, all bad designs are simple.

Guess I’ll just need to up my communication game then.

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presidium•

Well, you can make the client feel that your rate is reduced because you used Wordpress, so you'll make them feel like they "got a deal" for the working model.

Then for the changes, you can say that you're having to customize a complex beast and it will not be easy nor straightforward, and the client cannot have the sweetheart rate that you provided for the initial build-out.

If you're unable to do it within WP, then you can say "maybe we should take this up in 6 months time, and we can address it in a 2.0 remake; we'll leave the WP ecosystem, and do something a little more custom. But with customization comes higher rates, as that's going to be original work."

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presidium•

As a guy who buys websites from local developers, I prefer to pay for the site upfront, with milestones at various stages (wireframe, content-out alpha, content-in beta), than to agree to some kind of retainer setup that blends creation and maintenance.

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jaikun12•

We do it 50/50. 50% upfront to start development, and then the other 50% upon turnover.

Last project we had was a website for a local movie production company, and we charged 80k for the site with custom CMS.

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presidium•

How quickly do you deliver products? You mention “we”; is your team able to work exceptionally quickly?

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jaikun12•

It depends on the scope of the project and the requirements turnover (Stuff coming from the client). Normally a regular static site could take a month. But something with a custom CMS could take about 3 months.

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presidium•

Can you show an example of something that would take a month?

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jaikun12•

trexentertainment.com

This would only take a month if there was no custom CMS built for it.

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solidad29•

Did you create a custom CMS? or customised a CMS?

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jaikun12•

Custom CMS built using Laravel.

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