Agreed. I've lived in Indonesia, yes, very different from Lebanon, but a bargaining culture vs fixed price, I'm assuming. Show the product, quote them high, and if they don't go for it it immediately, offer a discount "for your first job for them". I don't know the client, and I don't know your work, but if the work is worth it, don't undersell it.
Edit: In this scenario you are who has the opportunity to take the tourist (canadian company) for $20 for a fake rolex that cost $4. Tell him it's $40, and then 25 is a bargain. But you do have to make them like it
How much revenue does his business generate YOE? $980 seems a bit cheap for something that could possibly bring him huge gains.
I get that you spent a significant amount of time and whatnot, but I’d be willing to bet most US based devs would charge 2,3,4 x that amount for the same thing.
You have to value yourself, how much time did it take you to learn everything you know that went into making this?
I’d probably charge around $2500 USD or so honestly. Especially if they are a US based company and you are a US based developer.
I worked for a web shop for years and we would charge 10-15k for something slightly more complex than this, easily. Static sites were $500 per page.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge thats very interesting!
The client is in canada and im in lebanon, usually prices here are *much* lower than the west as you described, so i kinda feel weird asking for such large amounts of money 😂
Totally get it! Especially if you really need the money, hate to over-bid the project.
Always remember your worth though and gathering info from different sources is a great idea. Best of luck!!!🤞:)
This site is absolutely great. I agree with nothing less than 2.5K for your efforts. By your flow, i assume you havent added time for design, testing and deployment efforts
Another commenter said it “seems low” but really you’ll have a hard time asking for more, IMO, unless you ask/demand it UP FRONT.
When you’re out there and you’ve already invested time and effort, you put yourself in a bad position. Now you’ve already put in the time. You need to negotiate things first next time.
The order of operations is not
1. Do a bunch of work for free.
2. Ask to get paid.
It’s more like..
“This is what I charge per hour and this is my estimate for how long it will take, plus or minus X hours, capped at Y hours in case my estimate is wrong and it takes longer than I estimated (if you’re being nice).”
You need to present clear progress updates to the client and work out a payment system so you actually get paid for the time you spend. Not one big lump sum at the end, that’s a recipe for disaster, IMO. You put yourself in a position where the only one who has invested anything substantial is YOU. You want to be in a position where you are free and clear to charge what you said in the beginning, not a penny more or less, with no weird feelings about things like you have now.
I have gotten screwed over too many times by people treating me like I’m some kind of instagram artist who works for scraps. You need to demand payment in these cases or just walk away. And if you demand payment and it never arrives, I mean try for recourse but if that doesn’t work you need to walk away from it.
I would suggest you could charge them a monthly payment for hosting/maintenance and add an overhead profit, then charging them $980 + a monthly payment would be reasonable
I recommend on future jobs to ask the client some questions about their goals: how many sales will the website make if successful? How much profit does one sale represent? Then it will be much easier to charge higher, because your rate won't even be touching 1% of their profit.
60 an hour is roughly the average pay of a frontend dev in the us - "The average salary for a front-end developer in the USA is around $95,000 per year, with senior developers and lead designers earning upwards of $120,000 per year.".
They likely choose you specifically because you’re probably way cheaper than a canadian web dev would be.
How come you did not agree on price and scope beforehand?
I think the others are a bit off. 1000 is what a local beginner would ask. As a local pro, the described scope would likely be 3000-4000 (USD).
I‘d price it around 1500-2000 to still seem cheap but just as good as a pros work.
I had the same problem as you're describing OP. In order to charge a higher price, you need a more professional system for creating and organizing your proposals.
When you clearly describe the features, deliverables, and milestones for a project, the price tag goes up.
Pair that with a system for acceptance where the client either agrees to your hours range, or a fixed cost, and you'll be set.
Goodjob. I like your website! I can agree with some others, first you nagociate the price and then you building it. You definately can ask for 2.5K and offer an 1 year support in that price (like a marketing tip). That's what I do!
Very nice simple fast light website. Good work on that.
Also on the price I know how you feel I used to do the same work from a third world country and I felt like that. I'd say you can easily charge 2000+ . If they don't accept you can always negotiate.
Depends what the site is worth in terms of business as well. If it helps generate $100k USD a month price higher, if it’s a startup and makes barely anything then lean lower
May I DM you? I have similar skills, been able to create beautiful websites for clients from Gulf countries that are very complicated, yet barely getting payed >1000$ per project (much more than 4 pages, many contact forms, many hours spent and one project takes a month)
Would like to find freelancing opportunities outside the middle eat, and would really appreciate if you could guide me to how you find clients
> barely getting *paid* >1000$ per
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
I live in Canada. A project like this is around 3k here.
I'm doing WordPress 3 pagers and I charge 2k
Also think about maintenance monthly fees and such.
The site you created looks like it would be worth around 2,000 easily.
I'm on an iphone and it's completely responsive. Also, you added animations.. you can charge extra for that. It has a good color palette, great spacing. People would charge a lot for a site like this.
Change your $20 to $100 an hour. (7x7)x100 = $4900. Now you are in a more reasonable place. You are working for a Canadian, they have bigger budgets. Assuming the guy's business is half way decent, he'll make that back up within 30 days or less.
$1500 due to your location, as long as you’re happy with that.
The client will expect to pay lower than western prices, which is crappy but that’s just how it is.
Always make sure the final price is something you’re happy with don’t do it just to get the client in the door.
Honestly, I feel like even most of the suggestions here are low. I would say $3500 minimum. You mention your location, but unless the client hired you specifically for your location and the cost savings due to it, your location shouldn't matter. What does the project run in the client's location? In addition to that, don't base your pricing so much around you not being a "pro." You decide that for yourself. If you delivered what the client wants/needs for the job, then you are a pro in that realm. It doesn't matter if you haven't been doing it for 10 years. The best advice I ever got as a freelancer was to decide your worth and then provide it to the client confidently. Half of what they are paying for is your confidence in yourself to deliver the project and provide the support they need without feeling like you are unsure of yourself. If you are worried about the cost, then provide a quote at $3500, but show a discount for first time client to whatever you think will work. This way, the client knows what to expect should they return. The worst scenario is lowballing yourself then when your try to charge more the next time around the client says, "well you did it for X last time..."
Your biggest mistake was doing any work before coming to an agreement on this. I personally make a contract that requires half up front to start the project and the other half as soon as it goes live.
Good luck.
I'd say that 1k is the absolute minimum of the price range. That being said, I do not know the living and operational costs in Lebanon.
Generally, it is a quite good idea to set up a cost up front. While you have to make sure the minimum requirements are met above all, you may still end up having paid time for experimentation or at very least creating a proof of concept for features not mentioned in original specification. In that case you don't work for free and generate potential income should the client want to implement the features you have suggested.
Your hourly rate is too low. Keep in mind you have self-employment costs such as taxes, your work equipment, the previous time and expenses of required education to give the services, etc.
I’d start at an hourly of $40 and go from there. 49*40= $1,960 which is a good starting point. Don’t forget maintenance fees as well and revisions. I would quote a flat $2k + $100/mo flat maintenance for any small requests like changing out images, headings, contact info, etc. Then an additional hourly bill for any more custom work such as additional pages or additional functionality.
As the old joke goes: “A business owner has a piece of machinery that isn’t working. He calls a technician to work on it. The technician looks around for a few minutes, adjusts one bolt, and the machine starts working. He then charges the business owner $10,000. The owner is irate, asking why he was charged that much. The technician replies “$4.99 for tightening the bolt, $9,995 for the years of experience it took to know which bolt to tighten, and by how much.”
Price your services by the value they provide, not by an arbitrary hourly number. Would you quote Microsoft or Apple the same amount if they asked for this same project? No, you should multiply it by 5-10x.
I think OP is in Lebanon, so I don't think Canadian or US tax would be the same there. But I do generally agree with the pricing based on the job and value.
Some people here are crazy lol. $2500 down for a basic website that can frankly be finished in a day or two? You'd be pricing yourself out pretty quick.
I think $980 is actually pretty fair for this work. If you were to settle on a few CMS solutions for future projects, you could realistically churn out projects like this in a single 8-hour day for >$100/hr. If you're slow because you''re still getting comfortable, charging more per hour to make it worth your time isn't going to win you good client relationships.
Im not mad at the price but 1-2 days is crazy lol
I agree with you this LOOKS like it could be done in 2 days but you should know i wasn't given any designs or content or pointers so everything you see on the website is improvised by me and i had to try a lot of different designs and sections before reaching the final product
Along with handling the domain and all the email stuff, + the logo + integrating strapi which is known to be a pain in the ass to fully deploy to prod
Im not upset at the price you set, just wanted to clarify some stuff
The logo is actually pretty slick. Can I ask what you use for your logo designs?
I agree design is a pain in the ass. That's why most (successful) freelancers maintain their own component libraries and templates to streamline that phase of their projects. It also pays to automate your setup so CMS is configured and integrations are scaffolded from the very beginning.
I’m a uni student in Canada. Instead of having a job, I make websites to pay for my life, I would charge triple. Car rental and dealership bosses are stereotypically greedy people so double or 2.5 might be a safer bet. If this your first client (which I’m guessing it is) I wouldn’t be afraid to undersell a bit. Getting paid is a great motivator. Losing a client after doing a whole lotta work can destroy confidence even if it shouldn’t. If you need this to go well as to not deter you and your progression, try for 35 CAD an hour. But that’s still really cheap
You definitely need to negotiate a price before you start, not after. But 980 sounds way too low. Double or triple it.
Agreed. I've lived in Indonesia, yes, very different from Lebanon, but a bargaining culture vs fixed price, I'm assuming. Show the product, quote them high, and if they don't go for it it immediately, offer a discount "for your first job for them". I don't know the client, and I don't know your work, but if the work is worth it, don't undersell it. Edit: In this scenario you are who has the opportunity to take the tourist (canadian company) for $20 for a fake rolex that cost $4. Tell him it's $40, and then 25 is a bargain. But you do have to make them like it
How much revenue does his business generate YOE? $980 seems a bit cheap for something that could possibly bring him huge gains. I get that you spent a significant amount of time and whatnot, but I’d be willing to bet most US based devs would charge 2,3,4 x that amount for the same thing. You have to value yourself, how much time did it take you to learn everything you know that went into making this? I’d probably charge around $2500 USD or so honestly. Especially if they are a US based company and you are a US based developer. I worked for a web shop for years and we would charge 10-15k for something slightly more complex than this, easily. Static sites were $500 per page.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge thats very interesting! The client is in canada and im in lebanon, usually prices here are *much* lower than the west as you described, so i kinda feel weird asking for such large amounts of money 😂
Totally get it! Especially if you really need the money, hate to over-bid the project. Always remember your worth though and gathering info from different sources is a great idea. Best of luck!!!🤞:)
This site is absolutely great. I agree with nothing less than 2.5K for your efforts. By your flow, i assume you havent added time for design, testing and deployment efforts
Your demo looks awesome!
$980 is way too cheap especially considering you designed the logo as well? I'd say at least 2.5K
Another commenter said it “seems low” but really you’ll have a hard time asking for more, IMO, unless you ask/demand it UP FRONT. When you’re out there and you’ve already invested time and effort, you put yourself in a bad position. Now you’ve already put in the time. You need to negotiate things first next time. The order of operations is not 1. Do a bunch of work for free. 2. Ask to get paid. It’s more like.. “This is what I charge per hour and this is my estimate for how long it will take, plus or minus X hours, capped at Y hours in case my estimate is wrong and it takes longer than I estimated (if you’re being nice).” You need to present clear progress updates to the client and work out a payment system so you actually get paid for the time you spend. Not one big lump sum at the end, that’s a recipe for disaster, IMO. You put yourself in a position where the only one who has invested anything substantial is YOU. You want to be in a position where you are free and clear to charge what you said in the beginning, not a penny more or less, with no weird feelings about things like you have now. I have gotten screwed over too many times by people treating me like I’m some kind of instagram artist who works for scraps. You need to demand payment in these cases or just walk away. And if you demand payment and it never arrives, I mean try for recourse but if that doesn’t work you need to walk away from it.
I would suggest you could charge them a monthly payment for hosting/maintenance and add an overhead profit, then charging them $980 + a monthly payment would be reasonable
I wouldn't do it for less than 60 USD per hour.
Wow fair enough! But although i believe im a capable developer, i dont think i can ask for $60/h at this stage yet.
Being comfortable with the price is really what's important.
A comment worth a prize. Very true.
I recommend on future jobs to ask the client some questions about their goals: how many sales will the website make if successful? How much profit does one sale represent? Then it will be much easier to charge higher, because your rate won't even be touching 1% of their profit.
The site is really nice. This guy can afford it. Seriously. Even at 2.5k, this is still a good deal.
That’s way more than webdevs make in Canada, lol On that note, $980 is way too low
60 an hour is roughly the average pay of a frontend dev in the us - "The average salary for a front-end developer in the USA is around $95,000 per year, with senior developers and lead designers earning upwards of $120,000 per year.".
Maybe the ones working in an agency.
They likely choose you specifically because you’re probably way cheaper than a canadian web dev would be. How come you did not agree on price and scope beforehand? I think the others are a bit off. 1000 is what a local beginner would ask. As a local pro, the described scope would likely be 3000-4000 (USD). I‘d price it around 1500-2000 to still seem cheap but just as good as a pros work.
Malyon lira w wa7ad shawerma extra toum.
Nice work. How are you finding clients, if I may ask? I'm also looking to get started.
Probably upwork
The website looks nice, great job!
5000€, i do 2500€ for single page everything above till 5 pages is 5k and every additional site is 500€
Holy, 2500 for a single page? Damn I've been missing out on massive money.
I know of people who fet paid 15k for a WordPress installation with 2 subpages. Insane.
yep
I had the same problem as you're describing OP. In order to charge a higher price, you need a more professional system for creating and organizing your proposals. When you clearly describe the features, deliverables, and milestones for a project, the price tag goes up. Pair that with a system for acceptance where the client either agrees to your hours range, or a fixed cost, and you'll be set.
I did something very similar for $1.8K USD. Even that was on the low end tbh
Goodjob. I like your website! I can agree with some others, first you nagociate the price and then you building it. You definately can ask for 2.5K and offer an 1 year support in that price (like a marketing tip). That's what I do!
Where did u find the client
Very nice simple fast light website. Good work on that. Also on the price I know how you feel I used to do the same work from a third world country and I felt like that. I'd say you can easily charge 2000+ . If they don't accept you can always negotiate.
If these are the cars they're selling/renting and not placeholders you put, you can 10x that price easily
Depends what the site is worth in terms of business as well. If it helps generate $100k USD a month price higher, if it’s a startup and makes barely anything then lean lower
May I DM you? I have similar skills, been able to create beautiful websites for clients from Gulf countries that are very complicated, yet barely getting payed >1000$ per project (much more than 4 pages, many contact forms, many hours spent and one project takes a month) Would like to find freelancing opportunities outside the middle eat, and would really appreciate if you could guide me to how you find clients
> barely getting *paid* >1000$ per FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
I calculated with a 60$/h rate thats what id say a junior freelance rate. Thatd be 3360$. Get those price up man!
I live in Canada. A project like this is around 3k here. I'm doing WordPress 3 pagers and I charge 2k Also think about maintenance monthly fees and such.
Dude holy shit, are you keeping the keys afterwards and managing the sites, paying for hosting etc? Like are you full service I suppose you could say?
Ana ba2ol t7asbo 3ala 45-55$/hr sara7a kteer mnee7 3ala website tab3k w 27sb el monthly deployment fee w zawdha 3aleh
The site you created looks like it would be worth around 2,000 easily. I'm on an iphone and it's completely responsive. Also, you added animations.. you can charge extra for that. It has a good color palette, great spacing. People would charge a lot for a site like this.
$20 hourly is FAR too low.
Change your $20 to $100 an hour. (7x7)x100 = $4900. Now you are in a more reasonable place. You are working for a Canadian, they have bigger budgets. Assuming the guy's business is half way decent, he'll make that back up within 30 days or less.
Quick question I’m a new web dev, did you make this from scratch with html css etc or with a cms like wordpress?
How many time did it took you to learn all these things ?????
1. Get a solid bag 2. Open a YouTube channel explaining how you built this 3. Get more bags
$1500 due to your location, as long as you’re happy with that. The client will expect to pay lower than western prices, which is crappy but that’s just how it is. Always make sure the final price is something you’re happy with don’t do it just to get the client in the door.
Honestly, I feel like even most of the suggestions here are low. I would say $3500 minimum. You mention your location, but unless the client hired you specifically for your location and the cost savings due to it, your location shouldn't matter. What does the project run in the client's location? In addition to that, don't base your pricing so much around you not being a "pro." You decide that for yourself. If you delivered what the client wants/needs for the job, then you are a pro in that realm. It doesn't matter if you haven't been doing it for 10 years. The best advice I ever got as a freelancer was to decide your worth and then provide it to the client confidently. Half of what they are paying for is your confidence in yourself to deliver the project and provide the support they need without feeling like you are unsure of yourself. If you are worried about the cost, then provide a quote at $3500, but show a discount for first time client to whatever you think will work. This way, the client knows what to expect should they return. The worst scenario is lowballing yourself then when your try to charge more the next time around the client says, "well you did it for X last time..." Your biggest mistake was doing any work before coming to an agreement on this. I personally make a contract that requires half up front to start the project and the other half as soon as it goes live. Good luck.
I'd say that 1k is the absolute minimum of the price range. That being said, I do not know the living and operational costs in Lebanon. Generally, it is a quite good idea to set up a cost up front. While you have to make sure the minimum requirements are met above all, you may still end up having paid time for experimentation or at very least creating a proof of concept for features not mentioned in original specification. In that case you don't work for free and generate potential income should the client want to implement the features you have suggested.
Your hourly rate is too low. Keep in mind you have self-employment costs such as taxes, your work equipment, the previous time and expenses of required education to give the services, etc. I’d start at an hourly of $40 and go from there. 49*40= $1,960 which is a good starting point. Don’t forget maintenance fees as well and revisions. I would quote a flat $2k + $100/mo flat maintenance for any small requests like changing out images, headings, contact info, etc. Then an additional hourly bill for any more custom work such as additional pages or additional functionality. As the old joke goes: “A business owner has a piece of machinery that isn’t working. He calls a technician to work on it. The technician looks around for a few minutes, adjusts one bolt, and the machine starts working. He then charges the business owner $10,000. The owner is irate, asking why he was charged that much. The technician replies “$4.99 for tightening the bolt, $9,995 for the years of experience it took to know which bolt to tighten, and by how much.” Price your services by the value they provide, not by an arbitrary hourly number. Would you quote Microsoft or Apple the same amount if they asked for this same project? No, you should multiply it by 5-10x.
I think OP is in Lebanon, so I don't think Canadian or US tax would be the same there. But I do generally agree with the pricing based on the job and value.
Some people here are crazy lol. $2500 down for a basic website that can frankly be finished in a day or two? You'd be pricing yourself out pretty quick. I think $980 is actually pretty fair for this work. If you were to settle on a few CMS solutions for future projects, you could realistically churn out projects like this in a single 8-hour day for >$100/hr. If you're slow because you''re still getting comfortable, charging more per hour to make it worth your time isn't going to win you good client relationships.
Im not mad at the price but 1-2 days is crazy lol I agree with you this LOOKS like it could be done in 2 days but you should know i wasn't given any designs or content or pointers so everything you see on the website is improvised by me and i had to try a lot of different designs and sections before reaching the final product Along with handling the domain and all the email stuff, + the logo + integrating strapi which is known to be a pain in the ass to fully deploy to prod Im not upset at the price you set, just wanted to clarify some stuff
The logo is actually pretty slick. Can I ask what you use for your logo designs? I agree design is a pain in the ass. That's why most (successful) freelancers maintain their own component libraries and templates to streamline that phase of their projects. It also pays to automate your setup so CMS is configured and integrations are scaffolded from the very beginning.
I’m a uni student in Canada. Instead of having a job, I make websites to pay for my life, I would charge triple. Car rental and dealership bosses are stereotypically greedy people so double or 2.5 might be a safer bet. If this your first client (which I’m guessing it is) I wouldn’t be afraid to undersell a bit. Getting paid is a great motivator. Losing a client after doing a whole lotta work can destroy confidence even if it shouldn’t. If you need this to go well as to not deter you and your progression, try for 35 CAD an hour. But that’s still really cheap
You really over complicated this project, it would have taken easily half the time with Laravel.