How much should I charge for making a web site?

Hi Preet,

it really depends. I have 2 ways of charging a client: per-project or per- hour. I usually charge per hour if it is a maintenance project (ie. no design from scratch but just keeping the site a-float).

Yours though sounds like a project from scratch. Here is what I would do:

1. Rough estimate of weeks. In your case I would take a shot in the dark and say about 6-7 weeks than multiply that by 25% (to take for unaccounted issues). That's about 8 weeks.

2. Now that you have the weeks, convert it to hours so you're looking at about 8*40 = 320 hours.

3. Multiply the 320 hours by your hourly rate...depending on your level of expertise (anywhere from $25/hr - $60/hr) and you will have your quote; so you're looking at a range of $8,000 to $19,200 for the project.

I would also keep in mind however the size of the company and adjust accordingly. Plus, if you can work out a deal with them that if they are satisfied and you will be called upon for more projects, than give them a break and a discount - that way you get a repeat customer and customer sees that you care: win-win situation.

I always tend to give a "worst-case" time estimate scenario (of course without explicitly mentioning this to the client) - however you should always be ready to back up your time estimates (costs are easy: based on your hourly rate). In most case - backing your time estimates is not that difficult, specially since in this one you are doing all the work from back-end to front-end to eye-candy ..

Hope this helps,

TM