One of my sites can get up to 700 / 800 unique hits a day during holiday seasons and a big percentage of the people visiting the site use IE6.

We all agree that going forward is the way to go, but there will always be people who just dont want to upgrade, who are very comfortable useing what they are used to.

Im not going to get stuck in and give you loads of stick, but I do think you need to download xammp, install it on your pc, load up some bloggs and get designing. Download some older versions of IE and Firefox and install and check the sites useing all versions.

This way you will be able to play around with your designs and see exactly how they will look in all browsers. Its a bit time consuming, but if you want to start making any money from designing you need to be able to design so everyone can see a website, not just people who choose to upgrade.

Anyway, as the old saying goes... practice makes perfect!

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I think your pricing scheme should reflect the audience you are targeting. That is why ripe charge low rates for templates and redfly charge 10k + for a proper website.

Getting slightly off point. (these ripe lads are getting some serious link love off a lot of people). Fair play to them though..

For the original spec I would charge about €1,500 for a 20 page custom website with an open source CMS.

Once again, its the customers you are targeting.

...and the quality you're delivering as well of course.

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True. There's a lot of CMS systems out there. Some of them are a lot more powerful then others. for example, i would charge a lot more for a drupal site then setting someone up with contribute.

Sorry to be resurrecting this thread, but some folk might find this pricing survey interesting (not sure if I can post a link to it but I'll try: Share Your Web Design Prices Anonymously! | The Web Design Blog)

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Web design in Sligo

I think the posting is very valid. It's amazing how much some web providers try and (over) charge customers.

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What I find even more amazing are the number of incompetent Web designers out there who accuse others of over-charging. Why on earth would someone who's at the top of their game, has a wealth of knowledge, has spent years studying his craft and offers a far superior service (and return) charge the same as some guy who knows a bit of Photoshop and Dreamweaver and calls himself a professional?

There seems to be a misunderstanding in the Web industry that the whole thing is open to subjective interpretation as to what constitutes quality design and development. Unfortunately that's just not the case. That's not to say that there isn't a market out there for budget Web design - of course there is. But it's important that those offering it know their place so that the industry can move on in this country. At the moment we're a country mile behind, say, the UK.

Well said

And since I wanted to say "thanks" to TheMenace the board now has the "thank you" mod installed

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Nice post ‘TheManace’, I like it and the comments below are there to add discussion (certainly not meant to offend).

Very true; "you get what you pay for" and that generally applies to all lines of business. If you are looking for a job to be done, then you should always ensure the provider is able to offer a solution that meets your required standards.

OF COURSE, if two providers are able to offer the SAME JOB / SAME QUALITY but at a different PRICE than that is when you need to start having a good think about which one to choose


BUT BECAUSE OF MY LOCATION I CAN CHARGE MORE RIGHT?

If that is what people think, then now is the TIME TO WAKE UP; not only are more and more potential customers getting online which gives them so much more choice BUT this audience market are now becoming A LOT MORE price conscious.

Certainly within the UK, this was happening WAY before any talk of a recession.

(Note: I know it depends on what your business is offering, but for most web companies you need to start being aware of what is happening around you!)

>> Blacknight – you will be well aware of this with your hosting services and costs (In fact I suspect that is why your company was formed - to add some competition into a market you saw was being over priced?). What's more, your compeition is now not only in Ireland but also from around the world so keeping prices low is a key decision maker.

For that reason my own business made a change. We originally were offering a little bit of anything/everything to help attract customers BUT we found it resulted in us have to not only LEARN MORE and MORE (resulting in projects taking LONGER and based on our costs resulted in us becoming UNCOMPETITIVE!) but also had an affect as we were unable to offer great levels of support as each client was so different.

We now specialise in an area I enjoy (eCommerce) and our company now employs 8 people. Most of the team each had their own web businesses but who also wanted to specialise.

This has allowed us to group our skills together and offer a much better/stronger services in an area we all enjoy.

We are able to provide this to a much bigger number clients’ and more importantly at a very COMPETITIVE rate!

So while our price is LOWER than most it doesn’t mean we misunderstand or opt out of providing quality. Quite the opposite we are able to offer better solutions in an area we specialise in faster.


With so much competition out there, IMHO it would be SO much better if more web teams decided to group and move forward together rather than work in such isolation and pick against one another.


Did anyone have a go at filling in the form to see the PH prices? It was very interesting.....