[asianz]

Does anyone know what is a reason rate to charge for web design / web development?? I have just started working as an contractor for a web design company and wonder what would be a reasonable rate for doing ASP programming and also general HTML. I am also keen to hear from other web designers and developers who are currently working as contractors and how they charge for their service.

Thanks,

Bill

[kinetek]

You probably know this already, but if it's an ongoing job, charge hourly but if it's for a project, give them a qoute before hand on how many hours it will take and multiply that by your rate. Collect half of that amount when the project start and the other half when it is finished. I don't charge anything that goes over this quoted amount unless the client wants to make drastic changes. Either way, you need to know you're rate. Your rate would depend on your skills and the level of those skills. If you only know html and asp, it would vary from around $10/hr (more like an intern position) - $30/hr.

These are just rough estimates. I negotiate most of my rates with my clients and they come out around $20-$30/hr. Some projects, I just charge them a low total amount just to get their business as they have a lot of referral potential. For example, I'm finishing up a very simple website for a property company with a market capitalization of over $1 billion dollars but I only charged them a fraction of what I usually charge because I want their business for my portfolio, their referral potential, and what they wanted was really simple but a little time consuming.

[Onyx]

As Paul says - it really depends on many factors. Assuming you think your work is good enough then I'd be looking at $30-50/hr. This really does depend on your general skills though. If you're going it alone it's not good enough to simply be an expert in HTML or ASP. You need damn good customer service skills too. you'll also need general business skills too to stay above the competition.

You may find that it's best to team up with a few other people who are thinking along the same lines, but have slightly different skills. That way you cover a much wider area and the pressure isn't entirely on you!

Hope things work out well for you!

[focusben]

Charge more than you think, and you'd be surprised how little it comes down.

[Bleys]

According to Salary.com the national average for "web designer" is $56,664. From this you can extrapolate, using a 40 hour work week, that the average hourly rate for web design is between $27-30. This is on par with what many freelance web designers I know charge... however, I know some who make much more than that.