13-How to Price Web Design Projects (Without Underselling Yourself)

[00:00:00] What up y’all? Welcome to the Web Design Empire where we share stories and strategies to help you build your web design empire from that small side gig to multiple six figs.
That’s right. I’m John. This is Kelly. We’re full-time freelance web designer who’ve escaped from the real world, broke up with our jobs, our bosses, our cubicles, our commutes over 15 years ago, and we haven’t looked back. We’re also course creators, web design, business coaches, web design store owners. Kelly owns some Airbnbs and I’m a touring professional musician.
All that to say we are building our empires. Today, we’re talking about all things pricing. It’s a big subject, lots to go into it, but first, Kelly, how are you doing? Doing well. I hear you’ve been in the studio recently. Oh yeah. Why, why? Why were we talking about a, a minor?
Oh, you said a a [00:01:00] minor teenage, yeah. My teenage girls will sing that, which is a little disturbing, but yes. Well, I was saying that as a musician it’s even worse. Like last night we were rehearsing and, we’re working on a cover set, so like a rocking Oh, yeah, yeah. Since Brian’s been on The Voice, we get a, a lot of gig requests and they want like two hours of, of covers and we’ll s we’ll pepper into everything.
He sang on The Voice They Want all that. And the, and the first song he sang on The Voice was Love Runs Out by, one Republic. Yeah. And the key is G minor. G minor. So any minor key now, you know, and D Minor, like it’s getting ridiculous. It’s getting out of hand. Love it. That. Yeah. For me it’s, you know, I’m not, I’m not in the studio, but, gosh, it is end of year madness.
Again, you will know about this in a few years. Once your kids are in school, are, are you sending your kids to school? Are you doing the homeschool thing? Do you know? 50 50 right now, you know, it’s a 50. Okay. There’s like this [00:02:00] dream world where it’s like, oh yeah, we’ll get an RV and we’ll just travel the country and Aw.
And, and we thought about that home homeschool and homeschool the kids two hours a day. Right, because like Uhhuh mm-hmm. When I was homeschooled. All right. Everyone, I was homeschooled from third grade at two. That’s why I asked. I was aware. Yes. Sixth grade. And it was amazing. I would like get my schoolwork done in two, three hours tops.
And when I was 14 years old, two weeks away from being 15, I got a job at Arby’s and I would work the lunch rush and the, the two weeks I was still 14. Which, which Arby’s, it’s gone now, but 56th and O street. Oh. No, it’s still there. Is it? Oh, that is where my husband and I had our first date, John. Okay.
Sorry. The Ami, we’ve had this conversation. Sorry, the Amigos is gone. Next door, Amigos is gone. Yes. Uh, um, it’s like a dental office now, which I, I’m like, I’m like, I wonder if it still smells like Mexican food in there. Like it has to, to probably a little bit. But any, anyway, I would ride my bike [00:03:00] there and , and work a, a three hour shift and go home and it’s like, this is amazing.
I’m 14, 15 years old, making some money. This is great. Crazy. , I cut out homeschooling the first time I ever tried to help a child learn something like this is preschool, probably. And yeah, they don’t trust me to teach them anything. It’s not good.
I, it’s not the life for me, but, I do admire those who have been able to pull that off. I know in my heart and soul, I was not meant to be any kind of a child educator. Well, I was then also, I was then also homeschooled a little bit my ninth and 10th grade year because we lived in Mexico and my parents, my parents sent me up on a bus for basketball season.
And so I lived with someone else for three months and three, four months and played basketball outta high school. You have a very interesting past and rode a Greyhound all the way down by myself, 18 hours all the way down to the border. And then they picked me up at the border and, and then we lived, course, [00:04:00] we lived six hours in Mexico, down in Mexico.
Anyway, , but there is something about, your parents tell you what to do all day and then now I know now they’re teaching you and telling you what to do. Yeah. And my dad, my dad would, that was it. My dad would argue with the history book, like he’s like, this ain’t right. This isn’t right.
History is wrong. Yeah. So anyway, anyway, that’s that. So yeah, so , there’s this, , fantasy of let’s travel and do all the things. But then there’s the reality of like, but. Having them gone, having them gone eight hours a day sounds pretty amazing too, right? Which is what I was getting to, which is summers around the corner and obviously love my children, love spending time with them, but , there’s something about summer where especially my youngest , by 8:00 AM the first day of summer.
She’s gonna be in my office saying I’m bored. , , there it is. Finding that balance of, of keeping them entertained and doing fun summer things, but also getting some work done. Luckily, [00:05:00] I guess double-edged sword, summer tends to be kind of a slow time for small business.
So therefore, for client work as well. So it kind of works out. But, May is just, just crazy.
The amount of stuff that schools and activities cram into May is absolutely bonkers. I went to a ceremony last night for my oldest to get her academic letter. We got dance recitals coming up. We have a musical, recital coming up that she’s been working on all month. We have volleyball ending, just so much stuff , and then , graduation parties, like, it’s just never ending.
May is crazy. So , that’s what I’m living in right now. . Yeah, we don’t start think anyone asked. We don’t, technically we don’t start any new projects in July, so we kind of take, we don’t take it off because we still work wrapping up other projects, but it’s kind of a, a, a slower, like, Hey, just a catch up kind of.
Yeah. We’re, I, we’re not gonna start anything new in July. And as you mentioned, is that the only month per year that you do that? No, December as well. [00:06:00] Ja. July and December. Oh, nice. Um, I like that. That’s smart. And then , you mentioned it slower in summer, so how, a little bit, how do you have a successful web design business when you have these slow months, you know, well, John, you have strategic pricing.
Well, let’s dive into pricing. It’s such a, let’s do, it’s such, it’s such a, uh, a huge topic. I haven’t had to actually price a website in, in, in. At least two, three years. ’cause Jake’s been doing all our pricing. But today at a chiropractor appointment, the guy asks me like, Hey, how much would a new site be roughly?
You know? And so I’m kind of like spit balling with them, telling him, well, here’s how much this is. And so it’s funny that today I, I get asked, , about it. , Yes, this is a topic that comes up all the time with, with new students and even old students. Pricing questions, constantly.
And I mean, the short answer is, you know, it depends, right? Obviously it depends. There’s a whole [00:07:00] lot of factors that go into web design, and various projects. But caveat to start off this topic, John and I are WordPress. We’re custom WordPress web designers. And so what we’re gonna talk about is.
I, I wouldn’t say specific to that because a lot of these strategies can be applied to, other platforms or even, template type designs in WordPress, but that’s what we’re talking about here is custom WordPress websites. So yeah, that’s my disclaimer.
And then, if you do work with templates, that’s fine, that’s great, but that’s obviously , a lower price point and so mm-hmm. Just kind of take that into consideration. First things first. A website is worth. Whatever, someone will pay for it. I mean, that’s the long and short of it.
And so let just to start it off with like basic economics, right? Supply and demand. That has a lot to do with , how we, price , our websites as well. Like John just alluded to, if it gets slow and summer, and you’re looking for more work, , lower the prices a [00:08:00] little bit, there’s not as much demand.
So then the price goes down. And then same thing. There have been days where, John and I have had this conversation where we’ve literally doubled our prices overnight just because we were so busy. And then we would get the projects anyway, and it’s like, well dang, we should have done that a while ago.
Mm-hmm. , So, , yeah, supply and demand has a whole bunch to do with it. That’s one of the many factors, but that is a very significant. Factor, in the pricing of web design. Other factors would be, if you have a specific niche and what that niche is, mm-hmm. If your niche is house cleaners or like home service stuff , that’s like a small price point, , that’s gonna be, , a lower perceived value than, , working with giant companies or even , like a very comparable, site to a house cleaner would be like a roofer. , That’s a $200 a pop versus $20,000 a pop. So the perceived value there is obviously very different. So niche is another [00:09:00] factor. , Specialization. , For example, I, I do WooCommerce websites as well, which is a higher price point because it’s , a specialized service.
There’s lots of examples there. And then of course, experience, John and I have been doing this 15, 20 years at this point, so , not only , the confidence that comes with that, but , the experience in working with lots of different projects, lots of different customers, , we can anticipate a lot of things , that’s hard to even, , put into words., And that comes with a higher price point as well. Not to mention we have a pretty steady stream of referrals at this point, so we can be a little picky and choosy and therefore have higher pricing. So those are a lot of the factors. , But yeah, we’re gonna get into some , general recommendations anyway.
But keep those in mind. These are all just like starter things. The other thing is a few different ways to price. There’s hourly, which is popular for freelance stuff. , And that’s not generally how we work. , I reserve hourly rates for ongoing edits, [00:10:00] like various edits that come through on a monthly basis.
But typically what John and I do and recommend is project-based pricing. So . The project is priced upfront, and then we split that typically into an upfront, like a, a half upfront and then a half before launch kind of setup. , So it’s those two big payments. Yeah. , Another option in there would be value based pricing, which I kind of touched on already, which is you adjust , the pricing, per the customer based on what the value is.
Again, a house cleaner website’s going to be less valuable than a roofing company website, if that makes sense. Any thoughts on , all the, , caveats and disclaimers there, John? Disclaimer? Um, I know, I know. It’s just in my head now. You just gotta roll that into everything. Yeah. , A common thing I say to web designers who are too busy is I’ll say, well, you could raise your prices, but you’ll just get busier.
I. That’s true. That’s funny. [00:11:00] Um, It’s an ironic piece of the puzzle. Yes. Well, because I think it tells folks that it signals to them, Hey, I’m really good at what I do. Which makes them wanna work with you even more. Especially if they have budget . Like,, okay,, my wife wants a new shower situation in our main bedroom.
Okay, me too. So let’s say I go out and I get three quotes for the shower situation, and let’s say one’s 50 K, um, one’s 20 5K and one’s 5K. I’m not gonna go with a 5K. It’s just like, how good can they be? They’re at the bottom of the barrel. That’s so true here. That is, I I would throw that one out as well.
You’re like, that can’t be right. And I’m, and then there’s like that psychology of just like going towards that middle one regardless. Yeah. , There is that, ’cause I’m like, ’cause I’d be like, you know what, this house we’re living in, I have a two and 4-year-old, they’re kind of destroying it anyway.
I don’t wanna spend 50 grand on that. Now, if it was just my wife and I I could see doing the 50 grand because it’s gonna increase my home value so much and blah, blah, blah. But anyway, if I was strapped for [00:12:00] cash though, then I would do the 5K because , what choice do I have? And so one, once you get beyond that first tier of clients that are , they’re usually more headaches and lower deal.
Yeah. They’re lower budgets. Once you get above them. Which , you could sign up for our web design mentoring. We’ll teach you how to get above that clientele. Uh, and it takes time as well. But once you get above them and you get to that category where they’re not necessarily always looking for the cheapest option, like me in my example of the bathroom.
I think that’s why folks get busier when they raise their prices. ’cause it signals to everyone, Hey, I’m not the cheap option anymore. Right? Like I No, that’s a great point. Yeah. To start off , the pricing, conversation, to get into the details.
I think the best place to start again, what John and I recommend is project-based pricing. Half upfront, half before launch. I say before launch intentionally because ’cause , you don’t launch that site until you get that second payment. , Even if they say, Hey, it’s in the [00:13:00] mail.
Nope. I need that payment before that, that launches anyway, I’m just saying that because I’ve been burned a few, like one too many times.
Agreed. Yeah. Agreed. And before we were hosting sites, before we required every client a host with us, we would launch a site and then you’ve lost your leverage because you don’t control the hosting either, so you can’t even take it down if you wanted exactly to, yeah. So don’t do that.
So, in general, half upfront, half before launch. Hourly pricing for ongoing edits is perfectly acceptable. We’ll get into more details there in a bit.
But I think the best place to start is to have what I would call a base package or like a base project price. And you get to come up with whatever that base package is. For me, it’s a five to 10 page website. It’s a custom. Design, it’s a WordPress platform. I also include a site map with some, research and analytics in there.
And then of course, standard features, which by standard features, I mean anything that comes with the theme that I use, [00:14:00] which is Divi, a contact form, social integration, you know, the stuff that is expected. I include all of that into this base package. Obviously there is a ton of room for add-ons and very rarely does anyone just check the base package and that’s it.
They’re gonna want some kind of add-on, whether that’s bill pay or other e-commerce or additional forums or applications or a calendar or a member area, some kind of. Plugin that requires setup and integration or a significant feature or like way more pages than, five to 10.
All of those things in my book are add-ons. And so that kind of racks the price up. , And , it’s all about being crystal clear in what’s included and what’s an add-on and what those add-on costs are. And , this is all part of a conversation that you have before you provide an estimate so that you know what they need, and that you can price it accordingly.
So have this base plan [00:15:00] package and then perhaps, if you are a little more advanced and you have a decent set of clients, have a second tier pricing package as well. That is either, like for me, I have a level that either includes e-commerce or the membership stuff or whatever.
Or it’s, beyond 30 pages or something. Like that’s my second tier package that has like a base price as well with add-ons available. So I think that’s best place to start. And then as far as how to, , okay, Kelly, what’s the base plan? Price? Mm-hmm. Again, uh, of course it depends a little bit, right?
So if you’re a beginner and you’re just starting out , and you know how to make a website, but you don’t have a portfolio, in my opinion, you shouldn’t even be charging for websites yet. Like until you have a portfolio that you can ’cause the first thing people wanna see, I.
You the first thing they’re gonna ask when, they come to [00:16:00] you. First site is, okay, let me see your work. Right? , And so , a portfolio to me is an absolute necessity before you can start legitimately charging for projects. And so build that portfolio first. Either do cheap or free sites for, friends, family.
This is the only time, this is an acceptable thing to do. Friends, family free or cheap sites and or go dumpster dive in on, , what’s it called? Upwork or whatever. Mm-hmm. Yep. Five report. Like just to get some projects under your belt and to have that portfolio. Once you have that portfolio that you’re proud of, don’t ever do any of that.
Again, free sites for family if you want, but once you have that portfolio, then you can start charging for projects. Again, this is my personal opinion. John will chime in here in a sec. , And then depending on your training and what level you’re at, I would say a $2,000 minimum for that base [00:17:00] price.
I, I literally will tell my clients, if you see a bid for under $2,000, don’t take it seriously. That’s not a professional. It’d be John’s, 5K bid for his bathroom example, right? Mm-hmm. So, yeah, minimum 2000 and I would say, , in a range, 2000 to $5,000 for that base package plan In that five to 10 page range, I know some people are thinking Kelly 10 pages is twice as many as five.
That’s a huge range, but it’s really not. Typically sites end up, I would say six to eight pages, right? With those kind of main pages, we got home contact about services, resources, there’s like those six to eight pages where it usually ends up. , At that point, once you make those six pages, , the 7, 8, 9, 10 are gonna be some sort of repeat of those first six pages.
And so it’s just, not that big of a stretch. So that’s why I say five to 10. Mm-hmm. Okay. I’m talking a lot thoughts, John. Well, what were those first couple sites for you? As you take, as you [00:18:00] take a drink of water. I, I first couple sites, we’re talking 2001 and one, I did, as an intern , for my intern pay, which is, I don’t know what, seven bucks an hour.
And then, the other one I got paid $1,000 for in cash in an envelope in a parking garage. Like it felt like a drug deal. That was in 2001. And I remember thinking like, oh man, I have made it a thousand dollars cash. So it’s hard to compare, our first sites with what we would recommend for today, because obviously the economy has changed.
Just a smidge. Yeah. Yeah. My first couple, a little bit inflation. My first one was , free for the studio we were recording in. And then my second one was my dad’s church website. I got paid $400 for it. And then the next one was a custom home builder that I got paid seven 50 for, which is just crazy low.
But the idea isn’t that, hey, if I build my site as a web designer, that should count. That’s a [00:19:00] portfolio item. Well, sure, of course. That is. But what if I only have two sites in my portfolio that’s gonna look like I’m not very good. The bigger point of the portfolio sites that are doing a couple sites first before you go out and charging $2,000 is there’s all the other things that come in.
That you need to figure out when offering a two to $5,000 service. So yes, it gives you a couple reps on customer service, gathering content, setting up some systems that you might not have because you haven’t worked with a client yet. And so I think it’s only fair to your future clients that yes, you give a couple clients a good deal and they kind of know like, Hey, I’m brand new at this.
Here’s my website. I’m only charging you 500 bucks, or whatever it is. But it’s, you kind of hone your process craft on those two. And then you know what, then go out. Yeah. Perfect example this morning. The guy saying, Hey, how much would it be for me?
And I know he’s got around 12, 15 pages, so I said, we’re a 10 to 20 page site. And [00:20:00] I’m not gonna scare him off, like, really? Right. Really? It’s probably gonna end up being mm, probably three to five, somewhere in there. But what I said was, probably, 25 to 35 ish, somewhere in there .
And then he asked about, what about hosting? , And do I just do GoDaddy or, and I said, well, we provide hosting. He’s like, yeah, but who do you guys use? I said, we use Site Ground. But the hosting when it comes to our $59, which is our base price for the hosting and maintenance, and maybe we’ll get into that here too, in this episode.
Yeah. But I said hosting is maybe a third of that. And so then I explained the maintenance side and the security side and why that’s all bundled. And it’s not just. Hosting, you know? Yeah. Which a lot of clients don’t know, yep. I know That’s because the fact that he said GoDaddy, means he’s been on that website and he’s probably seen hosting for 2 99 a month, right?
Five bucks. Yeah. And so then it’s like you can’t just come out and say, yeah, our hostings 59, no. You need to say, it’s not just hosting, it’s the other things. Okay. But going back to the portfolio site, I don’t know if we’ll agree on [00:21:00] this or not. But sometimes new web designers, instead of going out and finding two, three clients that they can do cheap websites for friends or family.
What they’ll do is they’ll make these fake websites that are like, here’s a healthcare example, here’s the thing. And I am not down with those. I’m not really down with that approach. I don’t think it does much good, my opinion. ’cause you’re still not working with the real client, but Yes.
Right. Exactly. I think the free or cheap method is better to work with real people to get that real experience. And to get that full process, from start to finish.
There’s a huge, long list of stuff , to go through there. And until you experience that process working with multiple clients. ‘Cause everyone’s different and that helps you hone that, that process in. Charging in the thousands is just really hard to justify until you have a few real projects under your belt.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Totally. Mm-hmm. But yeah, let’s touch on the add-ons.
Okay. As far as how to price add-ons. ’cause I think that’s a big question as well. I have $1,500 add-ons, [00:22:00] $500. I don’t go below 500. Any kind of add-on that I’m adding on is gonna be at least 500 bucks.
Because I know, from experience, it’s gonna take that long in order for it to be worth it for me to accomplish, that’s what I know I need. And so, plugins like a calendar add-on or an extra form? Or a paid plugin or a big fancy feature, like something beyond booking, you know, text, like a booking and photo. Yeah. Okay. Or booking. That’s a good example. If it’s something significant, look at the timeframe that it has taken you in the past, and I would put it into a $500 bucket, a thousand dollars bucket, $1,500 bucket.
If it’s something like going from a five to 10 page website to a 50 page website, I’m gonna make that, an extra. Two, $3,000, maybe even more depending on how many of those pages are basically repeats at the same page. So anyway, , that’s how I tackle the add-on pricing.
I don’t like to get super nitty gritty and like this add-on is [00:23:00] $49. This add-on is 79. It’s really hard to justify the difference there. I kind of put ’em into these buckets and then that way the client, when looking at, a proposal, they can see that base price mm-hmm. You know, that you’ve already talked about.
And then they can see these add-ons and they like having those line add items to know, okay, this is a significant one. Maybe we do that phase two, let’s do these two other ones to start that fits in our budget. That works well for me. I think you guys do something similar for your proposal pricing to show the base plus the, .
Yeah, the add-ons. Yeah. Here’s a story from one of our coaching students. She had a client that wanted to add a course section to their website and they wanted to sell courses and, they were gonna start off with , two or three courses and she was thinking of charging $500 for this add-on.
And we were like, that should be a thousand. ‘Cause just, going through what that value that adds to that [00:24:00] website for that courses. But yes, we do a similar thing where we will line item out the different pieces on the invoice, starting with that base price and then extra pieces.
Yeah, and actually another thing that we’ll do is if they have a ton of posts, like a ton of blog posts, and even if they have a ton of pages that , maybe it’s a, an eye doctor website and they have 30 pages of different eye conditions that need to be on there, or maybe they have a hundred blog posts and they’re coming over from something that’s not WordPress, they’re coming over from a different platform, we’ll price that out too.
Like, Hey, we’ll do the first five posts, we’ll migrate the first five and get them settled and we can video ourselves doing that and someone on your team can do the rest. For this amount, or if you want us to do it all, it’s gonna be this much. So we give them a little bit , of flexibility there too, where they’re choosing.
Yep. Yeah, I do that same thing with, e-commerce stuff. I’ll include 10 products or whatever. And the [00:25:00] rest, either I charge hourly for or I can train someone else, just like you’re saying. Yeah. And then our three base levels right now is just based on what type of designer you’re working with.
So we have a junior designer, which we used to call that semi-custom, but we have a junior designer route. We have a senior designer route, which I used to be the senior designer. I’m not anymore. Sierra is our senior designer now. And then we have a new level. We have elite slash work with the owner.
That’s now a new tier that we’ve added on. And so that’s the three main packages that we sell. Yeah, we did an episode recently on upsells and downsells as well. But yeah, , I always present that base package plan in John’s case, that would be their junior designer.
And then if there is a need to present a higher level tier, , I’ll present that. It sounds like you guys always provide a few tiers. And then, my downsell is a one page website that I don’t even present unless that base tier is rejected. And to hear more about that, check out the downsell episode.
But I just wanted to mention that, and I’ll get a little [00:26:00] more specific here too. , When you have help, whether it’s other subcontractors or a team, then you may lower your price just to get folks, ’cause you know you’re gonna make it up in the recurring revenue on the hosting plan.
Maintenance plan. And so when it comes to our junior designer pricing, that could come into play. Like if someone’s got a three to five page website, we’ll do that for 1500 because we know it’s not gonna be much work. We have an employee that’s gonna do it, it’s gonna cost us the same either way.
And they’re gonna be on our recurring, hosting plan. But I would say for the most part, that junior designer level is between usually 2,500 to 5K. Our senior design is usually between five to 7,500. And now the elite starts at 7,500 and goes up to whatever, 10, 15, 20 $1 million.
Usually 7,500 to 12 five, I would say. It’s pretty rare that we go up. Above that we have before. But it’s just more problems, more money, more problems , more money, more problems that’s our three for folks who are like, what are your pricing?
That’s pretty much [00:27:00] what it’s, and the only difference between those three , is the design level. Correct. Like that doesn’t include additional and correct design. The caliber of the designer and the number of deliverables they’re getting. So they do get, got it.
And we’ve broken that down before in other episodes, but there are some things they get extra as they climb up that ladder. Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. So yeah, let’s talk about the recurring revenue bit, as far as pricing goes. Again, we talk about this every episode. A huge part of our business is, literally over half of my revenue as a freelancer is now coming from a.
Recurring revenue, these amazing, these hosting and maintenance plans. As a solopreneur. There’s no way I would’ve made it to multiple six figures without these hosting and maintenance plans in this recurring revenue. So it’s that big of a deal. But we do provide three tiers of that as well, or I do.
I think you do too. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And so there’s a bit of psychology. Involved here. Basically you price the one that you [00:28:00] want people to choose, and then you have a higher tier and a lower tier, and you kind of guide ’em to that middle one. I mean, that’s, that’s how that you’re dealing with that decision every single day.
And it usually works like there’s a reason that people. Offer pricing like this. But yeah, my baseline, I figure I live in Colorado. I got a higher cost of living out here. My baseline pricing for hosting and maintenance is $79 a month. And that includes premium hosting , with site ground and everything that entails, which is, daily backups, all that stuff.
And then I also add on, manage WP stuff for, uptime monitoring, plugin and theme updates. , I do that every week. I don’t do that every day like John does. I also do malware scans. I offer reporting if they want it. Most people don’t. But , that’s the add-on stuff that the value I’m adding for that 79 a month.
Then I have a next tier that includes an hour of my time. It’s actually a very discounted hour of my time. And that level is 1 29 a month. And [00:29:00] then, I have a level beyond that. I honestly don’t even know what it’s priced at right now, but it includes five hours a month and I only have, I think, three clients on that one.
And it’s kind of rare they go for that. And it would be rare that I would even suggest it. You know, there’s a small group of clients that I work with that would ever need that much, that many edits a month. I know your tiers are somewhat similar, a little different pricing.
Save your tiers for another day. Oh, wait, side note. I do have a secret hidden 49 a month for my one page down. Sells a secret menu. Yes. Secret menu. I just can’t justify 80 bucks a month for a one page website.
That’s true. No, that’s a good point. Yeah, $59 is our plan. Number one that used to come with free 15 minutes a month, which was just annoying the track, so we dropped it. That’s obnoxious. Don’t do it guys. Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Learn from my mistakes. But all the same things as Kelly, you know?
Yeah. All that stuff, except we do no client reporting. I don’t even wanna, I don’t even wanna remind them. You’re reporting, you don’t do uptime monitoring either, and you don’t do Nope. Don’t do uptime. [00:30:00] So it’s just the plugin and theme updates essentially, which is , the biggest value add and security and the extra layer of security.
Uh, um, so that’s, well, not to mention if anything goes wrong with your website, we’re taking care of all of that, which is really where the value is. It’s in that when disaster strikes, the client knows we’re handling it and there’s not gonna be any extra charge for that.
So. So that’s 59, 90 $9 a month is the next one up that comes with one hour of support, like Kelly mentioned. They do not roll over. It’s, you use it or lose it. This ain’t Verizon back in the day or at and t. And then our third plan comes with four hours. But , it’s really unlimited.
We, we’d go beyond four hours. And that one’s 2 99 a month. And then actually we have one client who has. Two sites and they pay us 4 97 a month for hosting and maintenance. I do give a discount for, that’s the only time we should talk about that too.
Mm-hmm. But the only time I do offer discounted [00:31:00] pricing is to existing clients. So , if they do host a second site with me, they’re gonna get a 20% discount on that one. I have some clients that have three or four sites. So we’ll, we’ll work with them if they ask for it.
If they don’t ask for it, we don’t give it to ’em. But , if they bring it up, we say, yeah, we can work on something here. But like you, we pretty much have three clients on that higher plan. Yeah. In fact, we had a fourth one on that higher plan and they’ve been on it for three years and they’ve never hit us up for anything.
And I felt you’ve talked about them before. After a while they’re on the middle plan now. I was like, Hey, I’m moving you. . Their card expired, and they got behind a couple months and I said, Hey, look, here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna get rid of those and I’m gonna put you on the nine, $9 plan if you update your card because you don’t need this higher plan.
We’ll still be super attentive. ’cause she was like, well, I just like knowing that if I ever had something come up, you guys would drop everything. And it’s like, we’ll still do that. And the other thing is, we’ll do that. Yeah. About the higher plans. If someone says, Hey, I want you to [00:32:00] add this booking feature to my site, that’s not a support request, that’s a new feature request. That’s a new project. That’s a pro, that’s a new project. Pricing a new thing. So that’s a good point. That’s a good point. Yeah. When clients do make requests, again, that’s the time where hourly makes sense.
Right? Hourly pricing. And of course if they have a maintenance plan, it gets rolled into that. And then if they go beyond their hours, you charge ’em for it, your hourly rate. But if there are big pieces that come up, if it’s a request beyond a half hour, an hour, that becomes a project in my mind, and I’m gonna bid that separate.
Yeah. That’s what’s talking about there. Mm-hmm. Okay, cool. Let’s move on to, some outside the box ideas when it comes to pricing. And I know we have stories that go along with these. There’s a few in here that I really like the idea of and others not so much. So yeah, first one I wrote down was, payment plans.
And I know John had a very bad experience, like the worst case scenario experience with the payment plan, but I really like the [00:33:00] idea of this because mm-hmm. If someone doesn’t move forward on a website project with you, there’s only one reason. It’s the price, right? And so if you were able to take those two big, payments, the upfront costs, which is significant, whether that’s 2000, 5,000, whatever, if you were able to take that and instead break it down into this low monthly situation, like 2 99 a month or whatever., You have to do a lot of math there to figure it out. It just seems so good in theory. So good in theory that I implemented this once and without math. And in my head beforehand, I went from making, At the time, I was making about $8,000 a month to making 800. And I was like, wait a minute, what went wrong here?
Oh, that’s what went wrong. So if that’s something you’re considering doing, just starting out, I would say go for it. It is obviously much harder to make that transition later. But for the right kind of client, this might make a lot of sense, unless what happens to John [00:34:00] happens to you?
A couple thoughts. Yeah, if you were to start out that way, that could work. And I wouldn’t just do it for people who can’t afford it, because people who can’t afford it, you don’t want them anyway. They’re only gonna pay you three to six months and then they’re gonna That’s true.
That’s true. They’re gonna freak, they’re gonna freak out and, oh, my cousin can do a Squarespace site. But if you start it out that way, like, Hey, you know what, I’m flipping this thing on it. I’m a web designer that flips this on its head. I’m only charging one nine. There’s no bill fee. 1 99 a month.
And you know what client you always know every year how much your website’s gonna cost. Absolutely. You know what? I lease a car, my wife and I share a car, we lease it. I know every year exactly how much my car’s gonna cost. I haven’t been to an auto shop in 15 years. Okay. And so I know exactly every year here’s how much my car’s gonna cost me.
Sure. I might, if a tire pops, I gotta pay for that oil change. Yeah. But I know, and it’s nice knowing that you would think that, Hey, client, don’t you wanna know every year and after four years, let’s say I’ll build you a new one for the same monthly price you gotta build, you [00:35:00] gotta roll in that redesign in there.
Yeah. Because let’s say today they chose the senior designer level and they pay 5K four years from now that senior designer’s not gonna be 5K, it’s gonna be probably seven or 7,500. So it’s kind of a way client to lock in your price for eternity now, you know? So I do, I do like it. If they go outta business, that’s what happened to us.
Client went outta business and so that was a bummer. So they never got their full payment. But I’m not, the chances that happening are pretty, pretty rare. But yeah, if they decide at any point to stop paying, then their website goes away. So again, it works, in theory, so try it out.
Let us know how it goes for you. That’s, and, we’d love to share your story. Yeah. This is not something we do, but, I like it in theory, especially the concept of just flipping, the industry on its head, like doing something a totally different way. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I love that. Mm-hmm.
Another thing that I’m a huge fan of is trading services. I don’t do this as much as I used to, but man, did I get some great deals, [00:36:00] essentially under the table, I suppose? Yeah. I got a pergola made over my last deck, when we lived in Lincoln. That was gorgeous. I mean, it would’ve cost way more than the website i I created for these guys, but that was a trade I did.
I’ve traded landscape services, I’ve traded swim lessons, I’ve traded dance lessons. When you have kids, that’s a great way to get, services for cheaper. But, I love this idea. It’s something that has worked wonderfully for me. Again, I don’t do it as much as I used to.
It’s a lot harder out here in Colorado. I think that’s kind of why I stopped. I, I, at one point had the mission of finishing my basement based on traded websites. I did not get very far. The people out here are so backed up and busy that they’re all like, why would I want a website?
You crazy lady. So anyway . Have you had any success here? Your thoughts? I’ve had the worst happen in this too. So my massage therapist. Oh, that’s right, that’s right. The massage therapist. He wanted to go on his own. [00:37:00] I was like, yeah, I’ll build you a website. How about we just trade, massages for it, you know?
And so we worked out, I was like, Hey, website’s roughly gonna be, I think it was like 2200. It’s a small website, 2200 bucks. Plus I paid for photos, which was another 900. So about 3,100 ish all in. I’m thinking, I’m trying to be fair. With usually the amount that I tip, this is probably about , 1590 minute massages, and so we kind of work it all out.
We get two massages in and then he moves to California.
I feel like this is part of the Debbie Downer, SNL skit. What, what? Yeah. But I do have one successful one that I just found out about. We did a website for this guy who owns a violin shop here in town, and he just bought a well-known electronic violin maker company that makes electronic violins, and they’re like, the most well-known brand in electronic violin land.
And so Jake said, I am not familiar with this land. Jake goes, how about you make me a custom [00:38:00] electronic violin? And the guy said, yeah. And so Jake showed me some in progress photos. It’s pretty dope looking. It’s pretty sweet. That’s sweet. I actually traded, for my husband’s 40th birthday.
I was doing a website for a custom guitar maker, and I had them make him a custom guitar. Yeah, that is crazy. , I mean there’s like skulls and worms and creature, it’s right up his alley. But yeah, it’s super cool. Okay, so we talked about, so at your own risk, at your own risk, both for trading services, we have many a success story and a few bummers as well.
We talked about payment plans, but what we really talked about was subscription based websites, right? Mm-hmm. Where it’s this ongoing fee forever. Payment plans are another option where instead of doing two big upfront payments, like maybe split it up over a year, same problems apply, same pros and cons there.
But that is something I have done. I typically do that when clients ask, they’re like, Hey, can we break this up over six months? I’m like, sure. It doesn’t make a difference to me as long as, they [00:39:00] pay. Another option would be with templates that we like sell on Be Superfly or the predefined templates that Divi has, you can kind of make a productized version of a website.
Again, this depends on your clientele and your jam, what you like to do is, but having a flat rate with a very clearly defined, these five pages, with one of these templates, having that kind of a productized website, is definitely an option. However, in my experience, there’s always something that they want, right?
So, yeah. Okay. Yeah. I want that, but I also need that, you know, there’s always some sort of customized piece. Another version of this is the VIP days, which I did for a while, but again, kept running into the same thing. There was always something extra, always something else that just went outside of my productized box.
And it just made it really hard to try to fit. And that was the build the website in a day. Pretty much webpage. Yeah. Well, I ended up doing three pages in a [00:40:00] day. That’s what the VIP day turned into. I could do a one page site and a half day. And then it kind of turned into like a two week thing for my standard package.
And then it just kind of evolved back to just being my standard package. For a lot of reasons. Content being the biggest one now I offer Yeah, content with ai, which really got rid of all the issues there. Hmm. I could probably roll back into these VIP days now, but , the type of clients I get , there were only a few where like,, that was their jam.
And so the type of client I typically get, it was not a really good fit for. And so I had to take a step back and be like, okay, is this really gonna work for me and my business and my clients? Or am I trying to squeeze, 10 pounds of poop into a, I fell back here, what I wouldn’t like about it?
And it’s just, this is just how I’m wired. I wouldn’t like. Having to know like, tomorrow I have to do this. Right. Right. I have to do this. Someone’s counting on me. They’re gonna be on Zoom with me. And [00:41:00] honestly, there was so much pre work, like to avoid exactly what you’re talking about. I would stay up really late the night before and get a head start so that I knew I could get, so yeah.
There’s there’s a lot to unpack there. Well, it would feel like I’m going to the office and that’s why I don’t, yes. That’s why I freelance. I don’t want to feel like tomorrow if I wanted to take tomorrow off, I can do that. Right. I want that. I can do that even though I’m not going to. No, I agree.
That’s three point. That’s the other thing I tell people, I’m like, become a freelancer so you can take tomorrow off, but you never will. I mean, but you never will that, that, that’s that. But but it’s the feeling of having the freedom. Yes. Yep. And then the last one that I had for outside the box kind of ideas for pricing is like a profit sharing model or an equity type.
Situation , which is high risk, but with the potential of high reward. The one time I have pitched this is, it hasn’t gone forward yet, but it’s something kind of in the works and it’s, a client who wants to create an online course and she doesn’t really have the budget to pull it off.
What I [00:42:00] think it would be worth, I, I bid it quite high because I’ve worked on courses before and I just know that they, there’s a lot and it evolves. So what I bid was, hey, I will take care of the setup and the ongoing maintenance of it and the hosting and everything, but I want, 20% of all of your sales.
And the only reason I pitched that is because she has a very large online following, and I know she can sell the crap out of this. And so that’s another option that’s , I can’t even think of another scenario where that would even make sense. I’ve done one, I’ve done one where this guy had an invention.
This is when I was playing in country bands. And so , I could see the need for this thing. It was basically like a chewy, like a beer can holder that, that kept the can cold and then it had a magnetic piece on the bottom that you could store your dip in to keep that cold as well.
Or you could put, I don’t do dip. I don’t do dip, but you could put other things in there. You could put maybe your vitamins vi for the day, or you could put like your, like your car keys there or something else, like something else that you [00:43:00] want, I’m sure you could put other naughty things in there anyway.
And so he said, Hey, if you design this landing page, it was literally two pages , plus some consulting and some stuff. I ended up getting like 2% of this company that I’m sure doesn’t exist anymore. And , did you ever make anything from it?
Honestly, no. And honestly, if I was approached today, it’d have to be like something musical that I really believed in. Right, exactly. So , I probably steer away from that. Well, I wanna give, , I think one of the. Probably best pieces of advice that I have when it comes to pricing. But first we’re gonna talk about today’s sponsor Break into web mentoring.
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We’ll meet you where you are. We’ll walk you step by step to where you want to go. You’ll get daily access to us. So check it out, break into web.com, check out our mentoring program. It’s pretty dope. Mm-hmm. Alright, so I think my biggest piece of advice is , so when, when do I raise my prices?
When do I lower them? And one of the ways is. Well, , you do that based on your supply of time. Right? How much demand is on you at the time. That’s one way you can ratchet up or ratchet down. The other metric that I like to use is if everyone is saying yes to your proposals, you need to raise your prices.
Yep. If 10 outta 10 people are saying, yes, you need to raise your prices to where I think maybe seven outta 10 are saying yes, maybe seven to eight. That’s when I would know, okay, I’m in the air. I still wanna take on projects ’cause of recurring revenue, but , that’s a good comfy level for, that’s when I know pricing is dead on.
When seven to eight outta 10 people are saying yes. Obviously, if three outta 10 people are saying, [00:45:00] yes, you need to lower ’em, you’re too high, or you need to uplevel your client base. But usually to uplevel your client base means you just have to do more websites. That’s just , the thing.
But what do you think about that, Kelly? That idea? Yeah. No, I completely agree with you. I think another question that comes up with pricing related to when is when to state pricing. Right? When do I tell, do I put ’em on my website? Do I save it for later? And I think this was, this was, oh, let’s, let’s lay this out.
We got asked this in one of our coaching students. Yeah. Had their website pricing on the website for each tier, which , I am greatly against, but go ahead. Yes. Okay. No, I completely agree with you. What I was gonna say was what we do well, . The argument for it is that it’s a qualifier.
You don’t want tire kickers looking for $50 websites to waste your time, and you don’t wanna waste theirs either. However, the way , that John and I have, , gotten around this, , by still having a qualifier, is, all calls to [00:46:00] action on our website are leading to the form, the contact form, where, on that form we’re collecting, name, phone number if preferred, email company, website, if it exists.
And then the only other thing is, , what’s your budget? And it’s a dropdown and we have, , our minimum. Website amount as the first amount on the dropdown. And so that, becomes kind of that qualifier. And if someone is looking for a $500 website or worse, , they’re gonna see that, what’s your budget?
3000 or less. Then they’re gonna realize, hopefully they will get the idea that they’re in the wrong place. But that’s the only qualifier before we talk to them, , about pricing that we put on the site. Yeah. Okay. Fine, I get that. But why not just still have here’s my three tiers of websites and they’re, first tier is 2,500 to 5K and second is because they’re gonna compare that to theme forest and [00:47:00] be like, why is this $60 and this is 3000.
It can scare people away. There’s a lot of reasons. Agreed. My, my two main reason is don’t give them a reason to leave. Your goal is to have a conversation with them, and then , after they know I can trust you, then you can lay that price thing on them.
Right. I would rather educate them about, why a website is valuable than throw it out there , and have ’em leave. It doesn’t feel as tailored, doesn’t feel as custom tailored to them. Right. And you could put like, starting at, 2000. But I feel like that’s, I don’t like it at all.
I do put that , on my first introduction to pricing , that I send people after I do talk with them. Yeah. But it’s still such a, after you talked to him though, it was great. Yes, of course. Yeah, definitely. Talk to him before you talk about pricing. Even when people call, the first thing they ask is, so how much is a website?
And it’s like, yo, we need, you can’t, what do you need? But even in that call though, , they’re right away. They’re able to be like, wow, this [00:48:00] person’s an expert. There’s a graphic that we’ve all seen. It’s like. Uh, turning the screw $10,000, like actually turning the screw $1, knowing which screw to turn, 9,999.
And I, I feel like in that conversation, when you start going through, here are the different factors and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, , that, things that they haven’t even thought of, what they’re willing to pay you just keeps going up during that conversation because they realize, oh my goodness, this is the answer I want.
You know? Right. This person, or education equals education value for sure. I had a few other things, warnings to keep in mind when pricing. Ooh. Warnings. , One is scope creep. This is what happens when you don’t have Mm. Expectations upfront. And this is something that, that’s really hard to teach until you learn it firsthand.
But this is why, we’ve talked in previous episodes about processes and boundaries, and this is where that really comes into [00:49:00] play. If you’re not super clear and upfront with exactly what you’re provided and what’s included in the website, scope creep inevitably comes in. And this is someone saying, oh, well I also need a page on this.
Oh, well I also need this functionality. Oh, well blah, blah, blah, blah. And it’s like, no, no, no, no, no, this is not what we talked about beforehand. And maybe you didn’t have that conversation beforehand. And then you’re kind of stuck in this scope preplan, where you’re at their mercy to just get this project done.
So make sure you’re managing those boundaries and you’re setting those expectations upfront. Again, you gotta learn that the hard way almost, , all I can do is warn you. Mm-hmm. Drag out is another one. Mm. And this is what’s really been kind of revolutionized by AI and how we, John and I are utilizing AI as a copywriting helper essentially.
The other solution there is to have a copywriting referral to send people to, or you can do both, which is what John does and what I do as well. But having an AI solution to at least start on content for people. Otherwise, the [00:50:00] biggest. Cause of drag out by far in a million is just waiting for people to give you content.
So AI has really, really helped that piece of the warning. Oh yeah. And the only other thing I was gonna say was, and we touched on this a little bit, was with discounts and promos. Like , one, is it appropriate to discount your pricing to use promotional pricing? And again, in my opinion, the only time I give.
Discounts is to existing clients because the first thing you learn in business is that keeping clients, is way cheaper than going out and finding new ones. Like once you have clients, you’re all you wanna do is make them happy, right? And so even if they’re not expecting that discount, ’cause they didn’t get it the first time, if they’re not expecting it and you give it to ’em, that’s just, it just makes you more valuable, more trustworthy.
And that’s the goal in keeping those clients just as long as you can. And then the only type of promotion I would ever do I’m never gonna discount my pricing to a stranger, to a non-client. The only thing [00:51:00] I will provide is that down sell, option, , after they reject the original proposal.
And, we did a whole episode on that not too long ago, so check that out. But , any other warnings that you can think of, John? According to discount and promos? Well, yeah. We used to do a yearly hosting discount. They paid yearly and we don’t do that anymore. Oh, I didn’t do, we haven’t done that for years.
I, I just tell folks the price is the price. It costs me the same to provide the service to you whether you pay yearly or monthly. So that’s why you don’t get a yearly discount. Yeah. I do still have a few people who pay annually ’cause that was something I used to. Mm-hmm. And, and it’s funny, I must have started that in May because my recurring revenue always has a spike in May. So it’s May right now. So I’m having a high recurring revenue month. Mm-hmm. That’s good.
As far as my final thoughts and conclusions wrapping all this together, pricing [00:52:00] evolves, whatever pricing you think is, oh, this is my set pricing, this is it. No, it’s not. It’s going to evolve again. The economy constantly changes that supply and demand changes, just kind of roll with it and just having that knowledge, the mindset that, it’s never set in stone.
I think that’s useful moving forward. And then having just clear upfront communication and constantly evolve your processes, which again, the processes evolve from working with clients and having these learning experiences. But making sure that you are constantly tweaking processes and being as clear as possible with expectations upfront will save loads of pricing or of , just headaches, throughout the project.
Yeah, and I would say do some research on what your competitors are doing, if you can, that might give you permission to, I remember initially I was scared to even charge folks $49 a month for hosting Main Security because I know the true [00:53:00] cost of it., I know that I know how much it actually cost.
Or let’s say it’s, you wanna charge $3,500 for a website that you know is gonna cost that you 10 hours of time to make. Well, how can I do that? Blah, blah, blah. You need to, you can’t think of it from another web designer’s perspective, you know? Yeah. You gotta think of it from, like Kelly mentioned, the value add that this tool is going to give them.
And you’re gonna be around beyond the time that the website’s built. I get, a phone call every now and then from a client just wants to. Catch up and be like, Hey, yeah, I think our website’s pretty good. What do you think about this? And I’ll just talk to ’em for a little bit.
I don’t charge them for that, but keep that in mind. You’re gonna be there beyond the website build. Yeah. You’re their person that they call. And then when it comes to , the hosting and maintenance, don’t forget about the main security. You’re not just selling hosting. You’re not just selling server space. You’re selling so much more than that. And if you can articulate that, then it’s worth the 59 or 79 or 99 or 2 99, to the right folks.
So that’s what I would say. Yeah. [00:54:00] Yeah. Alright, y’all, I think we hit that one pretty well. That was a lot. Everyone. Thanks for tuning in and joining us today on the Web Design Empire. Be sure to check out break into web.com, learn how you can break away from your daily grind that you might be sitting in right now.
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