Commercial web design - how much?

Has anyone here got any experience of using a commercial web design company?

Regards

Hex

 

It depends what you want, but if you go to the professionals you can be looking at £2000 for a simple HTML/CSS based site. For this money you will get full design evalutation, training (staff etc).

Some companies will be able to give you fully database driven sites for £200-£300 but you won't get the same backup for after service. Also it is a good chance the people doing won't fully understand web design especialy accessability/usability. These companies are the ones that dive in without any proper consultation.

There is a lot of work involved in commerical websites as I found out when I worked for one. As a develoepr you often have to comply with stuff such as ISO9002 standards as well as web based stuff such as W3C.

I can't really give you any examples of what my company did for the £2000 as I had to sign a secrets act when I took the job on and the client won't be too happy if how much they paid for it was leaked out.

So really I say it depends on exactly waht you want, who the target audience is, what the traffic level is, the technical capability of the people who will update it etc.

 

I own a professional web design company and would agree with what amazingtrade has said.

Much like any other service industry, everyone knows someone down the pub who's brother's daughter is studying the subject at college and will be 'prepared' to do it for £150 and a bottle of wine but if you're in any way looking at doing things properly, you should use a professional company.

I recently replaced all the carpets in my house and when I was told how much the fitting would cost I *considered* doing it myself for a second. Now that the carpets are down and look amazing, I'm very glad that I did use the professionals and didn't go the false economy route.

And when I say use a company, I really do mean more than one person; and a company with actual resources and trackrecord. Most one-man-band operations tend to be either techies with a loose grasp of design techniques or designers with a basic grasp of coding skills. To do the job properly you need a current, strong suite of skills that encompass both aspects, plus knowledge of SEO and current Internet law.

Any decent company should communicate with you and display an understanding of what you're trying to achieve with your site, provide you with a fixed price quote before work begins, should not expect full payment in advance (although a small deposit actually works better for both parties), a scope of works/contract (that protects both parties) and should be able to provide on-going support for their work (as set out in the contract).

Of course, the best way to do your homework on any professional web design company is to check their client portfolio and to phone two or three of those companies and obtain their unbiased view of the service and product they received.

As a very rough price guide, £500 to £1000 should buy you a level of site that's actually worth having and be of a level of design that should not turn users off. £1000 to £2000 should buy you a larger or more advanced site, possibly featuring a content management system of some kind. £2000+ gets you into e-commerce, database and more complex sites.

 

i'b be happy to quote you for a site design and development. i'm not what you consider commercial though.

 

Silly money really, the software can't cost more than £600-£700 one-off and imagine how many sites that will design.

I have had a bash myself before and using Dreamweaver its not too difficult, I'm one of these people with few creative skills though but give me a design and I'm away!!

 

A plumber's tools would cost him way less than that and think how many jobs he could attend to with them...

Most electricians, plumbers, carpenters, mechanics etc. all charge more per hour than any web designers I know.

And remember that you don't just need the software (we use at least 6 different image/graphics packages alone), you need PCs, you pay business rates, you pay for a registered office, you pay an accountant to help you avoid paying too much corporation tax on top of your income tax and NI, travelling costs, advertising and then (gasp, the cheek of it) need to make a wage somewhere along the line.

You had a 'bash', with Dreamweaver? How would you intend to integrate an e-commerce shopping cart and payment system? How would you integrate a content management system with full back-end admin and reporting tools? Would you be able to set-up a secure server environment? Where would you have been a year later when the client wanted an upgrade or significant addition to their site?

With the greatest respect andrew, we could all have a 'bash' at any number of other people's jobs and professions. Whether we'd do them them to an acceptable level (certainly at business level) is another matter.

 

This is all true, did mean to upset anyone

Depends on what you want really, a small 1 man company won't be able to afford a full web design solution but a couple of hours with some cheap software could come up with something decent enough.

 

The problem is small one man websites tend to have no regard to users other than themselves. They tend to be slow and buggy and in some cases even break UK and EU laws. There are standards you have to follow even links have to have access buttons which have to be produced in a certain way. This is so users who can't use a mouse can navigation a website for example.

Producing a site in dreamweaver is likely to have many bugs unless you know what is W3C valid etc. I always ensure all my sites are now W3C valid and it can be a time consuming process.

In the real world as I said before a lot of reports and design considerations are required. Much of this is beyond the cababilities of a one man band.

I do web design for people if they want a website but they are never professional as this requires stuff far more invovled. Even little things like saving all the original graphics in a logical way, commenting all code etc.

This is the reason that if I ever do decide to setup a web design company it will be a LTD (to reduce risk), I will have emloyees and there is stuff like VAT to pay. £2000 may seem like a lot but compared to a beskope computer program it really isn't much at all.

I can wire in switches or change taps, but I could not rewire the house and that is the difference. When you pay an electrician it may seem steep paying £200 just to have a simple circuit added, but you're paying for his skills and the knowldege they know what they're doing. You also get backup if things go wrong.

The sad fact is that many websites do companies more harm than good and that is a result of corners being cut at the design and dvelopment stage.

As a final note on my website in the signiture there is about 100 errors in it I designed that before I got into pure HMTL/CSS coding. It would not be good enough as a business site.

 

Not upset, just pointing out the economics. It's like any other service or product you buy, part of the outlay is paying for the expertise and experience, something that take years, rather than a weekend with Dreamweaver, to amass.

You might say 'you would say that' but we find it's the one man bands that tend to benefit most from small-scale professional web design. A £500 site can do wonders for a niche business and, to put it in perspective, check out how much advertising space £500 will get for your business in a local newspaper.

A website is 100% off-set against tax and means you're effectively open for business 24 hours and day and as long as you keep up your hosting payments (which can range from free upwards) it's there for as long as you have a need for it.

As business investments go, a good website is a great one - a poor website is a bad one. Simple as that really.

 

The tools may well cost not too much to wield but the knowledge both technical and business behind the site design and implementation often causes customers to baulk at the cost of a well designed site. The cost of a throughly designed and delivered site may well look a bit ott when compared with "to do it for £150 and a bottle of wine" but as always it is up to the customer to make a well informed and business based decission upon the cost verses worth of such a venture.

All this is business 101 but you will be supprised just how often the ability of a customer to make a well reasoned business based decission disapears when it comes to spending money on something as vital as a well functioning web site.

 

Sadly, you're entirely correct.

We find that offering a monthly instalment payment plan often removes the 'one-hit' price hurdle but it is a shame that so many view something as intrinsic to their business' success as something to barter down to the lowest possible bottom line.

As I mentioned before, the concept of 'false economy' is alive and well in UK business. We have actually had clients obtain a quote, say it's too much, pay 50% less somewhere else, get ripped off and left with a site they can't/don't want to use and four months later come back to us and pay what we originally quoted.

Four months of no Net-derived business, four months of wasted time and plenty of cash straight down the drain. Still, you'd hope they'd learned their lesson for when the time comes round again.

 

This I think is due to nothing less than the distrust of a process they may know nothing of or care about even less about all fueled by unreasoned machismo directed towards paying what they think something is worth rather than it's value to their business.

 

Wow! Some really good information coming back, thanks to everyone who has contributed so far.

I like Juboys idea of spreading the cost over 12 months. As a new startup it takes some of the pressure off the finances and helps get a perspective on the cost/benefit ratio. Also the issue of compliance with legislation is something that hadn't even occured to me.

Aurics point about "the distrust of a process" is well made. If a design company can present a sound business case to justify their price and back up their claims about something as intangible as future service then I can make a better business decision.

The business will be an equipment hire company. I'm aware that what we think we need now may not be what we actually really need, but we have to start some where so this is an outline brief:

• Promote brand identity
• Allow customers to select product appropriate to their needs
• Provide a means of checking availabilty for date of hire and duration of hire
• then to trigger and booking enquiry form for us to follow up / later to allow registered customers to make an online booking
• give information about the company including contact details

So, are there any sites that you experts would recommend that follow this sort of design brief? What other sites would you recommend as good examples of the craft?

Thanks in anticipation

Hex

 

Whats peoples opinion of ecommerce packages such as Shopfactory and ekmPowershop?
Out of curiosity I had a quick play with a demo of shopfactory, and for simple online shopping it seemed to produce a reasonable result.
Whats the downside of this approach for a small existing company wishing to offer its wares online?

 

Sorry again if I upset anyone here, I know where you are all coming from as I have just completed my degree in Business Studies.

I have just heard so many stories of web design companies charging £30,000 and more for 10 pages or what can only be described as rubbish, I am probably over cautious but you all sound very honest which is very commendable!!

Andrew

Phill77 - I had a look at ecommerce for a charity I was helping out with a while back and the best bet would either be to use a professional company such as those above or a service from worldpay or someone, otherwise you will need your own secure server which can be costly

 

Hex, I feel that is better for the customer to make a sound business case to justify the purchase otherwise I suspect that they have very little internal control over the running of their own company and as such it may not be long for this world.

For most decissions of this nature a named person (one of the owners?) from the company has their balls on the line for the project as this does tend concentrates their mind and should lead to commitment and understanding on both sides of the project.

Just think of the time and effort people on this forum spend in pondering and wondering about their next Hi-Fi upgrade, now if you can't get at least that level of commitment and buy in from the customer then the whole project is well and truly fecked.

 

Auric, I think you've misunderstood what I said. If not, then I don't agree with your point of view at all.

If the company has already decided that there is a potential bottom line profit or other benefit then the next question is 'How much profit weighed against how much cost?' This is where the suppliers need to justify their proposals with a strong business case. That's what I meant when I wrote...

I might be talking to the best web design company in the UK, but if all they do is present me with a figure of £2000 without some justification when I have other quotes on the table averaging £1000 then I'll have no reason to spend the extra.

The day we have to make a business case for purchasing something as emotive as HiFi is the day we should all give up. Logic is something we use when buying toasters, vacuum cleaners and washing machines. It's got nothing to do with HiFi, and you know it

 

Hex,
So sorry for being a prat, I fear the Young's Bitter has got the better of me this evening and at my age I should know that beer and postings to fora do not mix too well.
Sorry.

 

Just a word of caution on off the shelf packages, for content managemnt. Often you cannot really customise these for what you want and they all have the same 'frontpage' look about them. Hex I think for what you want you really need a beskope database driven site which can easily be updated by none technical staff. It won't be cheap but I think you will find the investment will be worthwhile.

Try to find a company that knows about accessability issues and won't charge you £10,000 for a load of flash animations which most people won't bother using. In terms of the front end it should be kept quite simple, of course it needs good graphics but so many sites go over the top.

This is a classic example of a very poor website

http://www.5thavenuemanchester.com/

The HSS hire site seems quite good at a quick glance, it makes good use of CSS and graphics making it higly usuable and fast.

http://www.hss.com/Fae.asp?sysPage=wsHomePage&wsCountry=UK&sysLanguage=[BASE]&resetToGroup=YES

I think you're best bet may be perhaps to get a few quotes. I know in the public sector they tend to ask for companies to bid but business I don't think it works like that. The company I work for mainly deals with universities, NHS and schools.

 

Thanks AT. The HSS site does look very clean and easy to navigate

I see what you mean about the 5th Ave site...

Auric, Juboy - can you recommend any good sites?