2. Don’t be a afraid of the ‘how much does it cost’ question
10October 11, 2013 by Joel_Hughes
When I first hung up my contracting hat* and decided that I would no longer sell hours sat at a desk at an agency I found myself with a problem. Actually, I found myself with many problems but today I just want to focus on one: what they hell do you say when a potential client asks “so, how much do you charge for a website?“.
(*I didn’t really own an hat)
Errrrrrr?
The first time someone asked me this I was completely flummoxed – my mind was turning over thinking “yeah, but surely they know you can’t just give a price?“. But the confidence with which some people ask this question can be disarming; lulling you into thinking that this should be an easy question to answer. To someone new to running a web design business it can feel like you are somehow wrong or lacking for not being able to answer it.
“Why can’t I answer this simple question? I’m crap at business aren’t I!? I KNEW it! I’ve never been able to haggle! Is that the problem?! I should give up! ARRGGH!! (etc)”
…all because someone asked you the price.
SO, what IS the price?
It’s not unreasonable to be asked how much our services cost. Now, if the answer is not simple then it’s up to us to frame the answer and to help educate the client. E.g. if I feel it will benefit the client, I’ll explain to them that the question is a little like asking “how much is a house?”; it depends. But bear in mind, the goal here isn’t to make the client feel like an idiot because they don’t know how to engage our services.
And bear in mind that the client is sort of used to talking about prices because of:
- What his/her last website cost
- Or what ‘man down the pub‘ says a website should cost
- Or what Mr Site charges…
So many clients have been conditioned that there is a finite cost to these things.
And that’s fair enough; there IS a finite cost; it’s just that different people add different things into the mix* and, hey nonny nonny, the end result cost is different.
(*And explaining to the client all those different things which go into your mix which make you better than the competition, that’ll be for another article).
Answer the bloody question!
But an answer to this question is quite rightly needed; we have to get used to talking about money; it’s not a dirty word. In fact, if we don’t get the money question right then our business won’t be around long anyway.
In the early days I think I would dance around the topic of money for quite a while as I knew it would be an uncomfortable conversation (for me rather than the client). End result? Time wasted on meetings etc with people who are simply not in your budget range; you can’t let your time get wasted like that; as that is time which should be spent on something more productive.
Cut to the chase
So, with a new potential client, one** of my prime goals is to make sure they are not a tyre kicker; to make sure that their idea of budget and mine exist in the same financial solar system. I’ll do something like this:
“Ok, have you seen my website? There are some previous projects on there as well as example costings“
or more bluntly…
“As a guide, my marketing websites are typically around £5K but that obviously does depend on your particular needs”
…if that doesn’t scare the horses then it is time for a meeting. I like to go for a meeting with (sensible) clients early as exchanges of emails (and indeed the telephone) just isn’t as warm and engaging as a face to face meeting; people buy from people. If you’re like me, you’re quite uncomfortable with the concept of selling but you are comfortable talking about web stuff and how it can benefit people; potential clients pick up on that enthusiasm and knowledge and buy into it.
In an upcoming article I’ll talk you through how I next shape their requirements into a proposal. E.g. I have some packaged services but I tend not to introduce these until face-to-face meetings as they are really a scope guiding tool.
Anyone else have any nuggets with fielding “how much does a website cost” type questions?
Joel
p.s. oh, there is also a school of thought that says if there is not an intake of breath when you tell someone your costs; you’re not charging enough. Just because other people are cheap does not mean you have to be.
(**there are other goals at this stage, i.e. do I want to work with this person? Do I think we are a good mix? Not every client is right for you. )
Hey Joel,
Like everyone else at some point, we have been asked and answered the same question and we take a slightly different approach as we use feature based quotes instead of a fixed price because frankly I’ve never worked on a project that hasn’t at some point changed in spec/deliverables somewhere along the line.
We wrote a big blog post about it going over more detail https://offroadcode.com/blog/1519/how-we-use-feature-based-development-to-give-better-quotes/
Also, we built “What does a website cost?” to give people an idea for the many things that could go into one! http://whatdoesawebsitecost.co.uk/
J.
Hi James,
thanks for stopping and letting me know those cracking links. Much appreciated :)
Joel
So, how much *does* it cost? :)
I tend to answer with, “it depends on what you need, most of my sites cost around £XXXX, but if you need some custom features making it can push the price up. Likewise, if you only need a couple of pages without any fancy whizz-bang, then it’ll most likely be less”
I’m trying hard to move towards value based pricing, but finding it tricky to skip round this question early on.
Hi Sean,
thanks for stopping by. Your approach sounds pretty solid; would be great to chat to you at some point as we seem to have had similar experiences!
I was listening to you talk about value pricing on the Freelance Web podcast this morning. This is something I’m interested in but it’s not something I overtly talk to the client about; I take what I think they can afford into my pricing mix. Put another way, my proposal is not simply a break down of hours.
Joel
p.s. today’s random website price is £47,965.32 (+VAT)
Haha, liking today’s random website price Joel ;-)
Pricing discussions are fundamental to business, and an area that all web designers and agencies have to deal with.
As we grow as service providers and start realising the value we can add to clients’ businesses, our confidence should spur us on and not be ashamed of higher pricing. Those that don’t have the necessary budgets can keep walking. It’s all about value, as you rightly say.
Another fundamental shift in my approach to pricing is educating customers about the importance of scoping, planning and wireframing and that it *is* valuable work (bit of an understatement).
I rant along these lines on my recent blog post! http://blog.jonjackson.co.uk/post/63730943717/so-youd-build-a-house-without-blueprints – feel free to comment, appreciate everyone’s input.
What gets me sometimes is that the time I spend with prospects and the amount of advice and expertise that I can (and do) offer to them is not always appreciated. Do they realise how much knowledge and experience they are benefiting from? Often not.
All that aside, great post Joel. Look forward to many more to come.
Hi Jon,
many thanks for stopping by & the kind words. You make some great points there.
“As we grow as service providers and start realising the value we can add to clients’ businesses,”
Agree if you think you are simply producing a website then you are up against Mr Site. However, most of the good web folks I know go waaaaaay beyond just building a website (but they don’t always realise it).
“Another fundamental shift in my approach to pricing is educating customers about the importance of scoping, planning and wireframing and that it *is* valuable work”
Agree. This is the essential part. The execution of the idea can actually be the easy part / it’s all about the planning. I try hard to communicate the value of my process to clients and it’s important that they buy into this; the good thing is that leads who don’t buy into the process don’t become my clients #ProblemSolved
“Do they realise how much knowledge and experience they are benefiting from? ”
And this is one reason I talk about “web strategy” or “internet strategy” with clients; there’s a lot of experience which is being brought to bear for their website; which, for many people, is a massive part of their business – so, in truth, in many circumstances we are actually working ON their business & developing / the website is then just an artefact of that.
You can’t throw a stick without hitting someone who can build a website nowadays. However, helping shape what a business is doing online based on years of proven experience; that’s a different matter. I think most web designers need better positioning (and should probably avoid the phrase ‘web designer’).
Joel
I have so much trouble with this. Just yesterday I was asked to give a ballpark quote for a large custom plugin for a site I did*. I had no idea what to say and lowballed myself. DAMN. I love that you list guide prices on your site, Joel.
I do, very often, refer people to the free diy sites and explain that if they don’t have much money, those are fine.
*it was a cheap and fast website, the code makes me cringe every time I see it which doesn’t help matters.
Here’s something which I sometimes do: if I feel like I’m being pressured into a price and I’m not quite ready*, I’ll buy myself some breathing space with “ok, I’m going to need some time to come up with an accurate price on that”.
(*ballpark, back of a fag packet prices are dangerous as, even though a client says that they won’t hold you to it, they’ll hold you to it ;)
You really, really, really can’t be doing projects for less than you should be getting. Not only does that obviously put less money in your bank but it’ll piss you off; and perhaps mean that the project always rankles with you / which is (sorry!) your fault for not getting the money you wanted (not the clients).
Prices on my site helps a lot. It stops time waters from contacting me and it qualifies the sensible people.
Joel
I know I know! If you had a primer on pricing things you haven’t done before, that’d be helpful as well. I mean, I’d be happy to get paid anything for the ajax contact form I sat down and did correctly (as opposed the the ones that worked but weren’t quite correct and just so) today. That was the main problem with pricing the plugin – not getting ajax playing happily with WP, I mean, but the not having done anything like it before.
It helps that they’re lovely clients and I really like working with them. Jon said: “Do they realise how much knowledge and experience they are benefiting from? Often not.” Luckily they are not like that at all!
[…] — Newcastle’s best breakfast? (possibly) Work for Money, Design for Love book Joel Hughes’ “Don’t be a afraid of the ‘how much does it cost’ question” blo… Sarah Parmenter’s “Why I Can’t Build a Website for £500″ blog post What […]