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Reading Between The Pricing Lines
| Written by David A. Farrell | Published 07-05-07 - Updated 01-02-08 | Page 01 of 01 |
Relatively few custom web design companies rely anymore on web development ‘packaging schemes’ to offer on-the-spot pricing for the construction of their websites. Many such design companies have moved to quote systems. Although it is not a perfect system for determining the cost of a site’s development, it is by far a better way to go when looking to have a truly custom site built. This is because designers that use quote systems at least begin their consultations on the belief that prospective client’s may want their sites to be competitive, not just ‘up.’
The Way It Was
A few years ago, the Internet was littered with package pricing schemes, all promising great custom websites with short construction turn-around’s for the least amount of money spent. But fierce competition among the many thousands of design companies that have sprouted up since then drove package pricing for custom sites into the gutter. (Good news it seems for the average consumer. But was it really?) Increased competitive pressure forced many companies to find ways to mass-produce sites, ushering in the age of ‘template-driven’ site development. Template-driven sites are not ‘custom’. They are basically hyperlinks with limited supporting content superimposed over a snappy background image. Content is kept simple and only generally to the point without going into depth or providing any kind of detailed follow-up information. The day’s business then revolves around the number of sites a company can produce rather than around companies producing websites for the individual, important, focused works they are.
The Way It Is
From this evolved two camps of website development within the online development community -the camp of the template-driven sites (as mentioned), with web design companies employing packaging schemes, and that of the online artisans (the professional, custom website option), with companies using quote systems. In between are those few custom web design companies still holding on to their packaging schemes in a vain and invariably painful attempt to provide both high quality at low cost. Though many of these in-between design companies tend to be a good deal, they are good deals only insofar as they usually provide their services beyond reasonable cost for services rendered. Basically, they are overworked and underpaid, and it’s only a matter of time before either the quality of their work begins to suffer or their prices are hiked up.
The Way It Works
A decent website should be around six or seven pages of hierarchically-organized quality content and cost anywhere between six hundred and a thousand dollars and take about one to three weeks to complete when working one-on-one with a developer. This is ‘rock bottom.’ Anything else may be a waste of time and money, especially if you’re planning to compete online. If time happens to be an issue, a design team can usually get the job done in about three to four days and should cost a couple hundred dollars more, depending upon how organized you are initially with your media and copy.
The downside of working with a design team is interest friction. Because design teams must be competitive, clients usually find themselves locked into a design plan with little room for on-the-spot changes. This is because any on-the-spot changes to the design (your interest) are usually difficult and costly to manage for a designer team (as many as five interests). Unforseen changes to the development plan of low-cost, quick-turn-around sites destroy the design team’s profit margin. This is the ‘vain and invariably painful’ realization most small web design companies face in their efforts to compete, and one of the reasons why working one-on-one with a developer is almost always better than working with a team. A simple rule of thumb here is that working with a team should cost a bit more than working one-on-one with a developer, on the order of a thousand dollars but not much more than that. What you’re paying for is the team’s ability to go ‘live’ with your site within just a couple weeks of your making contact.
So unless you’re paying the really big bucks for your web design (above and beyond the two grand mark) you should always hope to work one-on-one with a developer. A simple peek at the developer’s portfolio or website showroom should suffice for credentials. And while sampling the developer’s works, it’s a good idea to keep tract of the copyright dates of three to five sample sites, and then use a page ranking tool to see how the site has done since its construction (showroom works excluded). If the site looks good and has done well since its posting date, the company is probably a good choice for the construction of your site. If one or the other of these aspects is found wanting, continue your search until you find a company that can really get the job done. No matter how you slice it, it's worth your time and effort to find a good web design company.
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