What does a web site cost, how much is SEO (referred to like pixie dust, sprinkled in and amongst the site), what is a PPC campaign going to cost me and what is redesign going for these days?

Just like a car dealer, or consultant – I get to answer it depends.  What do you want it to do, look like or act like?  It’s also why, when I hear about a “web site” in a box, or a package it gets me a little tetchy because there are so many variations, so many A + B + Cs that there is no way to really wrap up these in packages.   There are ways to  wrap core elements into a package and I guess that is what these particular people are doing but very quickly it moves into customization and there in lies the rub.  There are shortcuts and then there are shortcuts that look like shortcuts.

Also and much more importantly to me, it shoves my career and work into a vendor role, and worse a vendor role at the end of a very long process of vendors.  Perhaps in my own head, I consider myself a partner with my clients.  We work together vigorously to bring about their conceptual ideas to an interactive reality.  If I’m a vendor then, just put together all the hours and cost and *shazam* you have a bid.  From there, it’s about whittling down those numbers into the smallest possible number.  This is done through compare and contrast, looking at overseas vendors, negotiating – however the client does it.  In theory, this isn’t personal, it’s about the getting the lowest possible number and as a small business owner, I get that.

Except I don’t.  Because you are paying for me.  My experience, my 15 years in the industry, my feet on the road as they say.  You are paying for all the times I’ve launched a web site, helped revise a design that isn’t quite there, work to get the search engines to notice what we have done, drive leads into a sales process and in the end get the brass ring.  Counter-intuitively, you are also paying for what hasn’t worked.  And that, my friends is worth a lot more than money.   We know what works because we know what DOESN’T work.

All that is to say, I was reading one of my favorite sites today.  It’s Swiss Miss which is run by another Tina.  (Tina’s of the world stand up and be heard) and her post was on Design Pricing Models.  She got the post from David Dairey who was also discussing it.   I believe the following image is his – © him and all of that.  While they are discussing Graphic Design Pricing, I have not seen a better pricing model for what I do.  If I could put numbers to this and add it up, I would use it as a pricing template.