What types of websites do you build for more than $5,000?
What do you charge for monthly maintenance?
How do you advertise/get clients?
How did you start out your business?
Other people that don’t fit the criteria feel free to chime in about your business as well.
Ecommerce websites, and websites for suppliers.
Charge by the hour. $150 an hour.
Word of mouth.
Set up own website. Found industry specific business with horrible websites. Cold called. Over delivered. Got recommended.
We focus on large established B2B industrial businesses. I spent much of my time connecting and networking with the size of clients that can pay larger fees. We are very established (around over 20 years). We have a staff that provides support so the client knows that service is what they are paying for.
I sell static brochure sites for $3500. 5 pages. Every page after that is $100 per page. $500 fee to add a blog. Shopify e-commerce sites start at $8k.
I’ve done a few $5k+ sites because of the blog and extra page fees. They’re just static pages. Information only. They don’t have apps or booking or anything inside of it.
Lump sum sites have a $25 a month hosting and general Maintenance fee. Hourly rate for edits.
I offer an upsell for $80 a month for unlimited edits, 24/7 support, lifetime updates, etc.
Or
Subscription sites cost $0 down and $150 a month, 12 month minimum contract. Month to month after that.
In the beginning I just cold called from google and yelp. Then after about 30-40 clients the referrals started to come in and my website was ranking well locally. Now I get all my work from my website and referrals.
I started out by teaching myself web development in my car while I did Uber. In between rides I was coding and watching tutorials and doing online self paced bootcamps. After about a year and a half of that I got good enough at it to start freelancing. And here I am 5 years later with a full time front end developer job and I run my agency that makes 6 figures a year working it part time. The subscription account for about half my income. It’s passive and recurring. I do less than 10 hours of edits a year. Pretty chill.
Here’s an example of an $8k site
An example of a $6k site
And a $3500 site
What do you do for images? Do they need to provide images?
How do you manage the unlimited edits without being taken advantage of?
For the Mad Scientist BBQ site are you using the Shopify API in a standalone headless setup? Or custom Shopify theme?
I offer an upsell for $80 a month for unlimited edits, 24/7 support, lifetime updates, etc.
Lifetime updates?
As an individual person, that could pose some problems if things get in your way later on.
I’ve heard of one has a domain bought from google, it’s a pain to setup, is that true? (Someone who bought a domain from google…)
Wow, I offer such services for 100 times less 😭 How can I get high quality clients? Highly appreciate your guidance in this regard 🙏
Do you include content or designs (graphics/pictures etc)? Super cool model!
This is the most chatgpt site I’ve seen. Congrats for swindling them
How did you know it’s done by ChatGPT?
If I’m based outside of the US but can offer the same quality of service, do you think it would be possible to get customers in the US? You can just be brutally honest with me, just need a reality check since I want to do something similar.
Any good resources for learning web development?
Udemy course. Zero to mastery by Andrei neogie
Did you do the UI design by yourself? Or you got someone to do the web design? Are you exclusively front end or sometimes help your clients with backend and hosting?
I work with designers to design everything. I’m exclusively front end. Hosting isn’t a front end or backend thing.
If you don’t mind sharing how did you start getting clients?
I wrote how I do that here
https://codestitch.app/complete-guide-to-freelancing#finding-clients
Too much to put in a comment
Thank you for sharing your business, this is insightful!
24/7 support for 80$
This is cringe. real 24/7 support requires minimum a 3 or 4 person team working on tight on-call schedules, it definitely does not cost 80$.
I prefer 8 to 5 support Monday through Friday, the client might not get support a Friday at 8pm. But they get guaranteed support during supported hours. With a “24/7” scheme you get the same guarantee Monday 10am than you do at Saturday 4am, which is pretty unprofessional if you ask me.
Great examples. Thanks!
What’s your tech stack usually?
From other comments of yours it seems you’re not using any databases, etc.
Do you use any frameworks?
Damm you overcharge a lot lol
And yet I’m booked for the next month and a half. 🤷🏻♂️ I charge based on the value my work brings, and if people accept it, is it really overpriced? Sounds like you’re undercharging to me.
I dont do this stuff, but I get my ecommerce sites build for $500 and they have great conversion
Your ecommerce was shit, something that I could do better, you are overcharging but you are great hustler just there will be a point where you wouldn’t be able to scale
That’s great. I’m happy for you. I am scaling Just fine actually. Currently working 11 sites at the same time this month and delivering them all within 30 days. I have a nice little system set up and designers and other devs that help me. Which is why I charge as much as I do. More people involved, more money to charge for. I or I use a boutique service that isn’t for everyone. I’m not a hustler. You’re just not my target demographic. And that’s ok.
The coding part is one thing - but who’s providing all the assets, the branding style, the web copy, etc. Are they all established businesses and then you code the site with what they provide?
Don’t even know you and I’m so proud of you.
I really appreciate you posting and sharing your insights. Clearly you are a great business minded person who knows what works and what doesn’t.
What about email hosting? I assume you include a custom domain name for each website, what do you do for a business that wants to use their domain for email?
Apologies if there is an obvious answer here
How do you get people to pay so much for such basic websites? I have dabbled in going freelance/own business here in UK years ago but the ultra competiteveness lowball offers on fiverr upwork etc made it near impossible or I would feel like im ripping someone for those prices. Instead I ran an ecommerce business for 10 years but have to shut down. Im having no luck with a job but strongly thinking of starting a developer/business business.
It’s not just basic websites, though. It’s a service. As always, it’s a consideration of cost and value. Sure, you can get something for a lower cost, but what value are you getting for that?
If you hire someone on upwork and he makes you a WP site, who’s going to be doing updates and content edits? It might be easy enough to do, but it’s something to learn, so you need to spend your time learning + doing the stuff. How much time does that take, and how much is your time worth? What is the quality of the UI/UX/Layout design? Does he do your branding? Does he help you with the content? What kind of performance are you getting with that site?
Those type of low cost service usually provide fairly low value. I’m a corporate web dev and I do the same type of static websites for small businesses as a side hustle. My value proposition is that the website is the core of the service, but I handle all of the tech and design stuff. I provide analytics. I ensure GDPR compliance. My sites look good on all devices and perform great. They are accessible and secure. The clients don’t need to learn anything new, or otherwise spend their own precious time on their website.
This value proposition won’t be worth the cost to everyone, and that’s fine. The businesses owners who value their own time and are running at a profit are my target demographic.
Still doesnt really answer the question who and why someone would pay 5k for a basic 5 page wesbite. Only thing i can think of is they are naieve. It doesnt matter if its WP most websites are word press and the client doesnt know anythig technical. The result is still gonna be the same which is a 5 page basic website service, granted designs can look better but im certain there are people that charge less than half the price for something the same quality.
Exactly and this is what I fail to understand. OP says is USP is that it’s different back end/coding from WIX, etc. So that justifies cost? I feel like a lot of this stuff just targets busy/naive/eager-to-spend business owners (which is fine) while convincing itself it’s something else, etc.
I personally offer my stuff as a service and not lump sum + billed hours. So I’m not saying $5k is necessarily a reasonable price.
Maybe you need to define better what you mean by a “basic 5 page website”. There are many different skills that go into making a good website. If your site was built by a team of experts at UX/UI/Layout design, coding, and SEO, then a $5k cost might be considered dirt cheap. If your site is built by a dude who taught himself WordPress and did his best, then $5k is probably going to be way overpriced.
The result is not going to be the same between the two sites. Not in any aspect. The team will build a far more performant site, with a far better design and better SEO. How much those things matter depends on how important your site is to your business. Of course there are going to be great deals to be made, and terrible deals, but mostly, as in any industry, you get what you pay for.
Different markets.
I’ve spent some time in the US recently and can safely say that there’s a lot more money in small-town USA. It’s difficult to envisage and was quite an eye-opener.
Unless you are a master-tier salesperson a small business in the UK isn’t going to pay £5k for a basic static html/CSS website in 2023.
How are you offering cancellation any time? Do you take their site down?
It also mentioned your assets, your domain meaning the client can technically remove your access and keep the site.
If they cancel, they don’t keep the site. It’s in the contract. And they cant take my code either. It’s being pulled from GitHub through my hosting provider. If they remove the nameservers on the domain dns settings they can’t access my files so they have no site. And it’s not like they’d know what to do with them anyway.
No offence, but those sites don’t seem any better than what you can do through Shopify, PrestaShop of Wordpress. I really don’t know how people are willing to pay $8k for something you can quite easily achieve by even hiring help from websites like Fiverr.
This is an example of a $350 Shopify theme. Customizing the template is fairly simple to your needs and the administrative panel makes is very easy for someone not technical to set up stock and manage orders.
Not to sound negative and I applaud you for finding business, but what makes your business attractive compared to all the options out there?
If that’s the type of site you want, by all means go for it. It’s a little bland for me.
And what you need to understand as someone not in the industry, dev work on fiver is an absolute mess and unreliable and you’ll spend more paying multiple people to fix what they failed to deliver or screwed up or not set up properly. Their support is non existent and when you need edits or have questions or need something fixed you will be ghosted. You’re better off setting it up yourself at that point. It’s a waste of money for a product made by someone whose goal is to spend a little time as possible to make as much as possible. That $8k site i linked already did their own Shopify site themselves. And they hated it. Hated the process. Hated editing it and it never looked good. They didn’t trust the overseas work or fiver and for good reason. That want something unique and on brand, that they don’t have to manage and edit, and that loads fast and works well. They can still edit their store on the Shopify dashboard and change inventory and all that.
When you have a designer to design it, me to code it, a Shopify dev to integrate the store, and a copywriter to write and edit the content, that adds up. And each are proficient and experienced in their field to do what they do at a higher level. People pay my rates because of the experience and knowledge I provide with the wealth of resources and people to handle all their needs and answer all their questions. we make a custom product for clients who want more than just the cheap theme or fiver work. They’ve been there and done that and it didn’t give any good results. So they come to us for something different. Something higher quality. And in a sea of mediocrity with builders and fiver work, we are unique in what we build and offer and actually deliver what they want. They give these fiver guys examples of what they want their site to look like, and they give them something that doesn’t look remotely like it but that’s the best they can do because their theme can only be stretched so far.
It’s cheap and easy to do your own site now days. But it’s not cheap to have it done right. It’s not always how it looks, but also how it’s built that makes a huge difference. And we must be doing something right because I haven’t done sales in 2 years. All my work is from referrals right now. So obviously it’s working better for them than their cheap themes they were using before.
quite easily achieve by even hiring help from websites like Fiverr.
Most business owners know fuckall about fiverr and websites.
You NEVER sell on price. If a person is that price conscious, they are not a viable prospect and you move on.
There are oodles of companies paying that much.
This is an example of a $350 Shopify theme.
That website comes up a LOT LOT LOT slower than /u/Citrous_Oyster’s website.
what makes your business attractive compared to all the options out there?
Because there are other intangibles that people want that have nothing to do with price at all.
Most people don’t purchase a business product or service until there are at least 7 communications with them. That’s standard. It takes a lot of work to earn someone’s trust. The way /u/Citrous_Oyster builds trust is his complete and total domination of the thing he excels at, which is static websites that come up in less than a second. His website that has a lot of valuable content. And trust is just one part of intangibles that businesses want. Maybe they just want someone who lives in the same city because they want to make sure they can directly talk to the website designer. Maybe that’s not important to you, but you are not them.
I talk to prospects a lot. If we have a series of long conversations, and he or she is serious, at some point in the conversation, I’ll send them a thank you card with a Starbucks card worth $10, and the note states that whether they use my services or not, I appreciate all their time they’ve spent. I can’t begin to tell you how many sales that has closed. Why? Because it shows I care for them as a person. I send out birthday cards, anniversary cards, congratulations cards if I have that information. It shows I care, and I actually do. Sure, I want their business, but if I don’t get it, that’s fine, not getting business is part of the sales funnel. Not everyone is going to buy from you. But people VALUE when I send out personal touches, they WANT to be liked, and to be valued as people. Who doesn’t?
Never compete on price, never.
Most business owners know fuckall about fiverr and websites.
Agreed, but your target market are then:
A - Small businesses that are cash-rich and willing to pay a staggering amount for a basic website like the $8k, above. B - Small business owners that are not happy with a self-build non-technical approach (think Wix).
Larger companies will have the means to hire help in-house and would likely already have a website. Overall, your target audience is small and likely to reduce over time when more self-build non-technical solutions arise.
That website comes up a LOT LOT LOT slower than /u/Citrous_Oyster’s website.
Well, it’s a demo site… It’s also a lot more complicated and advanced than OP’s website. Removing unused features combined with a good hosting package, and the speed difference wouldn’t be noticeable to an end-user.
Most people don’t purchase a business product or service until there are at least 7 communications with them. That’s standard. It takes a lot of work to earn someone’s trust. The way /u/Citrous_Oyster builds trust is his complete and total domination of the thing he excels at, which is static websites that come up in less than a second. His website that has a lot of valuable content. And trust is just one part of intangibles that businesses want. Maybe they just want someone who lives in the same city because they want to make sure they can directly talk to the website designer. Maybe that’s not important to you, but you are not them.
Sorry bud, but that sounds like a sales pitch again. The website also doesn’t have “lots of valuable content”. It’s a very VERY basic website that lacks all that one would expect from an e-commence store. Even the products page looks so amateurish that I would run a mile before thinking about making a purchase… Two items for sale and one image for each? With one of those images being pixelated and blurry? Come one, man.
I talk to prospects a lot. If we have a series of long conversations, and he or she is serious, at some point in the conversation, I’ll send them a thank you card with a Starbucks card worth $10, and the note states that whether they use my services or not, I appreciate all their time they’ve spent.
Again, a sale pitch/tactics. That’s nothing new and irrelevant to the website.
Why? Because it shows I care for them as a person. I send out birthday cards, anniversary cards, congratulations cards if I have that information. It shows I care, and I actually do.
No you don’t and you are lying to yourself. You do that because there is self gain in the hope it will lead to new business. I laugh when people kid themselves into believing “they care” but the elephant in the room is to ask if you would build them a site for lower margin if asked? Would you? Because if you “truly cared” and did what you did because you “cared” then profit wouldn’t be your main objective.
You’re talking complete and utter nonsense.
One thing I will say is the store is limited by the client. They don’t have a lot of items yet, and I asked them to upload better images for the one apron and more images. Just waiting for them to do it. The rest is not worth my time or anyone’s to respond to because there seems to be no reasoning with you. You’re hell bent on being angry so go ahead and just stay angry I guess.
I like how you claim I’m angry on the simple basis we don’t agree.
I’ve spent my career in technology, including web design and UX at a corporate level. Unlike some of your clients, I feel that I have a good opinion on what is good value - and judging by the end result, $8k for that website is not good value, even with the bespoke/personality services taken into account.
Much of what you have said also doesn’t make sense. Sure, website speed and accessibility has an impact on a website rating, but it also depends on other factors, including things like keyword saturation and general market saturation. In reality, a website loading at a difference of tens of milliseconds faster will have no noticeable benefit to end users - many customizable out-the-box solutions will be more than adequate for most needs.
If there was some uniqueness in the design e.g. something like this then I could see where you are coming from, but the design of that site is quite underwhelming.
Sorry bud, but that sounds like a sales pitch again
Yes. Getting new business is a sales pitch.
Again, a sale pitch/tactics.
For sure.
Why? Because it shows I care for them as a person. I send out birthday cards, anniversary cards, congratulations cards if I have that information. It shows I care, and I actually do.
No you don’t and you are lying to yourself. You do that because there is self gain in the hope it will lead to new business. I laugh when people kid themselves into believing “they care” but the elephant in the room is to ask if you would build them a site for lower margin if asked? Would you? Because if you “truly cared” and did what you did because you “cared” then profit wouldn’t be your main objective.
You can’t read my mind. Of course I do it for gain. The person who awards me their business knows this. They are not stupid. They are not going to get fooled. My sister and her husband just got a thousand dollar gift card from their real estate agent because they had him sell our relative’s home. My sister and brother-in-law and I, and everyone else in our family know that he did this to get more business for himself. My sis and brother-in-law are not dumb. But here is the thing: they say this is super smart way for him to get more business. They love it. He also goes above and beyond to help them with issues, far beyond other realtors. But they have a good relationship with him.
What you are saying is so idiotic. It’s like going into a diner every morning and the whole staff knows you, and you all laugh and have fun every morning, and say that the waitress and staff are reptiles and do not like you at all and only doing it for the money and pretending to like you. That is so wrong as to be insane. People can have friendships, real friendships, with their clients, while sure, they still want to get paid and get a tip.
Because if you “truly cared” and did what you did because you “cared” then profit wouldn’t be your main objective.
No. That’s completely backwards. Care goes two ways. A client knows that I have to pay rent and food, etc. They have to pay for their services from others to make their business go.
The only reason they would want me to lower the price like that is if they were exceptionally bad at running a business and can’t afford to buy things. A successful businessperson who makes a lot of money can afford it.
Those businessmen and women also know that relationships are very important. I’ve talked to business owners who have used the same vendor for 3 generations. They don’t even look at other companies, because the relationship is more important than pure price. I’m not saying that they would pay $25,000 for something that costs $5. But they would pay thousands of dollars per year more, because of their relationship.
You are making it all about money, as if nothing else matters.
But maybe you work in ecommerce where everything is transactional, and you have no contact with the end customer. Yes, then delivering for the lowest price might be ok. But people pay more for all kinds of reasons. Brand being one of them.
And in service businesses, the relationship is everything. When I say I care and want the cuistomer to do well, I’m NOT saying that I want them to adopt me or give me their daughter’s hand in marriage. That said, I do care about people I work with. Believe what you will.
It really sounds like you are a bitter person, who does not have friends so everything comes down to transactions. Where people are just objects. There are people like that. They are called sociopaths.
You NEVER sell on price. If a person is that price conscious, they are not a viable prospect and you move on.
Good luck with this attitude. I love how the “secret” is to act entitled to your price, as if that’s everyone else’s problem instead of the market telling you you’re over-priced or your product isn’t that valuable, etc.
Guy above you is right; it looks like a basic website. The only person that’s going to pay out the ass is the person that can be convinced they need to/have no clue they’re getting taken for a ride by someone convinced their own product is worth that price, etc.
I’m not saying to try to sell a website for $20 million.
However, I’ve actually sold websites for $3K+. This is not theory.
If you want to create websites like they do in Pakistan and want to charge $50, because that’s what Pakistanis can do, hey, knock yourself out. You can make up for the low price by selling in volume.
onedaywebsite.ca started out doing Wordpress sites for $299 back in 2011. It turns out that going for the cheapest also means the cheapest and heaviest complaining clients. We now charge $5k yearly as a base, but we not only convert static sites over to Jamstack (from wix/wordpress/squarespace) but we help with business and conversion throughout the year (SEO, SEM, optimization). We’ve never advertised in over a decade, it’s all through word of mouth referrals. Entertainingly, our website sucks, but again, we’ve never got a customer through the website yet, but if things ever slow down we’ll likely work on that, “eating our own dog food”…
I assume what you’re after is how to move upstream and get more valuable clients.
When I talk to people about this I use this simple mental exercise. There are solo startups or people who are doing a side hustle who just don’t have money yet and they’re a fine fit for DIY or a cheap contractor.
However, there are TONS of businesses out there with 15+ employees, even that is a pretty small business. 15 plus employees * average salary of $5,000/mo and that business is spending $75,000/mo just on salary to existing employees.
Now, this business wants to get an increase in traffic, leads, conversions and sales. They need to think of their website as part of their sales and marketing team.
Sure, you could pay $5,000 one-time and get an okay new website.
But what if you invested $5,000/mo in what is a sales and marketing employee that works 24/7 for you. What could $5,000/mo investment in getting more leads and sales do for their business?
This shifts their mindset a ton. People want to buy things. People love to buy expensive things. People want the best.
Maybe you sell them a website they pay off over 3 months at $5,000/mo.
Maybe you get them in a digital marketing agreement that the first 3 months is for a new website and the next 8 months of that year is for marketing investment.
People selling cheap things will never get big clients. They can try and justify it’s better, and maybe they are able to make a better one. But REAL, PROFITABLE businesses want to spend money on things.
You’re absolutely right. People with an abundance mindset want to pay more, because in their minds that indicates they are getting the best deal.
What kind of marketing would you say can be sold as part of the website package? SEO?
I keep reading these comments and i am blown away.
It’s not that people are doing something mind blowing some cutting edge stuff it’s basics.My mind has been clouded by novelty and startups and nice to have things.
What’s a simple recipe that i can follow so that i earn anything?My knowledge is with backend JVM but i know my way around frontend and mobile development (react native).
F
As other fellow redditors I am in many subreddits and threads. This one by far has been the most valuable. Even the comments are great questions and amazing answers by OP. I have had 1000 questions regarding this, somehow, they have been asked & answered here.
I teach drivers ed and probably 50% of the kids say they want to major in business. I tell them to follow this sub.
I run an enterprise development group. WordPress Projects start at 50k and up. Retainers start at 5k.
Our typical 200k WordPress site is built for large organizations and involve various client stakeholder groups being involved in the process for almost a year.
Business is growing.
World of difference from your mom and pop entrepreneur needing a plug and play Divi/Elementor site.
how complex do these builds get? seems interesting to rely on wordpress at that level
It seems like you need to learn sales and marketing to be able to articulate better the value you bring. Instead of selling them a product, sell them on a value.
I am not a web developer, but I can answer your questions based on recent experience a friend of mine had.
He is in the finance space - I think this contributed to the hefty price in the quote ($15K to build a WP site). I told him that was too much considering his existing site has less than 50 pages and it wouldn’t be customized (using an existing WP theme).
Monthly maintenance was going to be around $8K - but the firm would write and post articles along with building backlinks and working on SEO.
The agency works specifically with finance companies, so they do a lot of networking. Also they were published in Forbes, which is what made them more appealing to his company.
My tip here for you, is to get published in the place(s). Also, a lot of smaller companies, prefer local developers, so use local SEO strategies, like Google My Business to start getting clients.
I don’t know how they started out their business, but you will get a lot of traction with local SEO and outreach.
Hope this helps and best wishes!
I currently own and operate my own agency. Been in business since 2011. I started as a solo developer doing basic WP theme-based sites for 1-2K. In my early days I primarily used Google Ads + content marketing/SEO to generate leads.
Fast forward to today, I have a small team now and our average website budget is 20-25K. We will sometimes take on smaller budget projects if there is a recurring revenue opportunity (like SEO, PPC, etc.).
We sell pre-paid website support retainers (25 hour minimum @ $150/hr). Since most of our projects are a bit more complex (API integrations, custom eCom, B2B portals, etc.), 70-80% of our clients purchase one eventually.
Even though I’ve operated this business for over a decade it wasn’t until the last couple of years that we found ourselves attracting leads with higher budgets. I attribute our recent success to the amount of Google reviews we have and deep portfolio in B2B and eCommerce that took over a decade to build.
Best of luck on your journey!
Trying to figure out how to make $1k-$2k. Any thoughts?
I would set up an Upwork or Fiverr profile for project-based work. I just created starterhive.com which connects startups/people with cool business ideas with talent and also offers equity as compensation. Either of these three options should help you out!
Very cool concept. How’s the uptake?
-E-commerce websites mainly is what we do. Average price is $18,000. -$1299 for monthly maintenence. -referral basis only -started it by selling websites to people i already had professional relationships with.