Quote This Project! – Win a Billings License

You’ve gone through a week of Pricing Bootcamp, and now’s the time to show what you got from it! For putting your skills to the test, you’ll get a chance at winning a license for the Billings time tracking software!

The Client Brief

Read through the mock mini-brief below and then submit your quote using the form we’ve set up. I know that there is a stigma for many freelancers against revealing pricing, so the results will be anonymous. It only takes a minute, but please be accurate! Your honest answer will go a long way towards helping spark discussion with fellow freelancers and business-minded design types.

Disclaimer: The following is a fictional company, and is no way related to an actual client.

The Background

A medium sized fishing supply company has approached you about building a website to help promote their store and offer additional information for their customers. This is NOT an e-commerce site, although they will be displaying product information.

They have no website currently, although both domain and hosting have been taken care of. Both copy and images have also been taken care of. You are responsible for the design and development only. The client has a deadline of three weeks from start date.

Website/Design Deliverables:

The final product should include the following:

A six page website developed primarily in XHTML/CSS
PHP driven contact form for customers to submit additional questions.
Two different design comps of possible layouts (to be done in Photoshop)
Three rounds of revision (each) will be allotted for the website coding and layout comps

Edit: There have been a few questions about having to integrate a CMS to the end result. Let’s say for simplicity sake that you are simply responsible for developing a static page. If a CMS is going to be integrated, you have no part in it.

We’ve tried our best to include everything you would need to give a reasonably accurate ballpark price, so please do your best to give an estimate based on the supplied information. If you feel like something is missing and needs to be included before you can provide a quote, let us know in the comments below and we’ll try to pace it out.

Win a Billings License

As an added bonus, we’ve secured two licenses for the popular Mac time tracking software Billings, which is just the sort of thing that would help a freelancer or startup manage their pricing. Billings is set up to help you easily manage a number of projects across multiple clients. You’ll feel much less overwhelmed in the process, we promise. If you don’t believe us, just ask the Apple Design Award that it won recently!

One Mighty Roar uses Billings to help keep all of our projects in check, and it’s absolutely wonderful when working hourly rates.

Invoice Creation

We’ll be randomly selecting two people to receive a free license, all you have to do is submit your vote for our fictional project quote!

Get Quoting

The contest will be running until the end of Friday, June 26th. We’ll be publishing the results in a follow up post shortly after, so you’ll be able to see the general breakdown of answers compared to your own. Depending on how many submit quotes, it should be an interesting conversation starter. So how about it? Go on and submit your quote now!

keith Author Editor

a few questions:
1) who is responsible for entering content? Will I do it all or will I do some and then hand them off a CMS to do the rest
2) will they expect a CMS?
3) am I happy with the host they chose?

June 19, 2009 · Reply

Zach Dunn Author Editor

@keith

Good questions, we’re going to keep it simple:

1.) You’re responsible for placing it into the code. If a CMS will be used later, you’re not a part of that work. You’re simply responsible for the initial design/coding of a static page.

2.) (See above)

3.) You’re ecstatic. Really.

Gulie Author Editor

I would use project pricing model. Without any javascript(ing) or database interaction, I’ll charge this around $600.

June 20, 2009 · Reply

Rich Staats Author Editor

It must be a fictitious company because:
“Both copy and images have also been taken care of.” I cannot honestly say I have ever been so lucky.
But if this were the case in a real life situation (where the client had all the collateral in advance) I would be willing to give a solid discount, for the shear fact that I can see closure before the project has even begun. In the past I have had to work into the contract an absolute date for final payment if copy and other client materials were taking too long. Anyway, interesting competition I really dig it.

June 22, 2009 · Reply

Michael Kozakewich Author Editor

Yeah, the whole “copy/images taken already done” is amazing, and because of that they’d deserve a discount.
The php form is incredibly easy (either write to a file or send an internal email), and there are only six static pages, so the real work is in the comps. I’d imagine taking maybe two weeks, so it’d definitely be under $1000. Because there are no tricky features, such as scripting, CMS, or database management, the entire project can be charged as a lump sum.

June 23, 2009 · Reply

D Bnonn Tennant Author Editor

The fact that copy has already been provided actually makes this quote tricky. What sort of SEO expectations does the client have? I’d expect that in any web design project where I’m actually coding the site, a certain level of SEO would be part of the job. Are the title and description of the site considered part of the copy provided by the client? If not, does the client at least have certain keywords it wants to rank well? It seems incumbent upon me, as the designer, to spend a bit of time ensuring that the site has a good chance of snagging a nice spot in SERPs—that’s just part of good web design. But the copy and the meta of the site need to be carefully crafted, together, to achieve this well.

Additionally, I would recommend to the client against XHTML, for a number of technical reasons. I would suggest using HTML 4.01 or (less likely) HTML 5) instead.

What does the client say about these two issues? Is my job in this project purely to provide an attractive front-end + contact form to specification, which will then be passed on to the content and SEO specialists once I’m done? This seems a bit incongruous with the fact that I will be entering all the copy myself, but if that’s what the client says, I can do that. In fact, I’d be glad to just concentrate on visual aesthetics for a change (:

Zach Dunn Author Editor
@D Bnonn Tennant

If it helps, think of it as your role in helping to get a larger project up and running. In the interest of keeping things simple, we’ve limited the roles you have in the quote. We’re forcing you to not be the “one man show”, which should take weight off your shoulders.

Based on experience (as well as feedback so far) I know the usual pressure for web designers is to build all aspects of a project. This is an exercise in calculated your price when specific boundaries are involved more than anything. I would encourage you to quote based on the brief designed here, however unlikely it might be. This is where knowing specific values and not just operating in ballpark prices comes into play.

Thanks for taking such a detailed look into the brief though, your thoroughness speaks highly for your professionalism!

June 23, 2009 · Reply

rohnn Author Editor

And the winner is ?? :)

June 29, 2009 · Reply

Scott Nellé Author Editor

I missed the submission deadline, so I’ll just put my line of thinking here:

I estimated roughly 20 hours for design, which is pretty much just a guess based on past projects of various sizes handled by the designers at my day job. it could be a handful more or less, but it will be in the same price bracket either way.

I estimated about 15 hours for production of the xhtml/css, programming the contact form, and allowing for a bit of code revision.

Together that is 35 hours (give or take.) Multiplied by my regular freelance rate that puts my estimate in the 1000-3000 range.
.-= Scott Nellé´s last blog ..Browser Use in 2009 =-.

Zach Dunn

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