Can i charge like this?

[Markosef]

I was wondering about some issues when charging costumers.
I normaly charge for design and for hosting and maintence.
But i have some other idea, that i charge for rights of use of that design and it should be paid every year same as hosting.(the first year that is included into the price of web design) what do you think about this?? is this normal, do you do this as well??
what does your price for web solution consist of? and what do your costumers pay after one year besides hosting? also i thought that i can offer costumer that he can buy off whole design for the price of 2 or 3x of the price of the web design(what do you thik this price should be?) so then he can do whatever he wants with it and doesnt' have to pay rights to use it every year.

[erova]

good luck.

with so many other designers and developers who charge for the product itself, not the use of the product, you'd be rising losing the client to someone who's going to build it for them and let them do with it as they will.

if i was the client, or i was interested in contracting you to do the work and i heard this price structure, i'd look elsewhere.

[Markosef]

well it all depends on prices. maybe i will get some clients with lower starting price but on longer term they will pay more, get it??
but if they plan to have this pages for longer time they can buy off the design and have it all with source files and everything for use.
lots of firms charge for maintence (not including changing data on pages but only looking after pages that everything is ok) and take lot of money for doing more or less nothing, and clever clients don't like that, they ask why do you charge me this??
please tell me how do you charge clients, what does you price consists of??

p.s.
i also though that maintance of pages is included in the price of paying for the rights of use of design

[SteveFAQs]

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[Markosef]

I will just explain it in numbers.
Lets say that i will charge 500$ for a starting year and design of pages and 100$ ayear for design,
and you will charge 1000$ for whole life. client will probably go to me because of much lower price, but after 5 years he will pay more to me then to you, right?? so i go for long term and you go to short term earnings. so this is my logic he will be atrracted by lower starting price and when he starts using pages and sees that they are good and of use to him he will pay every year this money and in the end i will get more money then you and probably more jobs, right??

[chrisd9]

whatever you can get away with...

[mmoxley]

You'll get beat by every single client. Follow this logic using your examples.

Year one: you get a client and charge 500 for a design that could have gone for 1000. First year, you loss out. Year two, you send the client a bill for another subscription charge. They don't pay. What can you do to stop the client from keeping the content on the site.

Lets say you are their host, and you take down their content. You have now made ourself liable.

Just charge like everyone else. A slight bit of conformity to what the rest of the world does will go a LONG way.

[chrisd9]

...furthermore, and along the same line of thinking....

it says a lot to actually have the money in your pocket... besides the time value of that cash up front will rival the value over a supposed 10 year period...

(besides who knows where your client, or you for that matter, is going to be in 5 years... let alone any further number of years you would rely on to make more cash)

[MG315]

if you want to make money long term, just offer to update it whenever they need it updated for a small fee. but i suggest you get all your money for the design as one payment. (all mentioned above) most clients dont want to pay longterm, they want this to be a one time deal. what if they dont pay, what do you do. and what if they go out of business in 2 yrs. you just lost some good money.

[Markosef]

Ok first, if client is satisfied with your job and work you done and this page actually does help him in his bussines, and it should otherwise you failed in your job however your design is beautiful and inovative. So your clients will be glad to pay you if this site brings them money(in direct or indirect way). But i would also like to charge them whole fee in the begining and not have to do/think about this things. Behind this all is that I am living in a developing country and I am doing freelance work so i have to think of a ways to get to clients and get paid also. So this is way i thought of this way. If i was a big firm getting big clients it wouldn't be a problem to go for the whole fee in the begining. So in if you look at the things like this and you know that i had experinecne that when i got to the clients with whole fee in the begining i was rejected becuse it was big for them(and really it was minimal sometimes). Here is very popular delayed payment, people take lots of credits in banks, so in the spirit of this things i thought of this, i think it could go ok in my country, actually i got one client to continue bussines with me and i made a fee with rights to use design which were payed 70$. So what do you think now about this when you know whole background of this idea. Any other ideas how to take it to next level?? It looks a bit clumsy to me this words "rights to use" what do you think??

[enemem]

I do actually know a company that charges exactly like you are suggesting. They are based in Croatia and their target market are very small businesses. You pay for hosting + design for a year, min. 2 year contract if I'm not mistaken, including 3 simple updates (or something along those lines).

These sites are basic, churned out by students starting out, and would generally be regarded as 'crap'. But they do fill a huge gap in a growing market. The company hasn't been going too long but they seem to be successful.

So I would say - this is a viable charging method, provided that you target your market very specifically. It's not going to make you rich quickly - and you have to make sure you adapt with the times as the market matures around you.

- n.

[hurricaneone]

I'm not so sure about this 'charge by the year' idea.

Along with the other reasons put forward, I think that it is better to get paid once, let the site sit, then suggest a complete rework of the site after two, maybe three years.

If you had a good designer-customer realtionship the first time around, they will trust your advice and unlikely start a frsh hunt for a new design company, plus you get to add a brand new site with new features you have learned to your port and you get to up the price a little, in relation to inflation, let us say.

We're doing this right now for a customer, and the update facilities that we can now combine with the new design are simply light years ahead of what we put out only two years ago. The customer only sees a fresh new design, but the backend is so neat and clean, what took two or three days to update will take under a day to do now.