How much should I charge to design a Web site?

There is no such thing as a real web designer - there is only good work and bad work.

http://www.dashes.com/anil/2005/05/pay-by-the-hour.html.

In my experience, "real designers" get paid between $50-75 per hour. So - if they are trying to save money - how about $25 hr?

A freelancer would be $30+ per hour. Minimum wage is something like $6-7. I think $15-$18 would be a pretty fair middle ground depending on how involved it is. (More if it has interactivity, less if you're just sticking to a css template and dropping in images/text).

I don't really know what a fair price is exactly, but I do have this advice: My roommate is in design school right now. According to him, at least, being a "Real Designer" isn't so much about the degree as much as your skills, experience, and portfolio. Design/art school is useful largely because it allows you to build a nice portfolio that will help you get a start in the field. So my point is don't sell yourself too short. You may not have a ton of Real Design degree, or a ton of experience, but if you're just good, that shouldn't matter too much.

Like gauchodaspampas said: forget about degrees. Can you do the work? If you CAN'T do a good job, then any amount is too much. If you CAN, especially if you have done it for personal sites or whatever, then there is nothing wrong with charging the same as others who are starting out. I had no formal training, but when I got asked to do websites (back at the beginning of the web!) I charged $35 an hour. I now charge $75, and it's still not my "real job."

I totally understand the desire to want to give friends a break, or do work for less where you feel less experienced or skilled. And I think there's absolutely a time and place for that. But I want to point out some of the problems with this approach. One is that people sometimes hire less experienced workers thinking that they'll get a value. But often what you might get from an inexperienced or production-level designer after a dozen hours of work might not match what a design pro could produce in three or four hours. By keeping your rates much lower than a real design pro, you might be inadvertantly be leading your friends into a decision that might cost them a roughly similar amount of money but still not deliver them the results a pro could have. I've gotten myself into this situation where I was the marginally adequate designer and regretted it. I've also done projects where I had a pro do the basic identity work and then took over from there (figuring I'm reasonably capable at production-level stuff), and I've been much happier about the outcome. Another problem is that if the project drags out for any reason (it takes longer than you thought, you start hitting your limits, aliens kidnap your friends and replace them with simulacra who are micromanaging fiends who keep changing their minds), you are now spending more time billing at a rate that's below what you might normally bill. This can build up some resentment and have a big impact on your relationship with your friends. So sometimes the best decision is to simply bill whatever your going rate is for your time. It keeps the economics straight for both you and your friends. If you are going to give your friends a break, do it as a gift because they're your friends, or because you'd just enjoy doing the work, not because of a worry about whether you match up to someone else's level.

I do freelance sometimes, and I'm definitely not a REAL designer/artist/anything. The people I work for are usually somehow intimidated by trying to do the professional thing, and so what I do is ask them to find what they consider a reasonable professional quote for their job (I keep a little spreadsheet of this, too, if they don't want to do it), and then I tell them that my normal rate is about 35%-65% of this, depending on what the job is. Then I say "However happy you are with my work is how much you should pay me." Sometimes I get more than the high end of what I quoted them! I don't know if this would work with everyone, because my situation is kind of specific.

If you are going to give your friends a break, do it as a gift because they're your friends, or because you'd just enjoy doing the work, not because of a worry about whether you match up to someone else's level. Have to toally agree here, otherwise it's totally unclear who is doing who the favor. Your friends think they're hiring you and you think you're doing them a favor. When they start giving you a zillion little things to fix, you feel like it's pushing in to "not worth it" territory. I'd say charge low level but totally not "I'm doing you a favor" rates of $35-50 an hour. If you want to throw in some time that you spend reading the manuals or learnign to tools for free, that's your prerogative.