How much should I charge my ex's mom to make her website?

Hello, As of I know, you can charge a flat price of $300 as she is your ex-mom. She may feel happy and help you out in some other way next time.:) Thanks! Fiona Allen

Do it for a home cooked meal. Did she ever charge you for anything?

Typically freelance work pays 1/3 to 1/2 the hourly rate of a firm. If you're firm charges $100 an hour for the work and you want to give an estimate for the project you would give a low estimate of $300. If you wish you can set a cap at $500 or even $900. However, you need to take you're actual skills into account. If you're focus is in on configuration and a professional graphics designer can do the same quality of work in half the time you would need to discount the estimate based on that. You of course also need to take into account expenses, you'll need to get an understanding about how much image editing she needs, whether she actually needs a Drupal site, which wouldn't be given the power it needs by a shared host and needs to be maintained, logo design, the development of content, and the hire of photographers or the purchase of stock photography. The last thing you want to do is under charge a business, whether owned by your ex-mother in law or not. She would expect minimum wage pay for continued services.

I think I would sit down with her and explain that with a $50 (even$200) she will be wasting her time and money (if for commercial purposes). i would explain that a well designed and coded website with a bit of continuing SEO is the only way to go. As you say your company would charge $100 an hour so the site (alone) would cost between $1000 & $3000. But, of course, it depends whether you have the spare time, if you could do with the cash and how good you are. As an example my son is charging his bro-in-law £50 per month for design and continuing SEO (but they know the business is worth the investment), So that's £600 for the site and SEO (non-mates rate would be double). If the job is worth doing, do it right and charge the proper rate!

Before you do any work, I would draw up a contract. It shouldn't take more than 10 min to type up on your computer. For example, state that she'll provide you with the basic information she wants (for example, the address, telephone, store hours, what she wants listed) by a certain date. You will provide a quote for the total cost of building a website. You will provide a 'beta' version for her to approve by a certain date. She will submit request revision to you be a certain date and the website will be finalized by [date]. Also, mention any ongoing domain fees she needs to pay (ex- she needs to pay GoDaddy $25 a year to keep the name). Both parties should sign the contract before you begin any work. I think it would be unfair to ask for anything near the rate that you get at a professional company. The $100/hr charge is not just for your work- it's for the company's reputation too. I would stick with the $20/hr range. NEVER do any freelance work without a contact!!!!! Even if it's for someone you know- you must have a contract. If she balks- you walk and tell her to go somewhere else for her website and pay full price.