My wife works for a veterinary clinic. The owners want to update their website and have asked me to do it.

The problem is that the site is a template-based hosted site with online editing tools so I can't do very much to it. I can pick any one of thousands of templates but I can't edit the templates at all and I can't upload a new one (it's a hosting service for vet clinics all around the US).

Up to now one of the vets has been updating the page whenever needed. Mostly they want me to do some basic editing of photos (stock and their own), update some of the page text flow, and adding a few new pages, improve navigation, etc. There's not really much in the way of design work that I can do. Heck I can't even edit the CSS directly.

They've asked me to come up with an hourly rate that I think is fair. But since there's not much in the way of design I'm kinda stumped as to what to charge. Compounding this is that they know I'm just starting out in this field of work. I was thinking $50-$75 an hour range. Too much? Too little?

Would it be worth the effort to track down web designers in the area and see what they charge? Would many designers even tell me since I'm basically competing with them?

Help?

$75-100/hr sounds reasonable

I hate people who charge ships loads of money for something that takes 2 hours tops.

I am fairly new to web design as well. I charge $30 an hour. I've been told I am dirt cheap. But, then again, I can only do basic stuff, no flash or anything really awesome, so I am OK with my price.

I am running two sites now, with a third and fourth scheduled to come on board this month... it isn't a lot of work, and it is "easy" work, like you mentioned, simple photo editing and design, basically, make a template and plop stuff in.

I don't think your price is outrageous. I should probably raise mine.

*blush*

i always work for a set price, i can knock out a 20 page broacher site over night if they send me all the photos and text,that would be £80/$160 an hour, but that's coz I'm fast.
if i were you I'd download all the pix, copy and save all text and build a new site from the bottom up then you have full control, first thing you need is all the FTP parameters, if they are lost, so are you

http://www.freelancedesigners.com/

http://www.corinnecollins.com/index.php?module=webpage&id=3

Look what other people charge. There must be thousands of (freelance) sites.
For graphic work its about € 55,-- an hour here.
55.00 EUR = 80.4890 USD (http://www.xe.com/ucc/)

Google!!!

Down here in the south to build a site from scratch and be a student designer the charge is around 400.00 for the total site. So an experienced web designer could possibly charge more if you can figure out how to break it down into an hourly rate. I don't like to do shopping cart sites because that runs into databases and I am not an MYSQL person.

I think you can charge 50 to 75 dollars US for the work, provided it is on the bases of a contract that you do the work for say a year at least, or two years....

I am sure the reason for this template and package thing for Vets is that there is so much information that is the same for all Vets, like how to care for.... etc. And it would be silly to type that over and over each time.

And maintaining a site for a practice is not competing with web designers, so why would they not tell you?

Won't be any FTP. I literally go to a website and login and edit the site online. It's a totally web-based editing environment. I can't get to the HTML, CSS, javascript, vbscript, etc. The online tools interpret the DIV's and I can't even move them around. Basically I'd be a high-priced data entry person.

About the only thing I'll be doing is determining font, font size, font color, what headings sizes to use, placing images where possible.

Before you think you are charging too little, remember, this is a vet, if you brought your cat there, they would have 100 bucks out of your pocket before you could produce a stool sample, vets make globs of ching, and besides you're worth it, you are "Tofu TheGreat" so lean more towards $75/hr or higher. And make them hurry up and wait

also depends on your taxes. If you're in the US come the end of the year you're going to pay a lot if you're doing freelance and not having an employer taking out state, fed & medicare... I remember many years ago when I was between jobs, I'd take whatever I could to put food on the table. I got a 2 weekend job showing off, (gag) Microsoft software, at a priceclub warehouse and handing out free software sample CDs... it paid $18 / hr. That was a lot back in 1994, I was thrilled... until I had to pay taxes! That took about 50% away from me.... so if you can get more, ask for it, to make up for the taxes.

and if that wasn't bad enough, I've still got a couple boxes of that free software CDs... anyone want to make some CD clocks or a wallhanging?

It would almost be easier to do the coding and all the maintaince if you could get to the html, css, and pieces you need on the server. Sometimes I think those fancy online web maintaince deals are harder to deal with and more complicated than just seeing how the whole business is pieced together.

I worked for a time with an internet company that used only Frontpage and the whole thing was a big mess to figure out, especially when they were using shtml and more tables nested into more tables than ever.

My mind has to understand the hierarchy of the web pages. Some of the people I worked for believe it or not had no understanding of web pages and or servers.

For example, I was accused of mucking up the Great Smoky Mtn park page from my house some 60 miles away and I managed to do this without the server password. That's the truth, my boss asked me what I did from my house...... she though got her flash version and her non- flash version mixed up.

Another job I was just looking at the temporary internet page online and checked the view source of it to see some code and played around and another "enlightened entity" thought I was changing the web page......... lol people amaze me.

Not a bad idea, those clocks, you know that? Perhaps you can have a joined efford with some psc people, to create some round images, that can be used as clockface, that you can stick on those CD's, buy the clock work - stick it in a neat box and sell as unique clocks on ebay (battery not included).

That would be a little better then the cardboard clock face that I have here at home, that face is just as big as a CD...

The key to pricing:
Set a price you would take.....$50
Charge more than you want....$75
let them haggle ya......$65
Collect the $15 extra.......they,..feel good because they (THINK) they got ya at bargain price....you feel good because you actually got more than ya wanted.

if they don't argue price....you still kicking it in the Black+.

Ok jumping in here.
I have been asked to quote on some photographic repair and corrective work. Mostly under/over exposed stuff and water damage and rips n creases.

I got no idea what to charge,?

Do I go per image
per hour
or group lot

Approx 46 images colour and black & white.

Any ideas, oh and I get paid in aussie dollars so help me out and if ya can convert for me.