Hello...
First I'd like to say...Thank you to many advisers and users here! Though I have never posted in this forum before, I have read the expertise found in these threads many times over the years and have learned a lot here. The helped I've received here and through cc's support room has been truly appreciated...and any help you can give me in reference to the following queries will be equally appreciated! (I'm fairly new to RSD)

1. Updating/Making changes to a page;
Using CC's HTML editor I could design a website for someone who could then open it in most any HTML editor in order to change/update its content. But can you design a website using RSD without the person needing to buy and learn RSD in order to be able to update and change content on their own?

How do you handle those situations when someone doesn't want to, or cannot afford to, pay for your services every time they want to change some content on an RSD built website? Simple changes can be made with an FTP's edit function...But what about more complex changes?
I've tried opening an rsd-html file in cc's HTML editor, but it doesn't preview the page properly and I'm guessing it can't be done or I just don't know how to do it.

2. Website Costs;
I recently finished my personal website and I know a couple of non-tech savvy fine artists who would like me to build a responsive website for them. But I have no idea what a site like mine should cost and I have no idea how many hours it took me to make because I did it on and off over a period of months...plus I had to learn RSD!

My site has approx 200 images and 84 pages. Most of my pages have different colored navigation links and headings along with some button links that have image hovers which took a little more time than the norm...like this;
http://www.lawrencesupino.com/recent-work.html (hover only works on laptop/pc screens). Their sites probably won't need much of that type of design work...but they may need other elements such as an email form, mailing list form and slide show.

I've read so many google searches about "how to price websites" and the numbers are all over the place, so I'm guessing there's no easy answer, but any non-extreme suggestions would be appreciated.

Would you be so kind to please take a quick look at my website and tell me what you think would be a good price to give someone for a similar gallery style site; lawrencesupino.com

I don’t want to give them an hourly rate...I’d rather just give a flat price for the site (not including the cost of domain name/hosting/updating).

As an artist, pricing websites doesn't come any easier to me than pricing paintings.
Thank you for your time!

Hi Lawrence,

Below are my opinions on your questions. There are no easy answers to what you seek, unfortunately!

1. RSD outputs clean code, unlike some WYSIWYG applications like Muse. Looking at the converted HTML from an RSD website, any developer with a background in HTML can modify or add to a site's design fairly simply. So when creating websites for a client, I personally wouldn't even mention RSD or I'd tell a client that they can have an easier go at editing their site using RSD if they should choose to do so. I generally don't even touch on this; most of my clients would undoubtedly muck things up if they tried to edit their own websites, which would cause me future headaches and lost time.

Most developers I know offer a maintenance contract with their website designs. I include maintenance in the base cost of my web design, and then bill out every year on their anniversary date. I include X number of hours, calculated in 15-minute increments and 3 maintenance package cost levels to choose from. At one point I had 65 active clients, all with maintenance contracts -- you'd be surprised how few of them request changes to their sites, despite my marketing emails telling them to do so! I set my price levels fairly low because of this. I've found that offering a client X hours of work on their site over the course of the year for $X dollars is more appealing than telling them updates will cost $30-$40 per hour. It's less scary for them.

2. Cost is a relative thing that boils down the simple question of how you value your time. Is this a side business? Are you a student just starting out? Do you mind sacrificing 20 hours a week for less money than some of the big firms charge? If so, you might undercut your prices and go the quantity over quality route. Do you cater to a specific audience? Do you create niche websites? Do you specialize in SEO? You might charge more. The only person who can answer your second question is yourself.

I've seen designers charge anywhere from $300 - $2000 for a website. There is no "baseline." Charge what you feel comfortable with based on how you value your time.

wow...Thank you, Ed! So nice of you to give me such a detailed professional reply.

Re: #1...Ok, I understand what you're saying about the RSD-client relationship...and you're so right about the "scary" part, I like the way you're handling it.

Re: #2...Understood...thanks again, Ed!
If you ever have a technical painting/art related question, please feel free to ask!
Stay well.

Yes. Export RSD and they can edit the code with any HTML Editor. The only issue you may have is if you want to make more changes with RSD. Any changes they have made will not be in your RSD file.


I usually lay it out for my clients in very tactful terms the choices they have. Most of my clients don't know or understand css which is necessary for editing content. Therefore, I explain to them that if they want to edit their own site, they will need to learn some HTML and some CSS. I do this before I start the project.

If they are going to be editing the site, then I use RSD to build templates for the pages but not the body content. In RSD, I set up one "styles" page that I use to manage all the styles for images and text used in the body content. I then use HTML Editor (Windows) or another program I like (Mac) to edit the body content.

If they are not going to be editing the site, I may do the entire project in RSD. I have three different types of maintenance/support plans to fit three different scenarios -- the person who wants updates every month, the person who wants sporadic updates throughout the year, and the person who doesn't know when they will want updates.


Make sure you export the RSD project. Once you export it, you should be able to open it in HTML Editor. For previewing, just use a browser.


You should create a plan of the pages of any web site that you do for someone BEFORE you create the site. Trust me. You need a defined project or you'll find that customers will keep making changes one after the other. Once you have your site outline, then work on price. If it is going to take more graphic design which, for me, takes longer, then charge more. On the other hand, if they are giving you all the digital images and everything you need, you can charge a bit less.

Giving customers a flat rate (rather than hourly) is fine. However, you should base that flat rate on the amount of time it will take you to complete the project. For your first few projects, charge a per page rate. Track your time meticulously. That way, at the end of the project you can compute how much you made per hour. Once you know that, you can adjust your rates accordingly.

Keep in mind how much money you want to make creating sites. If you will be working 40 hours per week creating sites, your annual income is going to be roughly twice your hourly rate minus taxes and expenses. For example, if you make $15/hr, your annual gross income will be $30k ($31,200 to be exact). Subtract your taxes and you know how much you will make in a year.

For example, if you need $50k/year to live, then you need to gross $59k per year (assuming 15% taxes) plus business expenses. Therefore, you would want to make a minimum of $30/hour plus expenses. Remember though, that's 40 hours/week of actual programming/design time. That doesn't count the time for everything else needed for the work such as meeting with customers, sending emails, etc. If you spend less time doing the actual programming, you need to increase your rate/hour to compensate.

I agree that you'll be amazed how few changes clients will actually request. Requesting updates takes almost as much work from *them* as it does for you, because they have to assemble the content, therefore it wont happen often. Many companies are now selling web sites at a flat monthly fee with the cost of updates built in, updates that most clients won't use, but are willing to pay for to have peace of mind. Take a look at how GoDaddy does it. Hourly update fees for the basic package, but the more expensive packages have a few hours of updates built in to the cost.

https://www.godaddy.com/websites/web-design

Personally, I charge my clients a monthly fee that includes hosting and *up to* 30 minutes of updates per month. I make sure they know that 30 minutes doesn't buy them much, just basic changes like if they need a phone number updated or want to add a few pictures to a photo gallery. The 30 minutes expires at the end of each month, so they can't come to me at the end of the year and request 6 hours of work.

Now if its a good client that pays on time, and they haven't requested any changes for a while, and they need a change that requires a little more than 30 minutes (45 minutes to an hour) I'm not going to be a stickler and charge them. There is some reasonable wiggle room. Otherwise, any changes requiring more than 30 minutes per month bill at $25/hour.

The price I charge my clients for hosting and 30 minutes of updates is $35/month. That is almost *pure* profit. Hosting costs me virtually nothing because I pay about $4 per month for a shared server that I put *all* my sites on, so if I have ten clients I am paying literally 40 cents a month to host each of their sites. And I've never even come close to hitting the resource capacity of my shared server configuration. None of my sites get enough traffic to justify putting on their own server, or even their own shared server.

I also charge my clients $25/year to renew their domain name; something that only costs me ten bucks. Its reasonable to do this because most clients have no idea how to purchase a domain or point it towards their web site, so they are paying a very reasonable fee for my time and expertise to keep their domain name active.

However I still register the domain in the clients name, not my own. For me this is matter of personal integrity. Many web developers register their clients domains in their *own* name. Then, if the client decides to take their business elsewhere, the developer charges them an unethical amount of money to purchase their own domain name. This prohibits the client from taking their site elsewhere as their domain name is being held for ransom in exchange for their loyalty as a customer. I simply refuse to do that. If one of my clients is unhappy with my service, I will gladly release their domain name and their web site HTML to them free of charge so they can go somewhere else.

Having said that, I have only had a few clients do this. They were lured away by a lower price, and in every case they were very sorry they did so. You get what you pay for.

Thank you, Brian and Chad...what I said to Ed, I say also to you!
I love the expertise and professionalism found here on cc!
I know just enough about this stuff to know I don't know enough. When I see you guys write about this topic it makes me wish I could download what's in your brain! Like in the Matrix.)

Brian:

Ok, thanks for mentioning about trying to work on the file again in RSD after it has been changed in HTML...great point.

Re: export first;
Yes, I did export the file first, I took (1) page file from my FTP, saved it to my desktop then opened it in my CC-HTML editor...all the code showed up fine...but it didn't preview the page properly at all...it was flush left (instead of centered), it had no font style/link colors and had links/text bunched up to name a few problems. Is that because it couldn't read a css/js file?


Re: tactful terms;
Ok, understood. Yeah, most artists don't know or care about css, but there's so many do it yourself gallery templates sites out there and wordpress and other sites that cater to artist portfolios...of course, most do come with a fee, too.

Re: "If they are going to be editing the site, then I use RSD to build templates........."
To be honest...that paragraph got me a little confused
I think I understand what you're doing, but I'm not really sure why...and I think that due to me being/working "visual", I may get more confused doing it that way. I'm sure if I saw you do it, I'd get what you mean.

Re: maintenance/support plans;
Ok, understood, but it's the cost of the plans I worry about. Knowing me, I'll just say I'll do your updates for a year free. lol

Re: create a plan.....per page rate for first few projects and salary breakdown;
Great advice, thanks!
And I like the "per page" suggestion.
I'm guessing there's no going rate (or sort of norm) for the per page method. I understand it all goes by what I wish to make an hour and what amount of content the pages will contain.
My problem is, as a painter, I've never kept count of hours...a painting takes as long as it takes and is always on my mind...brush in hand or not. But I'll have to change my way of thinking about creating websites.


Hello, Chad...

Re: Updates;
Ok, understood!
I'm sure you and most here are handling more "business" type sites. As far as an "artist's" (painters) site goes (which is what I hope to be doing) it really doesn't get updated that much except for adding a new image and info now and then...stuff like that...and that depends on how many paintings they do a year. I hardly update my own site because most of my paintings are large, detailed and take months to do.

Re: Charges;
I like the way you handle it and your pricing structure...thank you for the detailed explanation!

I must say...You got it going on with the hosting and domain aspects of your business...good for you!
And I agree, I already told one guy I'd rather have him get the domain and hosting in his name.

I thank you both for your time!
If you ever have a technical painting/art related question, please feel free to ask!
Stay well.

Btw: One thing that worries me in relation to "time" spent working on a site is that...once my RSD page count was in the high 20's-30's range...loading the project and saving pages was very slow...at least a minute. And once my page count got into the 60's-80's it took at least 2 mins to save/load/export...and forget about trying to preview a page!
And as I've explained in support...my computer is fine...Brand new hard drive, 8gig ram...I work on 100-300+mb files in PS with no problem.

Hi Lawrence,

Try looking at the amount of images you have in your resource folders and take note of their size. I had this happen to me too and it was because I had a lot over very large images in it. Did you ever receive the file size warning that RSD gives you... if you do that is why it is very slow to open/save.

Try to keep only what you actually use on your website in the resource folder. And what you have left make sure you have resized and compressed them. That should significantly improve speed.

Hi Steve...Thank you for the reply!



Yes, the answer I received from support was about the images also...but at the time of that dialog...I explained that all my images are "saved for web" in PS...none are over 1mb and most are under 500k, (though I do have approx. 200 of them)

In any event...
I took the time to re-do each page in order to take my images out of the resource folder and I used the get images online option instead. My resource folder has absolutely nothing in it except that which cc puts in their social icon folder.

I have added nothing to my resource folder...I no longer have an image folder there...and it still takes forever to load/save/preview/export!

btw...during the above mentioned trial and era...I also...re-downloaded RSD (in-case I had a bad one)...I also used "run as administrator" and that made it even worse.

Towards the end, in order to complete my site without getting all stressed out, I had to split up the site and use a sub-directory folder. The new project, with less than 20 pages, loads/saves/previews/exports just fine.

So, I'm thinking it has something to do with the app not handling large page counts too well.

Hi Lawrence,

I have exactly the same experience with a large website (my images have always been online) and the load/save-export being very slow. I find even text, paragraph editing very slow to open up whether using right click or the edit button on the design pane or crtl + t. It also lags moving between layout, element, design, settings and inspector. I don't think there is a work around to this issue.

Kind regards,
Anne

Hi Anne...
Yes...I have the same issues with text/type editing...I get nervous when I realize I have to use it. And God-forbid you forget you're in "Classes" and you right click to paste a name...it crashes! It's ok to paste for an "ID" or an "href" or "title"...but not in "Classes".

Yeah, I think the only "work around" is an "update" enabling RSD to handle large websites with ease.
I love what RSD can do...but the time factor is very stressful as the page counts increase.

Stay well.