Well to be honest, if he paid the last person 20 and hour he should pay you the same. All you need to do is, as you mentioned above, come up with a decent amount of time to charge him for, not counting your learning curve. Not sure why he got someone else to do the site, but don't cut yourself short right off the bat. I don't know how good the other person was either, but if your very first site is impressing him, then they were not that good lol. Not that the site you did isn't nice, it's fine, just saying in a year you'll be looking back at your first site going, "wow i could have done soooo much more!". So don't sell yourself short and have to work your way up to what he was already paying someone to do it. Just my opinion

I agree with Jo Ann. There's enough starving artists already.

I completely agree with Jo Ann and Eric. I made that mistake when I started off, and it took me quite some time to work my pricing gradually upwards without anyone telling me that I've become greedy all of a sudden. Just because you are a young student doesn't mean that you have to be underpaid if your work is up to marks.

Lol ok. Well no, the other site was worse than the one i made. The old one had some Flash animation but i don't have tha money to buy CC's version for it until he pays me, so i couldn't do that. The other guy didn't want to do it any more.

And is 20 an hour a reasonable price tho? In this market? I try to relate it back to manual labor or a regular job, and to me this seems easier, more confusing, but easier than say putting up sheet rock. And (around here) the average price for that is around 25 an hour, unless its changed since last time i done it. And i don't know if 20 is to much to ask for r to low to ask for for an hours wage in website design. To me it seems like a lot when i reflect back onto other jobs.

And i just thought he lower because he gave me the chance. And knew it would take me longer.

20 an hour is fine. Yes, it's sit on your butt work... but there are other SKILLS involved, and frankly skills that businesses ought to recognize as having a value just like hanging sheet rock. As was stated by others, problem is: if you sell yourself short on this job it WILL be hard to build it up properly. He's not going to want to pay you $10 an hour this time, and $20 an hour 4 months from now if he decides to add a page or two. Or the other problem, since he's liking your work, he is likely to tell others that he knows that you do good work and at a BARGAIN of $10 an hour... Now your stuck in the mud, can't very well tell others that "I charged him that cause he was my first".

As you said, maybe run through a build-up of his site again, as you have it. Calculate a rate based on $20/hour and sell him on that. Don't tell him that it's $20/hour, just tell him the total cost.

Sounds good. Thanks all of you!

I'm actually thinking about $25 because he was paying the other person 20 an hour 3 years ago and prices have gone up on everything since then. Then I'll tell him that when he wants more boats on the site i can put up 1 for $25 or 10 for $25. Thats $2.50 a boat at 10 for $25.... still cheaper than any other advertisement. And that will save me from having to worry about updating it every time he gets a new boat.

Thanks, Yall are TONS of help lol!

O and once he pays me i can buy CC's Flash animation maker and put him a real banner at the top. Ill do that one for free.

Kendrick, you could offer a small up-charge for including your custom photography and some Flash effects... say $49.00 (the price of Firestarter)

Another thought - Figure up your time at $20 hr, then decide if that's appropriate for a website. For example; if it took you 8 hours, $160 would be really cheap - even for a simple website. If it took you 25 hours, would $500 seem reasonable? Make sure you're not too far under what's average in your area.

You could estimate your time, add $50 for the Flash and photography then round up to the next hundred increment (example: 16 hrs x 20.00 = 320.00, + 50.00 = 370.00, round it up to $400.00).
You won't feel bad about the extra when the client wants "a few changes or additions" along the way.
Then you can present a price for the finished website to your client and not worry about him questioning how many hours you spend on it.

Well it took me around 8 with a few glitchs and fixeing them and uploading it took me around 10. And at 25 an hour that's. 250 bucks. Does that seem reasonable? To me it does, but like I said I don't know the average cost on these things yet I'm new :p.

Thanks again

Congratulations!
I think you're client got quite the bargain, but since you're just starting out and it only took you about 10 hours... well done! Now have a look on Craig's list and Google for web design in your area so you'll have some idea what price range you should be in for the next web project