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Costs of a web designer?

Has anyone here in the universe, in their job commissioned anyone to produce a proffessional, multi page, information based website? Involving linking to other resources and getting permissions to use research and media articles. Together with some writing, and videoing some content? and making sure it's accessible?

Yes. Loads of times.

The answer to your question is that 2 grand will get you a very professional looking multipage website. Easy.

£1000 will get you a nice website that will be perfectly adequate for what you described, and there are designers that would do something for you for £500ish that would do the job.

Hosting is peanuts.

Will you be providing the content or do you need that researched and developed too?
 
Squarespace is about £200 a year depending on on whether you can get away with saying it’s a personal site or whether the business rate of £24/month applies. And then of course you wouldn’t blend that with email or domain registration services.

You should also budget another 60-80% of the get out of bed base rate for the manual I mentioned above
It's for a registered charity. We definitely can't afford that sort of monthly fee for very long
Do you mean £ 600 -800 for the manual?
I'll respectfully disagree with this. I'd 100 percent keep email and hosting separate. But ask ITs opinion.
We don't have IT or indeed any staff. And dont need email yet as there is no one to answer them. yet. I'm applying for other funding for staff but won't know till next spring if that's successful.
 
No respect needed - but I think it’s the cheapest option for a tiny group of activists or a one man band. Any organisation that has any FTEs on payroll should definitely do as you suggest, by far the most sensible option in terms of security and lower costs at scale.

I'd not let any web person I've had dealings with anywhere near an organizations email, regardless of size.

I know some providers resell Microsoft, but I'd still want them separate in case you need to move.

Anyway I'm assuming the charity already has their email sorted unless they are tinycharity@aol.com
 
friendofdorothy I've just done a rebrand and marketing project for work. We commissioned an agency to completely rebuild our site, come up with new logo, do a load of copywriting, and also provide us with some additional sales materials. That came in just under 10K. My guess is you should budget 6-8K for the sort of thing you want and it may well come in under that - some agencies will charge not for profits a bit less. If you use a sole trader it may come in cheaper again, especially if some of the copy writing can be done by volunteers.
 
No respect needed - but I think it’s the cheapest option for a tiny group of activists or a one man band. Any organisation that has any FTEs on payroll should definitely do as you suggest, by far the most sensible option in terms of security and lower costs at scale.
The charity has it's main website ( person who made is long gone and those of us who remain can't change or update it) hence nothing about my campaign on the web.

We already have emails name@charityname.org
 
Yes. Loads of times.

The answer to your question is that 2 grand will get you a very professional looking multipage website. Easy.

£1000 will get you a nice website that will be perfectly adequate for what you described, and there are designers that would do something for you for £500ish that would do the job.

Hosting is peanuts.

Will you be providing the content or do you need that researched and developed too?
Thanks. I have some content but would need more researched and developed.

How much is hosting peanuts to you someone mentioned £200p/a is that about right?
 
The charity has it's main website ( person who made is long gone and those of us who remain can't change or update it) hence nothing about my campaign on the web.

We already have emails name@charityname.org

Maybe that problem can be fixed too with some clever budgeting as part of the grant application? It’s very bad to have a charity - where trustees have legal responsibility for the content - unable to update its website at all.
 
Thanks. I have some content but would need more researched and developed.

That's where the money starts piling up. The costs I mentioned are for a designer to build a website that you supply the content for.

Research and copywriting can get very expensive but doesn't have to be.

There are probably loads of folk on this site who can help you at mates rates. If not, PM me and I can recommend researchers, UX/UI designers, and devs who will talk you through it and do it to a budget that you pre-agree.
 
So if I say £5000 for the web design
£2000 for writing, proofreading and £1000 for creating video
£500 for admin support / checking permissions etc.

Then how much do you have to pay a year to have it on the internet. I don't know what that is called or who you have to pay but I presume it's not free
Ok how about:

£3000 for the web design
£2000 for writing / editing/ proofing
£1000 for creating video content
£500 for admin support

£600 for 3 years web hosting
£1500 for 3 years of £500pa updating

£8600 total

Than I could put in £1200 for a logo some badges and flyers and still apply under £10K

Does that sound realistic?
 
Ok how about:

£3000 for the web design
£2000 for writing / editing/ proofing
£1000 for creating video content
£500 for admin support

£600 for 3 years web hosting
£1500 for 3 years of £500pa updating

£8600 total

Than I could put in £1200 for a logo some badges and flyers and still apply under £10K

Does that sound realistic?

It’s granular and plausible enough for a grant application, while still giving you wiggle room on all of the line items if needed.
 
Maybe that problem can be fixed too with some clever budgeting as part of the grant application? It’s very bad to have a charity - where trustees have legal responsibility for the content - unable to update its website at all.
I know. We have funding applications in for staff who could be responsible. We are tiny, overworked and overstretched.

But hey I'm busy trying to change the world here.
 
Ok how about:

£3000 for the web design
£2000 for writing / editing/ proofing
£1000 for creating video content
£500 for admin support

£600 for 3 years web hosting
£1500 for 3 years of £500pa updating

£8600 total

Than I could put in £1200 for a logo some badges and flyers and still apply under £10K

Does that sound realistic?
Shit forgot I need a travel and subsistence budget for speakers personal appearances
 
Hopefully in due course I will be looking for a company / freelancers who could do all all of the above. Have to have experience of charity and LGBTQ issues with preference given to local Lambeth businesses.

Thank you everyone .
 
Ok how about:

£3000 for the web design
£2000 for writing / editing/ proofing
£1000 for creating video content
£500 for admin support

£600 for 3 years web hosting
£1500 for 3 years of £500pa updating

£8600 total

Than I could put in £1200 for a logo some badges and flyers and still apply under £10K

Does that sound realistic?

No, totally off. I'll post again later.

P.s. don't tell your designers what your budget is before you brief them. 10k will light up eyes.
 
Any other opinions here?

colacubes and I are in the same ballpark. Spymaster was slightly more optimistic about the cost of designers, but recognised that a huge amount of what you need is outside a designer’s scope.

Petcha is likely to be a much more reliable guide than the rest of us to the relative labour costs of different design elements, but you don’t need that granularity at this stage, and his expertise appears to be coalface rather than commissioning, so may not include all the non-design elements, which look to me like half the budget - maybe more, maybe less.

If you are able to bid up to £10k, there’s not much point in bidding well below in the hope that you will be lucky with commissioning someone committed at a great rate and that nothing then goes wrong.
 
colacubes and I are in the same ballpark. Spymaster was slightly more optimistic about the cost of designers, but recognised that a huge amount of what you need is outside a designer’s scope.

Petcha is likely to be a much more reliable guide than the rest of us to the relative labour costs of different design elements, but you don’t need that granularity at this stage, and his expertise appears to be coalface rather than commissioning, so may not include all the non-design elements, which look to me like half the budget - maybe more, maybe less.

If you are able to bid up to £10k, there’s not much point in bidding well below in the hope that you will be lucky with commissioning someone committed at a great rate and that nothing then goes wrong.
Petcha seems to imagine I have time, expertise and able volunteers. Unfortunately I don't.
My tech skills peaked about the turn of the century. I looked at retraining in web design then but that's another story.

I've deleted the original brief now as it was too identifying but it was explicit about the extra writing, research, admin and video needed. It wasn't about how the site is built.
 
I thought any professional could look at my requirements it and say you need this or that.

I don't want to plan every page. I want someone with a good grasp of how sites work to do that. I have a message I want on the web and I want to commission someone who can get that across in a well designed attractive efficient way

The hard bit here is having the resources to do that. Financial or otherwise.
 
a few disconnected thoughts -

the hosting and domain name is relatively easy.

some providers offer free or discounted hosting to charities. some free hosting is flakey, or propped up with adverts (that may not match the message you're giving) or be very restrictive in the amount of bandwidth you get (which may be ok over the course of a year, but might be difficult if you have seasonal peaks of people wanting to look at the site, e.g. if you do big events, or a specific campaign, a few times a year.)

charity i used to do the website for used 34sp who have a free charity hosting scheme - you need to be a registered UK charity, it's not guaranteed for life, but i must have set the thing up about 10 years ago and as far as i know it's still going (i parted company with said charity a couple of years back) - the agreement needs to be renewed every year, but involved a fairly simple exchange of e-mails. i found them good in terms of what it did, never aware of any problems / downtime, and they were good with technical help when i was moving it to them (it had previously been hosted through someone's business as a favour, but for various reasons that had to end.)

the domain name (as in the right to 'own' charityname.org.uk or whatever) does have to be paid for, but this is a few quid every couple of years.

moving a website and e-mails from one hosting provider to another shouldn't be that big a deal.

not sure about costs of doing it all professionally - depending on what you do, the design stuff could range from not very much to a heck of a lot. but not sure where to start coming up with an outline specification / budget / full specification.

probably worth thinking about how you're going to maintain / update it in the medium to long term as well as the one-off project to set it up. websites that clearly haven't been updated for years (e.g. having details of 'future events' which are now in the distant past) don't inspire confidence.

this can be difficult in voluntary organisations - you don't want too many people doing the website as you can end up with confusion about who's doing what, but having a one person department can also be difficult if that person leaves, has work or family issues that means they are too busy to do it, or has a hissy fit and falls out with the committee - in my case i continued to maintain the basics on the website until i could hand over, then managed the hand-over, but i've known some organisations where that doesn't quite happen...

to some extent, you can get round this by website being relatively static and putting latest news / events out via social media (although worth making sure that there's some sort of overall control over communications - if you end up with one person doing a newsletter, someone else doing a website, someone else doing social media, and them not talking to each other, or being given conflicting information / instructions by different committee members, that's not good either)

i'm not sure this answers much of your question, and no i'm not volunteering - the website i did was on technology from the last century, and keeping it going in to the 2020s was an increasing struggle, but getting committee approval to do something about upgrading it (even at no cost to the organisation) proved an even bigger one.
 
Petcha seems to imagine I have time, expertise and able volunteers. Unfortunately I don't.
My tech skills peaked about the turn of the century. I looked at retraining in web design then but that's another story.

I've deleted the original brief now as it was too identifying but it was explicit about the extra writing, research, admin and video needed. It wasn't about how the site is built.
I was a web designer for years but I don' bother coding any more - Brixton Buzz runs on WordPress which comes with loads of templates which makes life a lot easier.

I understand your frustration trying to get a reliable quote but the costs of a website can vary dramatically depending on the specific needs of the user - and it's impossible to give any kind of accurate quote without drilling down into real detail.

If you're in the Brixton area any time I'd be happy to meet up for a coffee and hopefully give you some useful pointers.
 
I was a web designer for years but I don' bother coding any more - Brixton Buzz runs on WordPress which comes with loads of templates which makes life a lot easier.

I understand your frustration trying to get a reliable quote but the costs of a website can vary dramatically depending on the specific needs of the user - and it's impossible to give any kind of accurate quote without drilling down into real detail.

If you're in the Brixton area any time I'd be happy to meet up for a coffee and hopefully give you some useful pointers.
thanks all i need to know for now is does this sound completely unrealist for a funding bid.
Ok how about:

£3000 for the web design
£2000 for writing / editing/ proofing
£1000 for creating video content
£500 for admin support

£600 for 3 years web hosting
£1500 for 3 years of £500pa updating

£8600 total

Than I could put in £1200 for a logo some badges and flyers and still apply under £10K
Plus some quids for speakers travel and subsistance costs
Does that sound realistic?
its very rough at this stage and would become a proper costed budget when/ if we have the funding
 
thanks all i need to know for now is does this sound completely unrealist for a funding bid.

Plus some quids for speakers travel and subsistance costs

its very rough at this stage and would become a proper costed budget when/ if we have the funding
Sorry, I literally can't tell you if it's a good price or not without having a really good understanding of your needs, but £8k+ should get you a decent enough website.

You may end up paying way too much if you don't actually need some of the things listed though, why is I always meet with my clients before to know exactly what they want. Often, I'd end up saving them loads of money.
 
If you want an accessible website, which you do, ignore the "get a volunteer to knock it up in Squarespace" types.

I have commissioned a website for a small charity and happy to chat about this any time. £10k sounds reasonable on the face of it but I don't know how much costs have risen since I did it about 8 years ago.
 
Ok how about:

£3000 for the web design
£2000 for writing / editing/ proofing
£1000 for creating video content
£500 for admin support

£600 for 3 years web hosting
£1500 for 3 years of £500pa updating

£8600 total

Than I could put in £1200 for a logo some badges and flyers and still apply under £10K

Does that sound realistic?

I didn't see the brief earlier or how detailed it was. When I've handled full rebrands and builds we've had designers and developers. If you know the look you want and can guide them then developers might be enough.

An extra cost to think about is support. If something breaks or stops working do you want to be able to call someone or would the updating bod have the skills sort that out?

How detailed does the budget need to be at this stage?

I'd bump it up and ask for the max, there always seem to be extra costs that haven't been considered. And you might only get partially funded?

What happens to underspend with the funding?
 
If you want an accessible website, which you do, ignore the "get a volunteer to knock it up in Squarespace" types.

I have commissioned a website for a small charity and happy to chat about this any time. £10k sounds reasonable on the face of it but I don't know how much costs have risen since I did it about 8 years ago.
Thank you. My thoughts exactly.

Im typing up a rough budget to get the funding application in the next couple of days. Deadline is next week but i want to get it in early in case of issues with submitting it.
 
Thank you. My thoughts exactly.

Im typing up a rough budget to get the funding application in the next couple of days. Deadline is next week but i want to get it in early in case of issues with submitting it.
I'm going to pm you with the details of the guy who did ours, as he also helped us put the funding bid together and as someone who specialises in websites for small charities this is normal for him.
 
I didn't see the brief earlier or how detailed it was. When I've handled full rebrands and builds we've had designers and developers. If you know the look you want and can guide them then developers might be enough.

An extra cost to think about is support. If something breaks or stops working do you want to be able to call someone or would the updating bod have the skills sort that out?

How detailed does the budget need to be at this stage?

I'd bump it up and ask for the max, there always seem to be extra costs that haven't been considered. And you might only get partially funded?

What happens to underspend with the funding?
I want an info only sign posting site. So no contacts/ sales or user interaction. Hope that keeps it simple. Im going to put in £500 a year updating fees for 3 years. Im hoping that is enough.

Im going to include a contingency fund as %

I can always spend funding. We can always do a public awareness event with any underspend.
 
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