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Ask HN: Is there any money in website design for small businesses anymore?

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Re: Ask HN: Is there any money in website design for small businesses anymore?

#131

Post by snowwrestler »

akudha wrote: post #68
snowwrestler wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Agencies pitch all the time to find their own clients, so they are not averse to getting pitched themselves. A cold email better be great to work. A better bet is to go to meetups and local conferences for like Wordpress or SEO or digital marketing. You’re likely to meet some agency folks or people who contract with agencies. Chat them up, offer to buy them lunch, stay in contact. Or, just look up agencies who a…

Thank you for the comment. This is new to me, will try this out. Are you a freelancer too? Is this how you got started?

I got started in tech the old fashioned way: by hiring into a 1999 dotcom with minimal qualifications.

I’m familiar with agencies because I have hired and worked with a lot of them recently.

Re: Ask HN: Is there any money in website design for small businesses anymore?

#132

Post by rograndom »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #127
jason_pomerleau wrote: post #16

There is lots of opportunity out there, but it depends on what you mean by ‘small business’. Super small companies (under 10 to 15 people in this context) are usually best off with SquareSpace or Wix. Companies slightly larger than this invariably end up wanting/needing things that these platforms can’t offer, and have the kind of budgets that can support a solo operator or small team. At this level, you are competin…

Whats your hourly? I'm more laravel/mobile/node/vue/react, and I find I under-charge, but I think if I were doing WP I'd need to charge even less... Currently my best-long-term client pays $40...but I feel I want/deserve 60-70 and trying to land that for my next couple clients... do people pay you more than $40/hr for wordpress or do you just charge per project?

You are probably undercharging. Not parent, but my WordPress specific work was either a flat fee for standard stuff (setting up a site, installing and configuring an existing theme, plugins, etc), or $50/hr for customization either through writing new plugins or adding functionality to an existing theme via PHP or CSS.

Laravel or other custom work starts at $125 for clients I'm expecting volume from or $150 for one off projects, again given in estimates as a flat fee for the project. If I expect something will take 8 hours to build, then I'm giving them a quote of $1200.

You can scaffold up a lot of CRUD stuff in Laravel in 8 hours.

Re: Ask HN: Is there any money in website design for small businesses anymore?

#133

Post by yoava »

ccnafr wrote: post #19

No. Most people used Wix and Squarespace now.

While many people are using Wix and Squarespace, there is an active and large community of Wix Experts (who are not working for Wix) that are building websites for customers.

So I guess there is a place for a professional business for building websites

Re: Ask HN: Is there any money in website design for small businesses anymore?

#134

Post by potta_coffee »

It depends. I don't pursue the business but sometimes I end up taking a side-job, I just made a website, took me about 5 hours and I made about a thousand bucks. I did do a quickie logo design too. I didn't even really "build" the site, I used a static site generator and a template and made some tweaks for the client. The value to him is that he doesn't have to worry about any of the details, even if I am using a template, something he could probably do.

Re: Ask HN: Is there any money in website design for small businesses anymore?

#135

Post by gremlinsinc »

davidscolgan wrote: post #95

I started out my career building these sorts of websites, making $3000 Wordpress custom themes. The secret sauce was my lead source who had super developed business sense and social skills, and went out and wined and dined clients and sold them these sites. He went on to build an agency and I was the first freelancer he hired. I'm pretty sure he was pitching wide reaching marketing and strategy help to these clients,…

I'm pretty frustrated lately, I've got one client and looking to replace them or at least fill my pipeline with higher paying ones and back burner the other client unless we can renegotiate rates (current is $40/hr -- all parties live in USA), I would kill for a $100/hr contract, but I have no clue how to land/pitch one.

My primary stack: Laravel / Vue, though I've been playing with node (Feathers/express backends) as well a lot lately. I've also been playing around w/ react quite a bit. I think if I had $100/hr I could put more in the bank... this feast/famine cycle is killing my sanity.

Re: Ask HN: Is there any money in website design for small businesses anymore?

#136

Post by calibas »

jason_pomerleau wrote: post #16

There is lots of opportunity out there, but it depends on what you mean by ‘small business’. Super small companies (under 10 to 15 people in this context) are usually best off with SquareSpace or Wix. Companies slightly larger than this invariably end up wanting/needing things that these platforms can’t offer, and have the kind of budgets that can support a solo operator or small team. At this level, you are competin…

If you recommend SquareSpace and Wix, why not Wordpress.com?

Re: Ask HN: Is there any money in website design for small businesses anymore?

#137

Post by potta_coffee »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #127
jason_pomerleau wrote: post #16

There is lots of opportunity out there, but it depends on what you mean by ‘small business’. Super small companies (under 10 to 15 people in this context) are usually best off with SquareSpace or Wix. Companies slightly larger than this invariably end up wanting/needing things that these platforms can’t offer, and have the kind of budgets that can support a solo operator or small team. At this level, you are competin…

Whats your hourly? I'm more laravel/mobile/node/vue/react, and I find I under-charge, but I think if I were doing WP I'd need to charge even less... Currently my best-long-term client pays $40...but I feel I want/deserve 60-70 and trying to land that for my next couple clients... do people pay you more than $40/hr for wordpress or do you just charge per project?

Question wasn't for me, but I charge $50 hourly and I know I'm undercharging because my clients end up being surprised at how cheap the invoice is.

Re: Ask HN: Is there any money in website design for small businesses anymore?

#138

Post by danielvf »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #127
jason_pomerleau wrote: post #16

There is lots of opportunity out there, but it depends on what you mean by ‘small business’. Super small companies (under 10 to 15 people in this context) are usually best off with SquareSpace or Wix. Companies slightly larger than this invariably end up wanting/needing things that these platforms can’t offer, and have the kind of budgets that can support a solo operator or small team. At this level, you are competin…

Whats your hourly? I'm more laravel/mobile/node/vue/react, and I find I under-charge, but I think if I were doing WP I'd need to charge even less... Currently my best-long-term client pays $40...but I feel I want/deserve 60-70 and trying to land that for my next couple clients... do people pay you more than $40/hr for wordpress or do you just charge per project?

If you are US based, you can charge more than that, even in a low cost of living area. There is currently quite a bit more work than devs.

Re: Ask HN: Is there any money in website design for small businesses anymore?

#139

Post by acct1771 »

calibas wrote: post #136
jason_pomerleau wrote: post #16

There is lots of opportunity out there, but it depends on what you mean by ‘small business’. Super small companies (under 10 to 15 people in this context) are usually best off with SquareSpace or Wix. Companies slightly larger than this invariably end up wanting/needing things that these platforms can’t offer, and have the kind of budgets that can support a solo operator or small team. At this level, you are competin…

If you recommend SquareSpace and Wix, why not Wordpress.com?

Or Weebly.com

Re: Ask HN: Is there any money in website design for small businesses anymore?

#140

Post by danielvf »

skinnymuch wrote: post #121
thrav wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, $200k revenue pre-tax? Or $200k take home in your pocket after operating expenses, taxes, health care, etc? My friends who have consulted have pulled in some seemingly hefty sums, only to feel like they came out behind a good salary with good benefits.

But a good salary is pre-tax too unless you’re talking about the actual paycheck which is far lower than listed salary. There are benefits. Like matching 401K, paid vacation (though if this isn’t long enough it can be a negative), and mainly, health insurance. Those should be counted for a normal salaried job. Otherwise taxes should be compared the same way, no?

If you are self-employed in the US, you pay an additional tax before you even start your regular taxes, and this tax isn't affected by your personal deductions.

You also need to pay for your own computers, SAAS services you use, etc. The more you make, the less this becomes an issue.

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