Where a designer makes more profit?

[fs_tigre]

Hi,

Where the designer makes more profit by making the initial design or by doing maintenance? What would be a reasonable rate per hour when designing?

What or how to charge for maintenance?

Thanks,
Fs_tigre

 

[ahk2chan]

What do you mean by maintenance? Do you mean hosting administrative work? or do you mean change requests?

If it is change request, then basically you just size the effort and that will serve as your pricing bases.

For administrative work, I have worked with firms who basically sign an on going contract of 8 hours a week kind of thing.

 

[plantohost]

By providing after supports (that is what I think you meant). But not all customers will need a lot of after supports and also its easier to develop a new thing than editing it.

 

[fs_tigre]

First of all thank you for your reply, and yes I guess it is how I should be calling it (administrative work). But now when you get a project and the customer wants to do the administrative work at that point you charge more because most likely you will not get any more money from that customer or you simply charge as you normally would.

Thanks,

 

[Strike Designs]

We build all our sites with an easy to use CMS and so give them the ability to do all the site maintenance and administration themselves, when required.

We certainly don't charge more for a project just because it's likely to be a one-off without repeat work from the client! But we do offer an optional support contract, where by a client pays a monthly fee and we'll do a specified amount of new content data entry and site maintenance each month.

This proves to be particulary useful for client's that don't have the staff or time to update the site themselves through the CMS, and if a month passes where no updates were required, then that month's payment is set aside and offset from the cost of future development and recommended updates.

 

[ahk2chan]

But now when you get a project and the customer wants to do the administrative work at that point you charge more because most likely you will not get any more money from that customer or you simply charge as you normally would.

I actually have a different perspective... I would charge for the minimal (as hopefully administrative work doesn't require a lot of time and brain power). By doing so will let you have a direct business relation with the customer so you can look for opportunities! And once when opportunities really come, you will be the first one to know compare to competitors!