One thing I’d add though, make sure you put in a fee not only for additional charges/time, but for a change in the delivery schedule. I’ve had clients ask me to deliver a product a week or two early due to a change in their schedules, or an internal miscommunication between my contact and their higher-ups.

It’s the same amount of work, but all of a sudden, they need it done in half the time which disrupts YOUR schedule. As I am often juggling 2-3 projects at once, I always make sure the contract states that a change in the schedule may be subject to a ‘special rate’; i.e. 125-150% my normal rate depending on the shift in time-frames.

I’m not against pulling a few all-night’ers for my clients if that’s what it takes, but I’m not going to do it for the originally agreed upon amount, and neither should you.

What car? A small 10 year old second hand Volkswagen with nothing else but wheels and seats or a Toyota Hybrid Prius with all the latest technolgy? Most clients don’t realize that they need to define a briefing document and a budget to actually get a serious quote.

We have $30.000 and need a car that for a family with 3 kids, lots of space, moderate powered engine (cose we rarely drive into moutain areas) but a good stereo because all of us love music. The car must not be white, but if so, we’d appreciate that.

If you get an info like that, then you can find a product that suits the clients needs.

The question how much does a website cost, is stupid. Don’t be afraid asking for briefgings and budgets! It shows that you care!

But the most important thing is know what the client wants. And a strict Spec. Without that you’ll work your ass off for nothing..

For example, if a company is selling cars. If one lead comes from the website that leads to a sale of a car, they have already got a good investment from the website.

@ali – this approach is probably the one I most commonly use as well. As well as taking other factors into consideration.

i use that for static sites

for dynamic sites it is
bigger base price + $$$ per database table + $$$ per full CRUD functionality

i think this way it is much easier for me to estimate the work since counting time is not good in my case since the time i require mostly depend on my mood

Value Based price (% of value to the customer)

For example, if the customer is going to gain $50,000 in new sales. Then, you could sell the website at $10,000.

Another example, if the website saves the company $1,000,000 in internal processing costs. If you charge hourly or price per page, you are under-valuing your product.

Of course the challenge in this scenario, is figuring out what is the value. Companies generally don’t like to share.

This book provides good examples on value based project consulting:

http://www.amazon.com/Million-Dollar-Consulting-Professionals-Practice/dp/007138703X