i'm a .NET/C/C++ programmer and sometimes i do PHP. people think my web apps are simple and nice and want me to do similar stuffs for them. most times i do it free but i think i should be able for account for the time i spend doing it. how do i price these services appropriately? please reply. thank you.

It depends on the quality of service the clients want and the effort you put into the project. That's what you should base your pricing on.

First off, in general, if as u say pple like ur stuff, then by law of demand, ur prices should be higher than that of Olumide down the street

Here are my services, which dictate price. I will arrange it in ascending order:

Sites from scratch:
- Site Auditing (looking for bugs, violations of web standards, etc): I offer no solutions with this service

- Site Auditing with how to fix problems: I won't fix them in this case but hand the solutions to the client's IT department.

- Site Auditing: I would not only point out the problems but fix them as well.

- Static site (up to 5 pages)

- Static site (5 or more pages)

- Dynamic site (up to 5 pages)

- Dynamic site (5 or more pages)


In general, if they supply graphics/flash objects, it will b a little cheaper. I also offer templates vs custom-design. I charge flat rates. Finally, if I am coding from scratch, I will throw in SEO, accessibility, etc as freebies. However, if I am asked to add these to an existing site, I offer a fixed rate for that too.

I hope this helps. If not, let me know and I will try to explain some more.

thanks my2cents, your reply helped in categorizing projects but the next step is the price i should ask them to pay for each of these. maybe you should give me an example. thank you very much.

rock2:
I am not in naija and so haven't had that many jobs in the area. Having said that, I have coded 3 sites for pple over there so far and the charge (for static sites with b/w 5 and 10 pages) has ranged from N150K to N200K.

I haven't had a chance to do an SEO/Auditing work for folks in Nigeria. From my experience so far, I don't think some of the pple there appreciate its importance. I think once they see flash objects running around on the screen, they get so giddy that they forget about all their worldly worries

I hope this helps.

awwwwwwwwwwwww see the problem with them is that they prefer going to a big company well known to pay upto that amount you did mentioned,  at the end of the day the job done woun't be up to standard, to the one an independent man will have done.
Have really observe that quite many times

thanks a lot my2cent. i think i can now begin to work out my own pricing strategy. smartsoft, a suggestion for you could be to register a company name, get yourself an ID card, and appear to be fronting for a big company. branding specialists could make you look like a very big company (i think).

rock, this i have already sir,

smartsoft:

I think that by saying (and correct me if I hv read your statement wrong ), to paraphrase, that an independent person would do a better job than a big company is a generalization. I don't think this is the case across the board. In general, I would say that the bigger companies would be better cos they have the money to not only higher the cream of the crop, but also the money to send their employees on training. Where the independent person wins out is in price.

Again, generally spking, if a company had a choice of taking a risk on an independent person and going with a company that has been around and has the reputation, I think that company (including mine if I had one) would go for the latter.

So to counter this, an independent person should ramp up a serious marketing campaign, the aim of which is to appear like a 50-person company, for example, whereas it is just him coding under a mango tree

Make sense?

doug, read what i wrote what brought the issue of the independent man thanks

i concur with smartsoft abt the going for big names, but like you am also half way to becoming a big company all by myself.