Advertising rates/fees

[cocoy]

Do you post your rates?

Or do you deal with it per individual client? Give a quote or proposal.

Any pros or cons to posting the rate or should you deal with it per client/job?

i.e.

$xx.xx per webpage

$xx.xx per square feet

Any thoughts from a customer's point of view? Is it better if they know what they're going to be paying, or at least be in the general ball park, when they're shopping for a service?

Would they steer towards someone with posted pricing vs. a "call me for a quote" business?

[billbenson]

If you are building web pages, I don't think per page is a good pricing structure. An hourly rate with a not to exceed price would make more sense. Obviously, no changes midstream etc.

[vangogh]

I assume you mean rates for a service based business and not advertising rates for space on your site.

I generally charge per project, but I base the estimate off my hourly rate, which I do post on a rates page on my site. I wanted to at least give people some idea what they would expect to pay so I also give a basic idea of how much time it might take in designing and developing a basic site.

Many people told me they wanted to see that kind of information, which is why I added it. You don't have to give an exact price for a service since the price is going to depend on the requirements of the project, but I think people want to know if you charge $10/hr or $100/hr prior to contacting you.

[Dan Furman]

I haven't found a good way to put rates on my site. Even if I put a "ballpark" rate (say, $200 a page), it stops people from even contacting me - cold. When I put up rates, I go from three contacts a day to three a week. Even those who'd happily pay my rate don't contact me, as they have my rate, no need to contact me until they make a decision... then they ask another guy for HIS rate, open a dialog, and I lose the sale.

I'd rather everyone contact me and then deal with the few "HOW much for JUST writing?" people.

[Blessed]

I'm leaning towards not publishing my rates on my yet-to-be-finished website, for all the reasons Dan listed.

[Business Attorney]

I don't publish my rates, basically for the reasons Dan gives.

In person, I can explain that my associates, paralegals and staff handle work that is appropriate to push down to them, and that besides overall supervision and strategy, the things I do myself are usually things that I can do many times faster than anyone else in my office, so even at my rate the bill is actually lower than it would be if I handed off the work.

Also, I can explain that virtually all my clients are family owned businesses who have been clients in many cases for more than 20 years. You don't keep clients like that by sending out bills that are out of whack with the value you deliver to the client.

[vangogh]

I used to feel the same way about not posting rates, but like I said enough people said they'd want to see some kind of rate before hiring a web designer so I added the page. I don't think it's hurt me at all.

One area where it helps in a different way than expected is the usual 'tire kickers' don't get in touch as often as they used to. I seem to get less of the can you build me a website for $50 contacts.

[Steve B]

I don't post my rates - same as what Dan said.

But, I do give quotes over the phone (my competitors like to come to the house and give a big presentation then push the contract in their face at the end). The quotes over the phone probably costs me a lot of jobs, but saves me a ton of time driving all over the place. I now follow up every telephone quote with an e-mail confirmation which includes a handy "buyer's tool" that makes their comparison shopping very easy.

[billbenson]

Well, the idea is to stay booked. If you are booked, maybe you can put your rate up. If you aren't, try to get a phone call as that's one step closer to closing a deal. You might give a ballpark figure but try to get an email to send a quote to. That way, you have an email and your email is in their address book.

[Remipub]

I think the answer is highly dependent on your business. It's very rare to find advertising rates published online, although in the old days you could get a rate card (printed) with rates listed. It seems to me that more companies in the advertising business lean towards using a sales person to quote rates so they can give the pitch.

In businesses where your main focus is to be competitive in price (by choice or necessity) AND if you have very good rates, then posting them will probably be helpful. Also, we live in a society of instant gratification - I am probably as guilty as anyone in this matter. I've surfed the net trying to find prices before and if I couldn't find them I just went on to the next site that did post prices. That being said, I only do this when it's a readily available product or service - or something tangible. I wouldn't take that approach to a service oriented business.

As for advertising - although businesses NEED to advertise in some way or another, they typically aren't looking for places where they can spend money on advertising. For that reason, I'm not sure posting rates would help much. Although if a business is unwilling to give me rates in writing (printed or via email), I'm always leary and wouldn't use them.