OK I had to post this, it’s too great of a teaching opportunity. I came across a guy, who shall remain nameless, on LinkedIn Answers with this completely ignorant post. Seeing as I love a good argument, I had to reply – and here’s our set of replies to each other. This is what frustrates me to no end about our industry and why it’s so hard to find good clients and make a good living. I know I shouldn’t argue with this guy, as his opinion will obviously never change. But anyone who knows me, knows I always try to right wrongs, even if it’s impossible. Take a look at this and tell me what you think 
Considering the outrageous costs for developing web pages in the US, just curious if any of you have looked to overseas companies for this outsourcing task. In my experience the remote web developers truly suck (????) (#egister.com) and even if you find a local developer they seem more interested to show off how “brilliant” they are rather than design pages for you that you want. In the latter case I have seen web pages morph into something far from what the original design specified. Just curious to know your opinion.
OK First off….has he dealt with ALL web developers? Obviously not. Here’s my response:
OK First off, what’s your idea of “outrageous”? It takes A LOT of time, work and knowledge to make a website, you don’t just wave a magic wand and “poof” your website appears. You have to know multiple web languages, usability and compliance standards (if the developer is worth anything) and other eons of knowledge. It angers me when people expect $500 for a full website, yet don’t hesitate to pay their lawyers, massage therapists or whatever over $150 an hour easy. And no, all developers don’t suck…..if you buy cheap developers you get cheap service. Pay for a real developer and you’ll get real service. Period.
Did I sound angry? I really was.
Hi Amber, I obviously touched a raw nerve, however my assertion stands. I am going out on a limb (note: He doesn’t have to go “out on a limb” it says so right next to my name) to guess that you are involved with website design. As a point of reference, teaching is hard work with long hours required, not to mention the depth of skills required, yet they earn very little money. Perhaps if you were on the other side of the fence you might be more understanding of the realities of this particular situation. Sorry to disagree with you but I have experience dealing with so-called web designers and again, my assertion stands. Good luck!
OK teaching is NOT the same as web development….should we stop paying our doctors too?
I understand, yet you haven’t answered my question. What’s your idea of outrageous? The past designers you hired…did they charge $10 an hour or $80 an hour? There is a problem with my industry, as it’s easy for almost anyone to call themselves “designers and developers” thanks to software, but you have to know who you’re hiring. A person, like myself, with over 10 years of experience can charge $50-$150 an hour…and they know how to properly handle client relationships. If you hire some kid in high school….well of course you’r going to get crappy work. And going overseas isn’t always the answer…expecially if its from India…normally they charge peanuts ($100 for a full website…no way!), their code is horrible, outdated and bad for any SEO or following developer to make sense of….I’m still cleaning up clients’ website code built in tables….like I said before…you get what you pay for, and just like everything else, there’s a Goodwill of Designers and a Gucci of Designers.
Amber, Here is a site I specified to be built. It was made in China. raingallery.cn Total cost: less than $100. It’s only 3 basic pages but I got quotes of $1000 (outrageous) for the same basic pages from high school kids, Register.com, and “professional” website designers to name a few. Probably you will find flaws in them but I am the customer and the pages are acceptable to me HTML-wise. My customers have been very complimentary about the site so I see no real problem with it. If you feel that this is a crappy site, it’s because I did the specifications. I chose the colors, the artwork, and ‘how” the site should behave. And I did not have to have repeated discussions with the HTML guy. Also I have complete control of this site and can easily add as many product pages as I want for no additional costs. If you know of someone, including yourself, who would charge me $100 to build this same type of site, bring it on. I have two more sites in the pipeline. So now I believe I answered your question. Thanks for participating in mine at LI. Also, as you pointed out, there is a problem with your industry, and frankly I said the exact same thing on my LI question. Sorry you took this so personally.
$100 for a CMS, Design & Coding? OK Did you see that site? The web design looks outdated, and the site is built in tables…there isn’t even an Alexa rank…
$100 Are you kidding me?? This is what I charge for two hours of work. Please don’t take this the wrong way, as I’m trying to tell you this from a professional view, but it is people with your mentality, who expect everything for nothing, that bring this industry down. First off, any designer should design with your “design specs”. You want pink and purple websites, they will try to educate why pink and purple may not be the best choice, but if that’s what you want, that’s the kind of website they’ll give you. You’re happy with the HTML? That’s because you don’t know what HTML is. Do you realize that site is built using table templates, aka pre-2000 code? That you’re being penalized by search engines for it, you’d don’t even have an Alexa rank (which is what your Google page ranking is based from), it probably doesn’t even display correctly across all browsers. You don’t see the HTML from the front-end, so you don’t see the problems, or where it is hurting you. I took this personally because you said “all web developers suck”; you might as well have said “all black people suck”, “all jews suck” or whatever. It’s a generalization and it’s untrue.All your web developers may have suck because you’ve never worked with a real developer before. $1000 for a web design and coding is frankly cheap (my design and PROPER HTML code starts at $2500), and you would have at least gotten a much nicer back end and probably better service. Don’t take this the wrong way, as most people don’t realize the amount of work that goes into a website. A real designer and developer wouldn’t take a basic template from a site, hit the slice n dice button on photoshop, and give you a cookie cutter site in an hour. Real sites take an upwards of 20 hours to build correctly, including real knowledge of design and design practices, coding knowledge (not using table layouts that were basically banned by the industry almost 10 years ago). Sorry you’ve had a bad experience but they things I outlined above may be why.
The guy replies back that this conversation is over – did I hit a raw nerve…called the truth?
I don’t like embarassing people, or making examples out of them, but this is just – outrageously bad. This guy REFUSES to pay a normal price for a web design, and wonders why his service is so bad? That’s like me stepping into the homeless shelter and wondering why they didn’t put a mint on my pillow and fluffy towels in my bathroom.
People like this is what is wrong with our industry today. They don’t understand (and never will no matter how many times you explain it) what it takes to build a site. Granted, this is one guy, but there are thousands of people out there like this, who believe table layouts inPhotoshop are acceptable, who don’t believe in paying for work, who believe in getting something for nothing (and whining about the free service) and who will subsequently, never have a very good web presence.
What are your thoughts on this and are ways you would have combatted someone like this?
About the authorI have over 10 years of experience in coding valid and semantic XHTML, CSS and WordPress that is both clean and SEO-friendly. Also a lover of books, interior design and cheesecake! More »
Copyright © 2010 Amber Weinberg. All rights Reserved. Please don't steal, it's really not cool! But if you'd love to work with me (you do don't you?), please contact me :)
I agree 100% with you on this. Even as a non-freelancer such as myself who does web design as well as software engineering, companies aren’t paying good salary for quality developers either. Outsourcing is really killing the industry here in the US. In my honest opinion companies and sole proprietors are living in the 90s… They truly don’t understand what the hell is going on with their software and they just expect it to work for as cheap as they can get it. From a customer point of view I understand that dropping a few grand on a website seems expensive and most people don’t understand SEO, etc. nor do they want to understand it.
I see 2 problems here… There are those “developers” out there who will charge $100 to do a website, using outdated technology and thus drop the bar for good, up-to-date developers such as ourselves. As a result this makes us look totally insane for charging what we charge to develop. The second problem I see is that the average technological intelligence of a business owner is very limited. They don’t have the time nor the desire to learn anything about their website and just expect it to work (reiterating). I have found that most owners figure that updating, etc. should come free since they have to spend so much on the front end.
I usually like to put it into perspective for them by giving them a list of technologies I will be using and a printout of the standards we have to follow on a regular basis. Then I tell them if they can find another developer who can meet these exact requirements for cheaper, by all means do so or I tell them they can attempt it themselves. I even give them a nice list of all the places they can find info on all the technologies I use and how to use them. I also do hosting and managed hosting so showing them everything that goes into that such as DNS, Apache, Tomcat, IIS, handling domain registration, etc. usually makes their head spin.
Anyway… I am just blabbering at this point.. Point is I agree with you
. Nice argument!
Later.
Dang, how old was that guy? My guess is that he is over 45. People of that age and older don’t take the internet seriously enough to think that paying real professional prices is worth it. Baby boomers are even worse. What I find funny is that this guy probably has no problem paying a doctor $500 dollars to listen to his heart and breathing for five seconds with a stethoscope.
Hey Amber,
Incredible article. We’re really feelin’ your sentiments. Admittedly we’ve been in this situation time and time again, and it really sucks each and every time we have to justify why a price is what it is, especially when we know everything involved and how little we’ve charged for the project overall.
People for the most part just don’t get it, as if there is no overhead to run our businesses, maintain our ‘tools’, keep-up with industry standards and best practices. years of experience, etc., etc.
Honestly, we’ve seen things get worse as the free tools online get more prolific, ie. social apps that are free to use and setup. We’ve tried to explain to clients that while those sites are very intuitive and easy to use, it’s the numerous people working countless hours building them that have made them that way.
Sometimes certain aspects of this industry can try and suck the spirit right out of ya’, but, don’t let the haters get to ya’, Keep on Keepin’ On – that’s OUR mantra anyway.
Great article, keep em’ coming!
The FlyDuo – Reuben & Sherri
Twitter/FlyDuo
http://www.FlyMediaProductions.com
BogaZine: http://www.DaLyfe.com
Twitter/DaLyfe
Hey Amber,
Great article. We can really appreciate your sentiments. We’ve dealt with similar situations & attitudes time and time again. They have no idea what it takes to create a successful product for a client.
It also seems that with the advent of social sites and the free sites, that clients have become confused about a few things. Because these sites are free & easy to use and they can create/modify them easily right in their own browser that there must be nothin’ to doin’ this ‘web design thing’.
We’ve explained the differences to clients numerous times, free doesn’t mean quality, and the easier something is to use on the front the more work went into making it that way from behind the scenes, etc. etc.
Anyway, don’t let the haters get to you. Our mantra – Keep On Keepin’ On.
The FlyDuo – Reuben & Sherri
Check us at:
Fly Media Productions
Twitter/FlyDuo
DaLyfe
Twitter/DaLyfe
Hey, really great article! I loved reading it, but I just want to point out a few things.
Overseas Companies (and I like how just mentioned ONE country’s name cough* generalization cough*) charge so less for crappy services (and I bet they even know that they are providing crappy services), is because $100 US is more when converted into their currency. So for them, its “wat-the-heck! who is going to waste time arguing with such clients? Just give them what they want and get the payment”.
The only way good developers in North America can compete with such companies, is only maintaining relationships with businessmen who are experienced in web-related technologies. There are a lot of web developers/designers out there who finally start their own online business. We as developers have to “target” and maintain contact with just those type of people. Only this will bring some sense into other clients (upon seeing their success) and bring us sleep at night.
What do you think?
100% with you on this Amber. I particularly like:
“Don’t take this the wrong way, as most people don’t realize the amount of work that goes into a website.”
and
“It angers me when people expect $500 for a full website, yet don’t hesitate to pay their lawyers, massage therapists or whatever over $150 an hour easy.”
Unfortunately too many people don’t seem to understand exactly what it is we do. Blame the WYSIWYG editors, PSD to XHTML conversion sites, Site building tools offered by many hosting providers, hell even go as far back as geosites!
Well done for sticking up for us!
$2500.00 a site??? How are you still getting business in thes recession???
$2500 for a full design and code is actually cheap and I charge much more than that now.