Need help to understand pricing

[maelthrasvlos]

OK let start off by saying I'm new or going to be new to the freelance web designer for a price. I don't know where to begin with the price I hear that People with HTML and CSS start at $20 per hour. Keep in mind I don't want to take on projects far out of comfort zone but things to help me learn and grow. so I'm just looking for a good starting price or a way to look at it. If anyone can help. thanks in advance!!! P.S. I only know HTML and CSS right Learning Javascirpt and XML right now.

[Guest LH91325]

My advice: Start with your rate at $X/hour. Perhaps X = $20. Decrease your rate if you start running hungry, losing weight, or spend large amounts of time posting on Internet forums. Increase your rate if you observe that you have no time for sleep, no time for eating or for you know what. Goto: my advice Understand that you will have to produce results no matter what your rate is. You will get no referrals if your rate isn't worth the results. You will not succeed unless you get referrals and get repeat business. Catch: go into a different profession

[maelthrasvlos]

cool thanks for the advice but I will stay in this for the long haul but that's why I have a full time job and go about his whole thing slow in not just jump in reckless. but thank you any one else have anything.

[Krewe]

Just from experience I know a lot of customers have a hard time "believing" how many hours you put in working on a website.So I have switched to a flat rate charge. I discuss what the customer wants on the website (CMS, Contact Form, Blog, etc.) and depending on what the customer wants that is how much the flat rate charge will be. A majority of my customers prefer that over hourly. ~Krewe (Some advice: Learn PHP and MySQL, now. A lot of the website features customers expect a site to have will require these two languages. And like LH stated above, if you can't provide those features you will not get repeats or referrals.)

Edited May 15, 2012 by Krewe

[Guest LH91325]

Flat rate is good too. Many customers (particularly small ones) are more likely to be attracted to a fixed cost rather than an open-end arrangement. Have your web design site show various types of sample sites and set a price on each. (Include a list of features and let them visit the sample site to see how it looks and works.) An additional benefit of the samples is that you can modify code off the shelf to give them their own sites.