How to Negotiate Web Design Fees
You’ve got less than a minute to convince customers that your website is worth navigating. As an entrepreneur, your budget may be limiting, but with two-thirds of the population online, your website can be well-designed at an affordable cost. Here are some of the things you can negotiate on when working with a web designer.
- You can negotiate different costs depending on what phase you are in. If you’re in the consultation stages, discuss goals and outline design elements you’d like to see incorporated. There will be a fee for consultation, but most of the fees will be agreed upon after you’ve built a plan.
- Ask to pay a contract price rather than an hourly rate. Or, ask to pay for the design of the home page and site map only. If you like what you see, you will work with the company for the design and web programming of the whole site. Most companies are willing to do this to win your business.
- Ask about intellectual property rights to the site and if they would assign copyrights to your business as if the designer were your employee. This is easier to do with a freelancer, but if you are on a low-budget, you are most likely working with a freelancer. The important thing is to make sure you can modify the site when completed instead of having to continuously pay for updates.
- Ask about timing. You can negotiate rates depending on how quickly the project needs to get done.
- If you work with a company that also provides web hosting services, you may be able to negotiate a ‘package’ deal. Just make sure you purchase the site before you allow another company to host it.
Some of the items you will most likely not be able to negotiate are consultation payment, and contract breach. Most of the time you won’t be able to modify existing terms, but you can create a new contract for additional services at a discount.