$400 for a landing page designer: Is that how much you're paying?
- Thread starter moolahaffiliate
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A really good lander (or logos or banners or full sites or any design), with code (and copy in this case) isn't something a designer "bangs out" or "whips off" or whatever the fuck you want to call it in a couple of hours. You're talking at least two days of work, with review, revisions, and fine tuning.
The majority of people here seem to think graphic design is just something that happens instantaneously; you give a designer a spec, they immediately conjure up the best, most perfect solution in their heads, and just throw it down in Photoshop in a few minutes and deliver it.
A good designer takes their time to come up with multiple ideas, plays around with them, scours their fonts and researches stock photography (which can take hours alone), and then presents those ideas to the client for feedback to then revise and finalize.
Same with logos... there are lots of guys on here offering $10, $18, $25, $50 logos, whatever, and they are more often than not a clip art element from Shutterstock combined with a straight typeface with .com tacked on the end. There's nothing particularly creative or bespoke about them and they simply look generic at best. They can be completed in 10 minutes.
If that is all you are looking for then that is fine, but I'm sorry, that is not what logo design is about and you DO get what you pay for.
Back to landers though. At least two days to do an excellent job, I charge €200 a day (€25 an hour), so €400 (or $400 in this case) is definitely not out of the question.
If you are thinking "fuck me, that's outrageous", stop and think for a minute that I have invested 3 years in schooling, have 13 years professional experience, have tens of thousands of dollars invested in hardware, software, fonts and stock photography, and need to put a roof over my head and eat like the rest of you. Would you do a day's worth of work for a quarter of a day's pay? I don't fucking think so.
Maybe you can get an Indian or art student to do the work for pennies on the dollar in a couple of hours but as soon as they have a decent portfolio and are good enough they will reallize they could be working an agency job or freelancing for several times more than what you are paying them and you will be back to looking for the next cheap guy... and getting medicore results because of it.
The majority of people here seem to think graphic design is just something that happens instantaneously; you give a designer a spec, they immediately conjure up the best, most perfect solution in their heads, and just throw it down in Photoshop in a few minutes and deliver it.
A good designer takes their time to come up with multiple ideas, plays around with them, scours their fonts and researches stock photography (which can take hours alone), and then presents those ideas to the client for feedback to then revise and finalize.
Same with logos... there are lots of guys on here offering $10, $18, $25, $50 logos, whatever, and they are more often than not a clip art element from Shutterstock combined with a straight typeface with .com tacked on the end. There's nothing particularly creative or bespoke about them and they simply look generic at best. They can be completed in 10 minutes.
If that is all you are looking for then that is fine, but I'm sorry, that is not what logo design is about and you DO get what you pay for.
Back to landers though. At least two days to do an excellent job, I charge €200 a day (€25 an hour), so €400 (or $400 in this case) is definitely not out of the question.
If you are thinking "fuck me, that's outrageous", stop and think for a minute that I have invested 3 years in schooling, have 13 years professional experience, have tens of thousands of dollars invested in hardware, software, fonts and stock photography, and need to put a roof over my head and eat like the rest of you. Would you do a day's worth of work for a quarter of a day's pay? I don't fucking think so.
Maybe you can get an Indian or art student to do the work for pennies on the dollar in a couple of hours but as soon as they have a decent portfolio and are good enough they will reallize they could be working an agency job or freelancing for several times more than what you are paying them and you will be back to looking for the next cheap guy... and getting medicore results because of it.
If all you're doing is ripping off other people's work, then yeah, I'd charge you a day for all that probably.
Hiring a designer has been the best thing I've ever done. I get LPs when I want and how I want, and then they get tweaked for performance when I want and how I want. And seeing that wages here are so low, I got a decent designer that is willing to work as local clients are paying next to nothing if they can even afford it.
People rarely seem to figure in the value of their time when deciding to do things in house versus outsource. If you burn 4 hours of your own time (or more likely 8 if graphic design/html/css isn't your day job) and you value your time at at least $50 dollars an hour you didn't save $100 by not outsourcing you spent $100-$300 and diverted time away from your core competencies or your personal life. It's called opportunity cost and should always be kept in mind.
That has got to be, BY FAR, one of the most overlooked aspects of our jobs as designers. Pictures can literally make or break your page... And with so many offers out there, a GOOD designer will try to avoid the overused imagery. There've been many projects where I've spent a minimum of 2 hours looking for appropriate photos.
The price should depends on the designer/writer past conversion stats....
There is no way a simple design landing page to command a $400 fee...its the copy in it that makes the difference...
If the copy can kick your conversion to 5% and above, then I think the price is well worth it.. of course it depends on the niche as well
There is no way a simple design landing page to command a $400 fee...its the copy in it that makes the difference...
If the copy can kick your conversion to 5% and above, then I think the price is well worth it.. of course it depends on the niche as well
Exactly. Hiring someone who understands what a well converting page is and is not can make or break a newb. I feel sorry for the suckers who paid $150 for a shit LP like I did early on. They never convert and are usually very poorly cut/coded, making it hard to edit later.
Excellent post. +rep
I've done a lot of design work in my career and there is no way in hell I would do anything for a client, even close to the low ass figures being quoted here. Definitely know where you're coming from.
Just out curiosity has anybody on WF ever had an LP designed by a "landing page designer for hire" on WF, and had that LP kick ass?
+ rep fatbat.
I've been designing for well over a decade as well, and now I wouldn't touch a contract for less than $1000 if I was still servicing clients. I don't care if one needs just a logo or just an lp or just some custom stock treatment et al.
Fuck getting LP's for $100 lol, you guys want a real branding treatment or just some dreamweaver template with some header/footer graphics and some lorem ipsum to boot...
I'd pay top dollar for top results, aesthetics aside, if the designer is conditioned to our world and knows what a LP is/does, $400 is nothing. Outsourcing to your fav. sweatchopshop will indeed get you what you pay for. I for one am amazed at the prices some of you charge for your media services i.e. $15-$20 for a logo? Really? $50 for a LP??
OP - $400, if the designers portfolio screams quality, I'd go for it. If they have any proof of previous landers doing well/converting, that would be even better for you.
I've been designing for well over a decade as well, and now I wouldn't touch a contract for less than $1000 if I was still servicing clients. I don't care if one needs just a logo or just an lp or just some custom stock treatment et al.
Fuck getting LP's for $100 lol, you guys want a real branding treatment or just some dreamweaver template with some header/footer graphics and some lorem ipsum to boot...
I'd pay top dollar for top results, aesthetics aside, if the designer is conditioned to our world and knows what a LP is/does, $400 is nothing. Outsourcing to your fav. sweatchopshop will indeed get you what you pay for. I for one am amazed at the prices some of you charge for your media services i.e. $15-$20 for a logo? Really? $50 for a LP??
OP - $400, if the designers portfolio screams quality, I'd go for it. If they have any proof of previous landers doing well/converting, that would be even better for you.
I generally charge $200 for a LP design + code.
But I have 10+ years graphic design experience and 2 years of focus on conversion optimization through split and multi-variate testing.
With that said, I'm american. You can outsource overseas for far cheaper.
"You get what you pay for" is somewhat par for the course, but you have to understand the competitive landscape.
99designs is quite amazing, definitely worth looking into for your projects.
But I have 10+ years graphic design experience and 2 years of focus on conversion optimization through split and multi-variate testing.
With that said, I'm american. You can outsource overseas for far cheaper.
"You get what you pay for" is somewhat par for the course, but you have to understand the competitive landscape.
99designs is quite amazing, definitely worth looking into for your projects.
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