What Would You Charge Per Hour For Web Dev/PPC Management?

Fiver

Fiver

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Jan 30, 2009
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I have a new client (who runs an agency) who wants to pay me per hour for both Front End Web Dev and PPC management services for their clients. I'll be on a 1099 that will start part time but might go to full time 1099.

My talents are around an Advanced Intermediate in both areas.

What is a fair charge in California for a deal like this?

And if you're questioned about the rate, how do you sell the rate you demand for both areas?
 


Unfortunately a lot of this will have to do with how much they can charge to the client.

What kind of web dev?
 
Fiver said:
What is a fair charge in California for a deal like this?

And if you're questioned about the rate, how do you sell the rate you demand for both areas?
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You've been around a while so I'll spare you the "do you have any idea what you're doing?" shit.

Fiver said:
I have a new client
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My first question: what did you charge the "old" clients, and why is that suddenly unsuitable for this project?

A fair charge for any service is the most the buyer will pay. This is called "value" and it's determined by the buyer. If they find you a good value, they will buy. If they find you to be a poor value, they won't.

If you want to find out what the local competition is like, spend an hour or two calling around to find out hourly rates in their geographical area. It shouldn't be too difficult. Don't forget to check Craigslist, etc. and don't forget to search for obvious terms they would (San Francisco web design, whatever) to see what ads are up and what the landers for those ads say.

Seriously though... if you can't price your services, you're not in business. Take care of this ASAP.
 
tangy said:
My first question: what did you charge the "old" clients, and why is that suddenly unsuitable for this project?
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Have only done web dev as an employee for agencies. So this is my first freelance client.


A fair charge for any service is the most the buyer will pay. This is called "value" and it's determined by the buyer. If they find you a good value, they will buy. If they find you to be a poor value, they won't.

If you want to find out what the local competition is like, spend an hour or two calling around to find out hourly rates in their geographical area. It shouldn't be too difficult. Don't forget to check Craigslist, etc. and don't forget to search for obvious terms they would (San Francisco web design, whatever) to see what ads are up and what the landers for those ads say.

Seriously though... if you can't price your services, you're not in business. Take care of this ASAP.
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I've seen everything from $60 - $100/hour on other forums but that was just for web design/web dev. My deal will involve PPC too.

I'm trying to figure in the fact that they don't have to pay me health insurance and all that other stuff they'd have to pay if I were an employee.
 
Don't sell yourself short, nothing below $125 per hour. Just like Tangy said, it's perception of value.

If you can't go in there confidently and say 125.00 per hour, practice in the mirror. Seriously, it works.

If you think 125.00 is too much (which you shouldn't) then at least do yourself a favor and DO NOT go below 100.00 per hour. At least you'll have wiggle room to get up to the 125.00 mark, but if you go below, then you're wiggle room will be to the 100.00 mark.

Hope that makes sense.
 
Hourly rate for PPC? Pretty sure the standard is to charge a fee based on a percent of ad spend, normally around 10-15%. As far as web dev it varies but since it's an agency they're probably looking to pimp out your services at 3x of what you charge them.

If you want to know how much you should be charging them try to find out how much ad spend they're managing per month (and how many accounts and different platforms), and how much they normally bill out dev work (have a friend call and request a quote to get a ballpark idea of they charge if you don't know). This should give you an idea of the value you're providing to the agency.
 
I can tell you its 10-20% of spend normally for PPC.

Also I see a lot of agencies charge $135 an hour for setups and $5k for retainers monthly in the same space
 
% spend doesn't always work, eg. the campaign monthly spend is small <$2000/mo or the campaign size itself is small (low # of keywords yet with high priced keywords). Also every situation is a little different with the types of campaigns (search, display, youtube). If your good with PPC and efficient with adwords editor and excel, based your estimates at min. $100/hr+. Adwords is much more complex than it was even last year and google thrives on shitty campaigns. On top of that I'd charge even more for Bing.
 
Fraggler said:
Where's the incentive for improving the profit for a client's PPC campaign when it reduces your own payout?
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Because when you increase a companies bottom line, they increase their ad spend. Eliquid doesn't work in niches with small monthly volumes targetting terms like "<tiny ass suburb> of <tiny ass town> plumbing" where being efficient would increase his own payout.

Hourly rates are usually $100-$200/hr, but most people don't bill hourly from my experience. Also, most companies don't like being charged hourly unless you are working from their office or on some type of ridiculous time tracking program.
 
tencentpiece said:
Because when you increase a companies bottom line, they increase their ad spend. Eliquid doesn't work in niches with small monthly volumes targetting terms like "<tiny ass suburb> of <tiny ass town> plumbing" where being efficient would increase his own payout.

Hourly rates are usually $100-$200/hr, but most people don't bill hourly from my experience. Also, most companies don't like being charged hourly unless you are working from their office or on some type of ridiculous time tracking program.
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I should also mention that i was only talking about web design/dev at the 125.00 per mark. With PPC it wouldn't be good to charge by the hour, you're leaving money on the table.

Listen to Eliquid, 10-20% of ad spend for PPC.
 
The most important question you must ask any prospective client.

"What is your budget"

[sarcasm?]
And then depending on your sales skills add 25% to their budget, and that is your rate. ***Pro tip Sell it low and screw em on the backend w/ plenty of change orders. [/sarcasm?]

seriously though work that 1 question into every new client consult. Just remember they will probably lie to you, but at least you will have a starting point.
 
Ok I can tell you from experience, if you want to charge high (think $100++ per hour) you NEED an agency yourself, and a professional website, testimonials, a 1-800 support number, case studies from past clients, etc...otherwise NO ONE WILL TAKE YOU SERIOUSLY.

I've experienced this first hand, it was very hard at the beginning for clients to pay me more than $50 an hour knowing that they are paying some dude sitting in his underwear at home, even if you're the best at what you do. People's budgets are influenced by perception, you need that professional image that comes with running an agency. When clients know that you are a serious business with an office, employees, clients, a good track record... sky is the limit and you can start charging the big monies.

Good luck bro
 
For PPC you need a min cost, say $500 p/m and then a percentage of the spend.

For dev, too hard to call. Depending on who I work with the costs work out to from $150-ish an hour to a few thousand per hour. That's because I price based on the work, and the value, rather than on how many hours I expect it to take.

There are lots of ways to price dev and make good money. I know some devs who price fairly low upfront but have a hefty fee for a year or more afterwards. Some just charge a hefty hourly, and a few do value pricing.

But to your specific question, ask for what YOU want per hour, nothing else really matters.
 
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