Questions for a web designer

[Spex]

Hey everyone,

After doing some free sites for family and friend and friends of friends, I’m think that if I’m going to continue to do this, I might as well branch out and promote myself and try to make some money at this game. So I have a few questions for the web designers out there.

Please send me a PM or post in this thread if you are willing to spare a few minutes and I’ll PM my questions

Thanks in advance

 

[novatheory]

Hi Spex,

While I am new to the forum, was thinking you could ask here instead of PM so other members could benefit of the information. I could probably answer many questions on this realm as I been designing , developing for 13 years.

 

[Theo]

Ask away in this thread, as nova said others will benefit from it.

 

[south]

Ask away in this thread, as nova said others will benefit from it.

Ditto.

 

[Spex]

Thanks for the offer guys, here are some of my questions…

If only doing the design work…how do you deliver the site to your clients? Do you just give them a zipped file and they’re on their own?

Do you also offer hosting and domain registration? If so, how does the reseller side of things work?

How are the typical payment schedules? A certain % up front, and the rest at sign-off?

Do you charge an hourly rate or a flat fee?

Do you have official contracts, or is everything address in the design and requirements documents or emails?

Some legal/tax questions for any Canadian designers out there…
Do you need to incorporate for this or is sole proprietorship good enough?

Since you probably do business in more than one province/country, I guess you’d have to incorporate or otherwise register at the federal level?
Does HST apply to web design?


As you can tell, these are all questions about the business/legal/tax areas that I’m unsure of, so if there’s anything else that I’m missing please let me know

 

[Theo]

If only doing the design work…how do you deliver the site to your clients? Do you just give them a zipped file and they’re on their own?

If only design is requested, they receive the files, source files (e.g. Illustrator/Photoshop files) and assorted fonts used.

Do you also offer Hosting and domain registration? If so, how does the reseller side of things work?

Not for clients; I recommend others that I'm affiliated with.

How are the typical payment schedules? A certain % up front, and the rest at sign-off?

Depends on the contract and amount involved. For large projects, 50% up front.

 

[novatheory]

If only doing the design work…how do you deliver the site to your clients? Do you just give them a zipped file and they’re on their own?

Yes. The zip file will contain original work (.psd, .ai), images. If only design was requested.

Do you also offer hosting and domain registration? If so, how does the reseller side of things work?

Sometimes I sell the design, hosting, domain as one bundle. Other times I do not offer hosting or domain registration. It all depends on the client. Sometimes the smaller ones are the trouble makers and resource eater. So is easier to cover a particular area and not all.

How are the typical payment schedules? A certain % up front, and the rest at sign-off?

My bread and butter is 50% down and the rest on delivery day. I use a PMS to have milestones. You will only charge monthly a maintenance fee if thats what they want. But never, ever, ever, ever mix design, hosting, domain with monthly maintenance.

Do you charge an hourly rate or a flat fee?

It depends on the level of the client. But what I basically do is a flat fee with X amount of revisions. After that is X amount per revision or per hour on top of flat fee.

Do you have official contracts, or is everything address in the design and requirements documents or emails?

I generally do a contract stipulating the terms of the contract as I am acting as contracted company (LLC) and not an employee of X person or company, a nice detail outline of the work to be performed, and the amount and how is going to be paid. Without a project scope you can end-up adding more stuff to project than need it.

I can not answer Canadian legal stuff. So I will leave that open for a CA fellow DNF'er.

 

[Spex]

Thanks Nova and Acro, lots of info and it's nice to see how the business side works

 

[Mark Talbot]

As far as taxes, not canadian, but you can easily project your sole proprietorship max tax liability percentage,.. AND SAVE IT. Dont spend it. It WILL COME DUE.

If it is less, good deal for you.

And log all your time AS IT HAPPENS.

Sometimes your tax liabilility will be assessed quarterly, or maybe even monthly. So find out from your local tax chapter whats expected, up front.

It will likely be wise to dedicate a location in your home as business only, and dedicate a computer as business only. Including the software expenses if needed.

It is easy to prove your expenses if you keep records, and dedicate resources to business only.

But if you share business with personal, it complicates issues if you ever have to appeal. Especially with checking/savings/debit accounts.

 

[Spex]

Thanks again everyone.

I have another question if you don't mind...

Is there a simple CMS for clients who want to maintain the site on their own? It's not really needed on my side, I'm good enough at hand-coding, but I'm just thinking from the clients point of view.

I've seen some that charge a monthly fee for X pages/sites but what I would prefer is a one-time fee for unlimited usage as opposed to a recurring monthly fee.

Also, if it could be "white-labeled" that would be better

Thanks everyone