Cheap Designers
 

Why do you guys goes so cheap?

Chopping each others legs off is all fine and well, the value of the American dollar over sea's is different granted but a trade skill is a trade skill.

How did you see it fit to start under pricing even yourselves?

If you aren't very good, and can't get the business.. you have to do it cheap. :2 cents:

sometime people just want a simple design or just dont have the cash.

what i find odd is that overseas, they cut the prices due to a lower cost of living but why not charge what a designer in the US would? seems like they would make a lot more money due to the exchange rate.

Business is business - there's always someone going under-cost hoping for enough bulk to drive a proffit margin eventually; it happens in almost every market. :2 cents:

am i considered cheap? mid rate i guess? :)

3 Years ago I would charge $2500.00 for what you do.
Thats just a splash page.

I would do 4 page tours for 5000.00.

Think about it.

The war of attrition is staggering. Design is no longer profitable, at least for an American Designer.

I can make more cash referring your business.

:thumbsup

:1orglaugh During the boom I saw many large companies (including myself) drop prices just to compete. Had nothing to do with being good or not, there is an idiot on every corner with a fresh copy of MS FrontPage and a $14 domain name that inevitably will take business from "good designers" just from a pricing standpoint. My prices have been 50% lower than any other established design studio since I opened in 98, has nothing to do with what the market will bare etc. Just the way I've always done business, offer quality at affordable prices.

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh

Its a tough question I think thats why these sort threads are common.

It needs some sort of answer, or maybe the answer is done and we don't like it so want another?:1orglaugh

Threads that tend to repeat themselves or go through the same run are essentially the kind of thread that is picked at for answer's.

So again why are you outsource guys so cheap and why are you folks even undercutting your talent's prices even further?

I do it because I need the business. The lowering of prices is a difficult situation, indeed, but what's really sad is when you offer ridiculously low prices on good quality designs and NO ONE responds. How is one to pay their bills when they can't even get work at near slave wages? :(

There is just soooo much competition these days and the market is relatively small. I've seen weeks where LITERALLY ten new "designers" would pop up on GFY offering "special prices" to attract new clients. But what can you do? Everyone has to start somewhere and we were all new once.

I have an idea of a way to stabilize the market but I have no time to implement it. If I ever get caught up on my bills so I can take a break, I'll get it in motion. I think it will be a good way to being the real full-time designers more work and stabilize prices at an acceptable level for everyone involved. :)

Its mostly about the clients. Prices are cheap
because of competition. Ive done gallery templates
for 100 bucks each, and ive done gallery templates
for 10 bucks each. It varies from client to client.
Ive done paysites for 2k, and ive done paysites for $400.
again, it varies from client to client.

IMPORTANT:
You also must think about where the designer
is located. I live in ohio and my townhouse costs
only $599 a month. In Florida, Cali, the same would
run for 2k and more a month. Thats a huge difference
and is one of the biggest factors in the desicion of the
price. I can do 2 paysites at $300 each and have enough
for rent and bills for a month, but since my prices are
so low, I get more business so im doing 3 and 4 paysites
+ galleries, banners, templates, ect ect. So I gain profits
even with my low prices.

I.E. My cost of living is low.
Othes, cost of living is high.

:Graucho

you hit a very good point there, cost of living and not being greedy allows you to undercut others....

I think this is exactly what he is saying.

So many designers are "looking out for number one" and not the industry as a whole. They only care about what it takes for THEM to make a living, and they don't care that they're slitting the throats of other designers who have a higher cost of living and simply can't compete. They're driving down prices for everyone in the industry because they don't pay as much to live or because they still live with their parents or whatever. It's hurting everyone in the long run, because it's forcing EVERYONE (except perhaps the very long established designers) to lower their prices to compete and it's degrading the industry.

I charge $150 (starting fee) for a logo, I don't think its cheap but not very expensive either...:glugglug

I think greed is long past a point in the adult design industry. Most designers nowadays are barely scraping by. There are only maybe a dozen or so designers that are doing well on constant basis, as far as I can tell.

if you're good, work for a company. let other haggle over dollars for some paysite designs

you lower your prices, and you will have customers coming back to you over and over. you will get more clients.

*winks at tootie*

Just the kind of client I love. <3 :winkwink:

Its because a lot of designers from cheaper countries to life in joined this board and ask bottom prices which you simply can't compete with if you want to make a decent living.

I don't feel like I am cheap. I feel like I am being fair. I must be doing something right cause I got more work than I can handle most weeks. When I turn work away though, I NEVER refer any client to an outsourcer. I always refer to quality designers.:2 cents:

Almost every industry works this way, with laws of supply and demand and competition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand

The solution is to kill off all the other designers.

:Graucho

I would raise my prices if everyone else did, but they arent going to, so im not.

The only way to compete with that is adding a better package, more options, free revisions etc.

Its crazy how all of you think that this industy differs from any other. Why anyone would think that is beyond me.:eek7

EDIT: not ALL of you, but ALOT of you.

Same goes for content providers. Most of them are just too fucking stupid to figure it out.

wow.. that's a lot man.. i wish i was in the adult industry at that time. anyway, i think my price rates are fair enough at the moment.. not too low.. not too high.. well, that's just what i think though. :)

Personally my talents are better spent creating my own sites and traffic, its just simpler now a days and the time cost is more lucrative.

What I do not understand is why the prices are dropping. Any designer should know that if they actually took the time to build out there own sites and get traffic the value for there skills is best served on there own efforts and the value is found 10X.

Essentially you are waisting time on a $300 dollar site when you can make your own site and generate $400+ even $1000.00+ off a simple design and use the same designs for months on months.

"The I love to design" story is great but it does not hold water. You love to design but you like to design your own way, just fucken do it your way and you will make more money.

300.00 for a tour is fucken crazy, if you took the same time to build your own site you would see that even waisting your time on a 300.00 design is better served doing somthing else for yourself.

I learned this I hope its not a new concept.

exact thing happened to the content business everyone killed each other

I dont get it either

There IS a way. :winkwink:

It's not a 100% end-all solution, but I think it will help ALOT.

I agree there. I made more in 2003 off my own sites than I have ever made with design projects in the last 4 years. That includes the years when I was getting $10K+ per site.

I have my own paysite + 3 commercial sites.

Not a new conept to me. :winkwink:

I was running my own stuff long before I was designing for other people. Lack of capital to push my own stuff to the next was the big reason I started designing for others :)

I dont think any sector of this biz has been hit as hard as designers..

maybe free site owners but that was years ago..

gallery submitters?

Someone with some nice change could buy up all of the cheap designs and throw them in a premade store. No more competition. :glugglug

What about content ? Hosting ? We're at a point where it seems anyone with paint shop pro or a "borrowed" copy of photoshop is a designer now. Anyone with a $200 digital camera is a content provider ( 10,000+ pics for $99 !!! ).