How We Work: Our Process and Pricing Guide for Web Design

In this day and age, being fiscally aware and responsible are really important things - I want to know where my money is going, and in what fashion. Service industries such as ours have always been plagued with a lack of clarity in pricing. At digital-telepathy, we believe that you should have an idea of what our services cost before you call or email us. So, while you’re kicking the tires and checking out our portfolio, read this post to see how our web design process works and how much loot all of this creative juice is going to cost.

Full disclosure, no secrets!

When shopping for products, whether it’s a couch, food or a computer, both cost and quality play important roles in making a decision. The prices are clearly laid out, even for big ticket items such as homes and cars, so that we can make an informed decision. This being said, why is it that professional service industries don’t have this sort of transparency as a norm? Shouldn’t I be able to see the qualifications and cost commitment at-a-glance to determine if I can afford a particular lawyer, general contractor, or web shop? The answer to these questions should be, YES!

dt has always been committed to integrity and true transparency with all of our clients, both prospective and active. We calculate and provide clear, value-driven pricing on everything that we do. No smoke-n-mirrors, no secrets and definitely no BS! Granted, we’re not the low-price leader in web design firms, but do you really want the cheapest open-heart surgeon out there? You want the best for your dollar. We price our services on a value-based model: one which delivers comprehensive intellectual ROI immediately and throughout the business relationship.

Intellectual ROI? What on earth is that?! It means that you, as the client, receive tangible deliverables that produce valuable results throughout our whole relationship, not just pretty designs after 4 weeks. The road to those deliverables requires a lot of research, strategy and planning before execution (this is the Base Process). This is where we, the “metro web nerds,” combine our expertise with your passion and build a plan to execute your vision. After all, it’s impossible to cook a great meal without a solid kitchen, fresh ingredients and some culinary knowledge.

The process of working with digital-telepathy is a stress-free and fun. In our initial meeting, we learn about your project and understand your goals and vision. We’ll also share our expertise in the web 2.0 space as it applies to your project. Once we have a collective understanding of what your goals are, we’ll build an estimate for the total cost of the project. While we work on an hourly basis, we want you to have an accurate representation of what the project will cost based on our discussion. There is always the chance of the project scope increasing as we strategize new ideas and functionalities, but you’ll always be a position to approve or deny the enhancements. We charge a rate of $175-$225/hour depending on the complexity of each task for strategy, design, front end development and integration services.

Here is an outline of how a typical engagement with dt works:

1. Strategic Alignment (primary discovery and brainstorming session)
2. Proposal and Contract
3. Kickoff Meeting (Both teams design and fill in the minute details on the project roadmap)
4. Flows & Wireframes (the structure and user interface of the site / web app - think of this as a blueprint for the key user interfaces to be built)
5. Living Designs (the look and feel of the interface - we add color, light, graphics and texture to the wireframes)
6. .CSS/.XHTML Build (the Living Designs come to life with web standards strict code)
7. Integration/Interaction Design (design templates are integrated into the website and made functional - additional programming takes place, such as AJAX and other front end effects)

Our relationship with you is like cooking with a partner - we work together to create something unique and super tasty. We will challenge your thinking and evolve your concept like a beautifully-crafted meal. This being said, it’s time to break the traditional service-agency model and “put our menu in the window.”

Here are the details about our process, the time it takes to achieve them and what each of the parts cost:

Base Process: $6,300

• Meet and Kickoff
• Strategy, Research, Client Self Realization (Creative Brief)
• Project Management and Meetings

Page Design Process: Cost Depends on the Project and the Numbers/Types of Pages
We divide our projects into 3 key types of pages, based on their classification and complexity. For each type of page, there are 3 “ingredients” required to create the finished product:

• Flowcharts and Wireframes
• Living Designs
• .CSS/HTML Build

Per-Page Costs (includes the 3 ingredients above for each page)

• Home Page: $4,200
• Primary Design Page: $2,450/page
• Secondary Design Page: $1,225/page

A Sample Project
Let’s say that we’re embarking on a project to build a site for a neat web application that will give users sample recipes based on what they have in their fridge or pantry. The project might be priced out like this:

• Base Process ($6,300)
• Home Page Design ($4,200)
• Primary Page Designs/Build ($7,350)
  • Enter ingredients
  • Recipe results
  • Featured recipes
  • Blog
  • Cooking tips

• Secondary Page Designs/Build ($3,675)
  • Search recipes
  • About Us
  • Contact us

TOTAL: $21,525 + Integration Costs (based hourly on time and materials)

Time and Materials: $175/hr
digital-telepathy offers strategic user experience design without any filler. We never “pad” hours in our estimates - you get the straight story with no BS! We use the calculations above to figure out how many hours it will take to complete your project. This being said, there are often aspects of your project which will be billed additionally as Time and Materials. Some examples of these a-la carte items are:

• Additional strategic time
• Logo/Branding
• Additional design time
• Integration into your backend or a CMS, and front-end programming (these are nearly impossible to quote initially, as the complexity is not usually determined until the flowcharts and wireframes have been completed.)
• Additional features and functionality
• Out of scope revisions
• Additional project management time

What do You Get?
In addition to piece of mind resulting from a solid strategic foundation, you’ll walk away with a beautifully engineered and artistically crafted front end (Page Designs + .CSS/HTML Templates) for your back-end application or content management system. We’ll integrate the designs into your system if you like, or you can have your programmers take care of that.

In Summary
I hope that this post has provided some clarity to help you plan out the budgeting phase of your project. If you have any additional questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.