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It's hard to say without more information (probably quite a lot more information), but based on what you've said (and making the assumption, perhaps wrongly, that you're in North America or Europe), I'd say you should be looking in the neighbourhood of ten times the larger of those two numbers--if not 20 times.

Creating, tweaking and optimizing 60 photos alone, even assuming the whole process only takes 15 minutes per photo-is 15 hours work. At $20 per hour--which, in the places I've assumed you might live, is an unsustainable rate for good quality freelance work--is $300. We haven't even begun to think about the CMS implementation and customization, and we've said nothing at all about design...

Remember not to assume, as customers frequently do, that the rate you charge as a freelancer is your wage. It's not. It has to pay for all of that non-billable time that you spend emailing the client, meeting with the client, talking on the phone with the client, reminding the client to provide you with content, your paperwork, taxes, equipment, swamp tax, cow ointment, dog biscuits , coffee, single-malt scotch and whatever else it takes to run your own business...

-b

There are many different ways to charge for websites. As you become more involved with programming projects over the next few years, you will find that projects like the one you are referring to (the jewelry store website) will be time-consuming tasks.

As a result, you will likely charge a lot more for such projects.

Take into account the number of pages; whether or not you will create the CMS portion by yourself, or use a script from some place else; the optimizing of images; maintenance of pages; etc.

Not sure exactly how much content this jewelry store has, but my first impression would be a charge of $350 - $750.

Not sure exactly how much content this jewelry store has, but my first impression would be a charge of $350 - $750.

$350 - $750 for a full ecommerce site plus photography? You must be joking surely? If not would you like to work for me? I can give you all the work you want at these rates ;)

This is where a problem is always arising
Non 100% pro starting to charge either not enough so we all look like crooks
Or charging too much then vanishing in thin air.
And we will be served again the same story “my developer is no longer reachable etc….”

I will charge nothing then if all systems go I will use it as a ref for future paying jobs (after gaining experience)
Further if you have no server side language experience and no E-comm experiences please stay away from the shopping cart
Or use something easy on you like Yahoo store.

Don’t think that I am being too harsh on you but I have been served that story too many times by clients that won’t sign with us or that need an “in depth massage” to forget about prior bad experience.

I think $350 - $750 isn't too bad of an estimate if you're talking about a small brochure site without a fully-functional shopping cart, although it should probably be at the higher end of that scale.

Consider how long you think the job will take you, double that to account for bugs, and don't charge less than $20 an hour as an absolute minimum.

If the client wants a fully-functional ecommerce site, the price should be in the thousands. But steer clear of this if you're not experienced in coding and confident in your security skills.

Building her website looks like roughly two weeks solid work. If this were the UK, I'd suggest charging about £20 per hour (£750 per week) - so a minimum of £1,500. But it also depends on factors such as:

(1) Whether the client is constantly asking for time-consuming changes,

(2) Whether the development work for the site can be re-used on other jobs in the future,

(3) Whether building websites for other people has a hobby aspect to it, and

(4) How much money the client stands to make from your work.

One thing to avoid is subsidising someone's business by spending large amounts of unpaid time that one would rather spend doing something else.

Am I looking at closer to $50 or $300?

(4) How much money the client stands to make from your work.

Patrick has a good point. Let's say you know what you are doing wrt SEO and in one year's time this lady is making £5K a week from her website. Does a fee of $300 dollars sound reasonable now?

A Tale ...

One of my first clents was a friend who asked me if I could build a site for him. This was about four years ago and I did it for £340. I used the site to experiment with SEO as I was just becoming aware of its importance. In his case I got it right first time and the site rapidly rose to the top of the rankings. He provides a service that can cost up to £2K per job and he is currently getting about 50 or sixty serious online enquiries per month and many more telephone enquiries.

Since the website took off he has bought his own warehouse and his business has gone from strength to strength. This website has earned him many thousands of pounds. What do you think this is all worth?

To give you an idea of the value of this call Yellow pages and ask them what it costs for an entry in your area then consider what you are providing in comparison.