Hi dubstyleenation, I think you would get more input if you could tell us where you are based (US, Europe, Asia) but also what surroundings (large city, small town).

I am UK based, possess strong HTML and CSS skills and when I was freelancing as 'XHTML and CSS coder' would charge £10/h when I started (6 years ago) and up to £45-£50/h in my last freelancing jobs.

Here in the US I charge up to $60/hr. Of course it is dependent on your experience and whether you are a one stop shop or if the client needs to hire other contractors for artwork, server setup, Seo & security, etc.

I'm an all in one shop.

For work I do to an existing site where I have to quote an hourly rate it is $75 per hour. For new sites and projects I try and use value based pricing based on the concepts by Alan Weiss. The later is always vastly more profitable than the former.

Fortune Hunter - that takes me a back a bit. Surprisingly, that sparked a vague memory of this thread that you started.

[webmasterworld.com...]

I wish my brain worked that reliably for things I actually need to remember!

I haven't done much freelancing and not in a long time, but I always shot for $50/hr. Ideally, though, I would do it per job and come in under time. In bad cases, I would do the same but take more time than projected.

Thanks for the replies. I am US based and I ended up writing my proposal for $60/hour. I'm a one stop shop who has a regular job, so time is precious.

£45 - £50 an hour for a xhtml code monkey, not bad eh!

that sparked a vague memory of this thread that you started.

Yes, I have learned a lot since that thread. I have read several more books by Alan Weiss and also had the opportunity to talk to him personally about using value based pricing in this business. His insight was very helpful. I started using that system a couple of years ago on all new projects and my revenue per contract has exploded.

The key difference is that I am adding a lot of other services besides simple design and coding. Clients love all the additional marketing based value added features and I like the extra fees.

Now I couldn't do this without all the marketing knowledge I bring to the table, but I realized quickly this was what I had to do to differentiate myself from other designers in the area and even nationally. I felt the typical designer is destined for obsolescence because so many people entering the profession as well as easier technical tools are pushing fees down for web design.

I won't compete on price. As Seth Godin says, competing on price is the last refuge of the uncreative marketer.

In general, it's much better to charge by the project & the value created rather than the hour.

If you have a CMS System that you can re-use for your client and save 1000 hours of development work, should you give it away for free and only charge for the customization & implementation? No -- it's still very valuable IP that you can sell at full price over and over again.

Google for "Brendon Sinclair" to find some of his articles on the topic.