Biggest smile-inducer of the day

Here’s your mission: Go to 9rules. Look in the right-hand column. View their advertising button. Note that it says “We only accept advertising from companies with money.” Laugh and laugh and laugh some more. Because they’re serious.

Okay, so you’re wondering why I am laughing? Well. You should read my emails some time. I get things like “Hey, I love your website re-design! It is totally awesome! I am starting this company and we need a website. We don’t have any money, but when we make millions, we will totally let you have some.”

Thanks…

And, “Hey, we need a website by Friday. Our budget is $150. We want it to be super-cool with flash and stuff.”

Yep. Sure. And design is so EASY that I’ll just whip some up for you right now.

I hate to sound snarky, but after I received the 100th “I am poor but lovable, and I’ll be your friend forever” email, I started putting up a general price guide for our services. Do I have a sign on my back? Oh dang. I guess I did. It said “Works 12 hour days for free!” Dang, dang, dang.

But seriously. I don’t go to Wal-Mart (Yep, I am poor, too. That’s why I shop at Wal-Mart.) and say, “Hey, can you give me groceries for a month? I know I’m going to be a super-star web designer one day, and then you are going to be SO glad you did.”

I think there is a conception somewhere that we designers are making a TON of money. Well, some of us are to be sure. A lot of us are not. “Well how in the heck can you NOT make money when you charge $90 an hour?!” Please…calm down. Let’s talk rationally here.

Say I have a $90 per hour design/development rate (hypothetically speaking, of course). If I had a $90 an hour rate, that would mean I’m probably running a pretty small operation. The going rate is between $75 and $250.

Let’s also consider that half of my time is billable. That means 20 of my 40 working hours are directly billable to the client (which is pretty good for a startup.) That means that I’m actually making $45 an hour.

Then let’s consider that the company has bills. Overhead, if you want the fancy term. Computers, software, transportation, advertising, promotional materials, outsourcing, etc. etc. Let’s say you run a tight ship and are left over with $30 an hour.

But THEN consider how fast the web design/development world changes. Consider how you have to keep yourself educated and all of that fun stuff. You don’t really have 40 hours a week to work, then. You might use 5 or 10 hours to keep yourself in the loop of your craft.

So then half of the LEFTOVER hours are billable. Which leaves you with maybe $25 an hour when you are blessed enough to be booked solid. The other times you’re making less. And let’s also remember that design is HARD work. Contrary to popular belief, designers do not just slap some type and pictures on a page and be done with it. There is really an art to what we do.

And I love what we do. I really, really, really do. So I’m not complaining about the profession. I’m complaining about the PERCEPTION of the profession. How do we change that, I wonder?