Having looked at portfolio's and discussed options I cannot believe that there is such a wide variety on quotations, even in my industry the charges are fairly standard with the odd percent here and there - ???

I am not complaining however if someone could shed some light on this I would love to know, there seems to be very little difference with anything offered and i am somewhat confused

Thanks

So many factors are involved.

If they are relatively new they may have a low price, if they are outsourcing they may have a lwo price, if they have low overheads they may have a low price. - and vice versa

If they have other clients paying them high amounts (hence their time is worth more) they may charge more

Hi Richard, web design is not like having an engine replaced on your car. There is a lot more to it than just building a website, so quotes will vary from company to company, as some will include optimization, some wont, some will be from templates others will be hand coded.

Its very hard to choose a company to build your website unless you know a bit about what is involved.

If you let me know what you need the site for, I may be able to tell you what you need.

There is no point paying for what you dont need, but on the other hand, there is no point paying somone to design a site if you dont get what you do need.

The quality of our work. If you go back to your original post, that was discussed to a degree.
It is a minefield but it's deffinately an industry where cheap is not good and often inferior with you the customer suffering in the long run. It might be cheap because a developer doesn't understand what you need fully and so misquotes.
There were some very technical requirements in your brief that could cost £500 alone before you even get to showing them in a website.

It depends if the developer does it for a living, or on top of a full-time job too
Also, if they have built something similar before, they can re-use ready built code
I tend to undercharge on projects (considering it is all hand-coded from scratch), but looking at the post in the forum, it does seem quite a lot of work.

I would agree that its a LOT of work, and I massively undercharged, and informed Richard of this. The price I quoted was about 40% of what I "should" really have charged.

In most cases, you pay for a proven track record, quality, history, skills.
Style is the argument that is left open.

In my case, I am portfolio building, Had i not been the budget quoted would (for me) have been unrealistic.

Previously, when I coded in Cold Fusion, I like most designers will have developed a back catalogue of re-usable code which helps cut costs/time. I would also agree that if your getting something unique, coded/designed for your need specifically (i.e. not out of the box) then you would expect to pay more.

It depends if the developer does it for a living, or on top of a full-time job too

Also, if they have built something similar before, they can re-use ready built code

I tend to undercharge on projects (considering it is all hand-coded from scratch), but looking at the post in the forum, it does seem quite a lot of work