In layman’s terms, it means don’t be ungrateful when you receive a gift.
A good friend of mine in Toronto asked me recently how much I charge for a custom WordPress theme. This includes coding, designing, implementing, and validating the theme. I told him I charge $800 per custom theme (for the sticklers out there, the American and Canadian dollar are just about on par at the moment). I’m confident in my web designing and programming skills to charge that amount. It is not uncommon to find senior web designers charging between $1000 and $2000 for a custom WordPress theme. If the theme is truly monumental with a lot of bells-and-whistles, then web designers are well within their rights to charge more; I certainly do.
A custom theme is different from a premium theme in that it is unique. It is coded and designed for one particular customer or organization, with their input used as a guideline to create the look and feel of the theme. Due to this constraint, a custom theme is a one-shot deal (another individual or business would be absurd to use a theme with someone else’s logo on it). Using WordPress software as the backbone for a website allows a layperson to manage their own content. So long as they know how to use a word processor, they’re golden. This adds to the “one-shot deal” idea. I like to refer to WordPress themes as “fire-and-forget” projects, because once they’re completed, they’re out of my hands. The days of requiring a dedicated web designer to maintain a website are largely over.
I have worked on the barter system in the past, though I am reconsidering this policy simply because I find that it’s often a one-sided affair (100% effort coming from my side). I decided to use the barter system on a case-by-case basis because I knew there were a lot of small businesses and artistic individuals that could not afford an upfront fee in excess of $800. An agreement between myself and a customer was simple enough: I created a website for services rendered and/or goods with an equivalent value of the cost of the project. I began to find that a few of the projects suffered from “student film syndrome”. Typically, student films are unpaid and a good number of them are never finished. Financially supporting a project gives it a sense of urgency. In layman’s terms, if you pay for it, there’s a higher chance you’re going to eat it. In the aforementioned projects, I found that while I was accomplishing my end of the bargain, the other parties were not. There would be long delays in responses concerning the project, which invariably led to no responses at all. It’s a typical apathy that sets in when one feels like they are getting something for nothing (the operative word in that sentence is “feels”, because according to the agreement, my services aren’t free).
One-hundred percent of the time, I discovered a nifty trick or something new while coding up a new project. In a previous, unfinished project, I designed a beautiful site with multiple layout options. So what happens if an unfinished project doesn’t get used? Simple: I offer it to someone else. There’s no sense in wasting a perfectly great design, and I’m not going to stop development on an idea because someone else wasted their opportunity with it.
And as a “by-the-way”, let me finish by writing that I won’t barter my services for sexual favours. You can pay a hooker for that sort of thing, which means you can pay me too for creating a website for you.
