What's a reasonable fee for a web design freelancer to customize a Blogger.com template?

November 14, 2008 7:46 AM

What's a reasonable fee for a web design freelancer to customize a Blogger.com template?

I'm thinking of starting a blog related to my industry. I'm not planning on having this make any money, but as other people in the industry (hopefully) will be reading it, I'd like it to look professional. The default Blogger templates are either hideous or common and amateurish.

I'm a pretty terrible graphic designer/artist, so I'd like a freelancer to create a title image and then a custom template (just colour scheme, really) to match. I know basically what I want, so I can't image it would take more than a couple of hours to so.

What's a reasonable fee for a gig like this? Any gotchas I should watch out for? Also, if you're interested in the actual job, shoot me a MeFiMail and we can chat. Thanks!

posted by Nelsormensch to technology (3 answers total)

There are literally thousands upon thousands of blog templates out there that work with Blogger, WordPress, TypePad and Movable Type. Don't limit yourself to Blogger.

If you want a professional, unique template and design then you should explore hiring a designer to do this for you as well as the template implementation into the blogging tool you choose. I've seen people do this for as little as a few hundreds dollars and I've charged as much as $5000 to $7000 for larger companies who need extra functionality, training, corporate style guide compatibility, etc.
posted by camworld at 7:56 AM on November 14, 2008

The latest national survey from the RGD lists web design billing rates as covering a range from $30 to $175 per hour. The range varies based on designer experience. The average billing rate is $55 per hour.

RGD is a Canadian organization which I am assuming works for you since your profile says you are in Vancouver. Hope this helps.
posted by pixlboi at 8:20 AM on November 14, 2008

If you just want someone to quickly knock out a title image to match your instructions, and specify some colours, then yes, it might only take a couple of hours, but a unique, refined, well-designed custom template would take days.

So you could pay anything from tens of dollars to thousands depending upon how far you want to take it, and in my view it's usually sensible to set a budget and see what people can offer within that limit instead of forcing web designers to play Guess How Much Cash The Client Has.
posted by malevolent at 9:10 AM on November 14, 2008 [1 favorite]