Need Advice - Website Design (feedback needed ASAP)

[RUSH2112]

I was wondering if anyone is a web designer or has done it semi-professionally. I have a business opportunity to develop websites for interested parties. Currently we have our first customer and I need to know how much time it will take to develop the website and how much time to expect for maintenance in the future.

The website will be neat and professional but nothing fancy for starters. It will be for a restaurant. All other aspects of a website will be taken care of (like registering the domain name, finding a host server for the site, etc.). I will only be creating the website and then updating/maintaining it as needed.

Our initial idea was to charge a flat rate for 20 hours of work. Whatever time is left over from the 20 hours can be used as "maintenance" time. When the 20 hours runs out, an additional maintenance charge will be charged.

So I guess I need to know how much is a good price to charge per hour for upkeep and changes to website. Also how many hours will it take to develop a website from start to finish (published on the internet)

I need to make a decision by tomorrow so I am hoping I can get some feedback here shortly.

If this "test pilot" flourishes into other business, I could have a 2nd part-time job making some good "Mod Money"

[blkp42e]

depends how in depth the webiste is. i know you say simple, but that could honestly mean anything. Id charge them a flat rate to set it up, depending on all they want and whatnot.

id say the maintenence time wouldnt be bad to be billed at $40 or $50 an hour.

you could also sell them a package and they pay $xxx a month for a set amount of time to make changes/upgrades to the site. and anything over the time you set in thier allocation, you bill at a flat rate. that way in a buisness sense, it would proabably be more benificial for your company since im sure they wont use all thier time allocated each month

[RUSH2112]

Just for the record I am very proficient with creating websites. I have never charged for the service, so I was trying to get an idea of what or how to charge for this. The simplicity or complexity of the site is not an issue to me. I believe this person will merely want something/anything that is simple yet tasteful to get her restaurant on "the web".

As far as maintenance, I think the only thing would be standard changes and possible seasonal menu changes (depending if that is published on the internet)

I want this to be lucrative for me, but not too high to scare away potential customers yet not too low that I am producing websites and not making a decent profit.