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Hey all, Thanks for this, Teppo. This is something I've known all along, but sometimes one needs to hear it from another person. I've slowly come to realize that I've always seen this web design business as a black and white thing, you either provide hand-crafted, high quality stuff, or you provide templated, and often crappy, bulk items. But, in fact, this isn't necessarily true. I think there's a balance to be struck here, a middle ground to be found between the two extremes. I admit I have a passion for beautifully coded and designed websites, and a visceral dislike for careless code and ugly crap. This has blindsided me. In a failing economy like the one we have in my country, not many SMBs are prepared to pay €10,000+ for a website. It's not even that they don't value quality when they see it, it's just that they're struggling to make ends meet, so shelling out such an amount of money for a website is simply not an option. Now, there's not much we can do, as individuals, to change the fate of our economy, but what we can do is choose how to conduct our businesses within the constraints of that economy. I think diversity is key. If people want sub €500 websites, let's figure out a way to give them that and still make a profit. As quality is not really what they're after, our time and effort to create these websites can be kept to a minimum. This can be done by using turn-key solutions like SquareSpace, WordPress and the such like. Granted, these websites are not going to end up on display in our portfolios, but they help us sustain our business while we go after the bigger fish. To be fair, I've never wanted any part on this turn-key, out-of-the-box business, but one has to pay the bills and the time has come to be a pragmatist.

Hey all, This is a hard pill to swallow for many of the businesses I deal with. To give you a concrete example, there's a particular company in my area that is able to provide e-commerce websites, with unlimited products, PayPal and EPoS integration, multilingual setups, etc., for just €399 (no, it's not a typo). This is a very popular company in my area, as you can imagine, and some prospective clients are quick to mention them when I tell them about my fees. What's even worse, clients seem to think this comapny is actually good, and so they just don't understand how they can charge 10 times less than me. Then I explain to them why this is the case and all of that. The bottom line? It's extremely hard to compete with companies like this one, with plenty of resourses and very aggressive pricing strategies. You're absolutely right! Again, I couldn't agree more. I've found that, in general, businesses see their website as a nice thing to have, but at the end of the day, they just don't put any value on it. What's worse, once they have their website, they simply forget about it. It's there, sure, but just as a stationary thing that no one pays attention to. This is precisely one of my selling points, I don't just build your website, I also guide you through using it in an appropriate and effective manner to achieve your goals. On hearing this, they are excited. On hearing it comes at a cost, they just say, well, don't worry, I think we can manage, so can you lower your fees now, please? Joss, I hear you when you say you're stunned by the number of company owners who can't put two words together. I've been there. This really emphasizes what I was saying before, that they don't see their website as something valuable. If they did, they wouldn't fill it with typos and gross grammatical errors. I still haven't made up my mind as to what to do, but the more I think about it, the more I think I should leave this field and do something else. To be fair, it might be the case that I'm in this situation due to my own incompetence to sell my services and to convince people that I'm valuable and worth their while. I also know that I cannot compete with companies like the one I mentioned before. I don't know how they do it, but I can't create an e-commerce website for €399, I just can't. And, for as long as they are in business, and they seem to be doing quite well for themselves, clients will increasingly turn down my proposals and go with theirs. Sure, they're getting a crappy website, but they don't care. All they seem to care about is the frigging price tag and, as long as that's low enough, they're willing to put up with crap. Maybe I'm seeing things that aren't there, but I clearly see a trend, not just in web design, but in just about any field. I'm seeing a society that puts less and less value on quality, authenticity, craft, beauty, a society that only seems to care about going with the lowest denominator, with the cheapest price. To see this, we just need to have a look at the things we buy on an everyday basis, mostly crappy stuff "made in China", which is something pwired mentioned above. I'm as guilty as the next person, all I'm saying is that perhaps one day we'll wake up to realize we are surrounded by pieces of shit and that no one seems to remember how to create high quality stuff anymore. Just sayin'.

Hey fellas, First time poster, long time lurker here. I've worked as a freelance web developer for the past 6 years, and, although things have not always been easy, I've been able to sustain a steady and decent income until recently. I specialize in CMS-powered and e-commerce websites and, in general, most of my clients are SMBs. So, what's the problem? Well, it's simple, lately I'm finding it incredibly hard to get businesses to accept my proposals. Granted, it's not an overnight thing, it's not that last year they were all happy with my fees and now they aren't, but I suppose over the last two years or so, there's been a downward trend as far as fees go. Now, I have an idea why this is happening. In the country where I operate, the average fee for a simple, static website is in the region of €300-350, and for a CMS website not that much more really. E-commerce websites normally command a higher price tag, but we're talking sub €1,000. My fees are significantly higher than these, and, honestly, no matter what I tell prospective clients, they just plain refuse to listen to my arguments. They simply don't care. They don't care whether their websites are all based on poorly coded templates downloaded from the Internet, they don't care if hundreds of other websites look exactly like theirs, most of them don't care if their website loads fast or slow as hell. In fact, they don't even care about security, as long as it's "secure enough". I suppose all of this is to say that I'm no longer competitive in this crap-as-hell-and-cheap market. My high quality, specialized services are no longer valued, or even needed. This has put me in a very awkward position, to the point where I need to radically change my strategy or simply close up shop. Honestly, the only alternative I see is to basically follow suit, stop creating handcoded, unique websites and just sell template-based ones for the average going fee, significantly lowering my standards along the way. I could do that, but every single cell in my body shivers at the mere thought of it. It's just sad, I got into this business because I like to solve problems, and I've always thought that people pay me precisely for that, to solve their problems. So, here I am now, asking for your opinion and advice. What would you guys do? Have you found yourself in a similar situation? Should I close shop? Should I become a template monkey? Thank you all.