Product shoot for father's company?

[fable-designs]

Okay, here's the deal. I'm designing, building and coding a website for my dad's company. Now, this wouldn't be such a bad deal. But he and my mother both agreed since that this is my first paid webpage design, I was going to get the hourly rate that I get paid when I help out at the office ($15/hr). I wasn't in a position to argue at the time, but I am having serious regrets as the website is nearing completion with 12 hrs of work. Moving on...

A part of the design he wants is photos of approx 20 products, along with other "filler" photos throughout the pages. I have put this off for a while now, but it's really nearing the time for me to make a decision. My dad is offering to pay me my hourly wage to cover the photoshoot as well. Between shooting and post-processing, I can see it taking at MOST 5 hours. And that's with a lot of coffee breaks.

$75? Especially considering my webpage design thusfar has cost him $180, I feel like I'm getting ripped off. Now, I don't need the money. But, my dad and I don't get along that well on a good day, and I really don't think that approx $250 is enough to cover my... frustrations, both with technical and with him. Haha.

So I'm thinking of offering him both a flat rate on the website and the photoshoot. I can figure out my website rate myself, but what about the photoshoot? Should it just be included in the website price? What would be a reasonable sum to pay for a photographer that really only takes photos for fun?

~Lyra

P.S. Like I hinted in my last question, I'm new to photography-for-a-profit, so to speak. So really, any advice helps!

[Jim Bryant]

My wife builds websites. She starts out at $300.00 and goes upwards depending on what bells and whistles her clients desire.

[zona5101]

I wonder if your dad will hand you a bill for the expenese he paid raising you. I'm betting he's feeling a bit ripped off himself about now as well.

[Jim Bryant]

Website photography starts out at $600.00.

[fable-designs]

zona5101: Okay, fair enough. Maybe I'm wrong then.

Jim Bryant: Wow, locally a cheap website design is almost $1000. Thanks for the tips!

[gturner]

Originally Posted by zona5101

I wonder if your dad will hand you a bill for the expenese he paid raising you. I'm betting he's feeling a bit ripped off himself about now as well.

ROTFLMAO - It is exactly what came to my mind. Probably using a camera and computer he bought for her


Trying to justify a hourly rate on the strained father/ daughter relationship is best left for psychology forum.


I think it is fair to charge a family price just so that everyone gets a little out of it - suck it up or don't do it.

[fable-designs]

Thanks gturner for the advice. And haha, no, I paid for my own equipment.

[geoffm33]

Getting the website done is a business expense that should return a positive ROI. Over the course of 2 years (then the site may need a makeover, refresh) I would have to imagine the ROI on the $15 x 12 hours would have to be impressive. Double that rate and it's still impressive. I think $15 is too low.

Originally Posted by gturner

I think it is fair to charge a family price just so that everyone gets a little out of it - suck it up or don't do it.

This is a great point, everyone should get something out of it. But does that mean that $15/hr is a fair family price? Maybe $25 since it is your first paid gig.

But at the end of the day, you agreed to the rate and have nearly completed the project. No going back now.

You could approach after the fact and detail how much the company saved compared to the paying the going rate and that you were hoping for a bonus for a job well done. You have to be careful when seeking a prevailing wage (albeit at a family discount), your work has to be on par with those that are charging the higher rates.

EDIT: I just wanted to emphasize the point that this is for a business website. If Dad wanted a website built for a personal reason (hobby site, whatever) then it should be free to cheap. But this is a business expense and depending on the product/service sold (is this a mom and pop corner store or a professional consulting practice) then the rate should be higher even with the family discount. It's an investment in the company that should improve sales.

[Biomech]

I also do web design - athough not that much for other people these days.
I too designed and built a site for my dads company, With hosting and domain registration included I charged him £800 +stock photo costs. To be fair I've actually recently done a full redesign too so he's got his monies worth :P

When I've worked for other people its been anything from £250 for 3 basic pages to £800. I hand write code, XHTML, PHP, CSS etc etc and in all honesty these days I just grab a CMS like Joomla or Wordpress and customise a theme. I tell them of course, that this is the fastest cheapest way to do it. That way I don't get stuck in it for ages and it doesn't get me down.

So these days it's usually along the lines of $80 for a theme from TemplateMonster then £300 for customisation (tweaks, additions, colour changes and basic textual content) plus hosting and domain names (which I use Godaddy and just replace the $ with a £)

Unless you work as a bespoke webdesigner, creating sites from scratch really isn't worth it anymore. Knowing how to write code makes it much easier to grab a theme and modify it, you can have a site up and running within a day.

HTH