I am a freelance website builder and I am currently trying to start an independent agency. I am looking to start with small business with a lower budget, and professional photographers seem to be a crowd that this service would benefit.
Before I launch my service, I am trying to learn what a professional photographer is typically willing to pay for a portfolio website. Right now, I am thinking of offering $350 - $450 for a 3-4 paged website with a portfolio section, an about section, a contact page, and an optional blog section that the client can easily interact with. I am also thinking about adding a supplementary maintenance service for $40/month. With this price offering, I am looking to build an agency portfolio and learn to be an independent service provider. While I do have a couple dozen projects in my personal portfolio, I can’t really use them for the agency because I was contracted through a different agency.
Also, while I do design the website layouts myself, I primarily use Wordpress to build the website because it’s easier for all parties to use and I can build it at a price that’s reasonable for most businesses.
As photographers, do you think this is a reasonable offering? I want to learn a little more about what the photography market is like, how important portfolio websites are for professional photographers and how they approach the process of getting one built. If anyone has experience in this, is currently building a website, or is looking to build a website, I would highly appreciate if you would share your opinions or experiences. Thanks!
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Probably the wrong market to target. Most photographers get websites on Squarespace.
Try to get into a different market. Creatives don’t usually need others to make stuff like this for them. Get into the coporate world. That’s where the money is.
Most (professional) photographers are creative and and will probably have some affinity with computers, software, and so on. Many, if they spend just a little time researching and experimenting, can create their own WordPress (or other CMS) website for like 50$ a year. Domains and webspace are (very) cheap these days. Then you have SquareSpace and other providers that enable almost everyone that has a little bit of creativity in them to make their own website for less compared to what you are charging.
If I were you, I’d aim at a different market.
The setup price you mentioned is fine (300-500$), but I don’t see why they’d pay 40$/month for maintenance. What are you going to maintenance? Updating the theme and plugins once a month? Uploading some extra photos every now and then (that takes like 5 minutes)?
I think you need need to research you target audience more. A lot of photographers use services like SquareSpace, Smugmug, Zenfolio, Wix etc… vs. paying a website designer to build something custom.
A lot of these services have print fulfillment integration, shopping carts, private galleries, coupons etc…
I think you are going to have trouble competing with large established options that are going to be substantially cheaper than what you are offering.
Unless you an offer features that the big players are unable to offer why would they pay you more especially with you only offering 3-4 pages?