barcodes

I was this way at first. It's easy to take offense to criticism but it isn't always best to fight back. Do your best to create something awesome, then let the client instruct you as they have to live with it. If I make a layout and the client wants changes, big or small, I can now easily get through them, even if I feel they butchered the initial design.

The only time I get annoyed is if the design and functionality get approved, I start cutting everything up and, upon approval, build the site, then they start asking for massive changes that require a redesign/rebuild and expect it for free or super cheap even though it was signed off. I don't mind making changes at all while we are in the design/testing phases but to wait until things are approved, built, and pretty much completed is ridiculous, especially when they have been an active and vocal part of the whole process.

The company I work for charges 125 bucks a page, which isn't bad for mainstream work in my area. We do the general design stuff (design, build, s.e.o, help them setup their email accts on their comp, etc), if they want a blog we will duplicate the layout for wordpress, install wp and set it up, find whatever add-ons they need and charge them for a page, and for around the price of a page we will set up a cms for everything so they don't need to come back for simple changes. We are mainly CF programmers but will conform to using php should you already have a non cf host. The one thing we charge a bit more for is to build shopping carts or database related projects that take a lot more time and effort to complete.

Too expensive? Too Cheap? I have no clue. It works for my bosses company and since they (a web/graphic design studio) don't complain about me doing freelance work from time to time, I could never charge any less.