This is a common principle, and it seems to apply to all things.  For example, if you pay good money for a refridgerator, and buy one of the most expensive models you can find, chances are it has more bells and whistles than the cheapest brand, and could possibly even last much longer as well.  This principle was especially brought home to me while I was in high school by a government teacher of mine.

I’ll admit that this teacher is one which I still consider a good friend.  His lessons not only included the civics our class was supposed to learn, but also how to plan for retirement, and he often pointed out the social flaws that all of us have committed and is possibly the reason why I am passing the college classes I picked up.  The stories he told to our class brought us not only a wealth of laughs, but also a wealth of experience.  It was merely a topic he touched upon – that is, that you pay for what you get.

This principle is true as well, and I think that many clients forget it.  They wish to go for the cheapest labor they can find, and in doing so, sell themselves short.  Perhaps they can get their site for $500 by outsourcing it to a foreign country, as opposed to purchasing from the more expensive designer, but will it be worth it?  I don’t think so.

With the expenses of this designer come years upon years of experience.  While the fee might seem high at first, the results have a guarantee backing them.  In addition, most of those “quick” firms often leave a client feeling unsatisfied; if they want this changed to that, often they don’t receive it simply because the design firm wishes to close as quickly as possible in order to get their money and move on to the next sucker.  Also, the people hired by these cheapdesign firms aren’t necessarily qualified.  I’ve had to convert the HTML files from one such outsourced job, and it made me wish to completely recode the page.  It seemed like standards and accessbility had been thrown out the window just to get the job done; the intricate mess of divs without proper names made my head hurt.  I later told my manager what I saw – it was, as I have said, a Ferrari with a bad engine.  I wasn’t even sure how the site was able to render properly cross-browser.  In addition, the length of time taken on the theme was far too long as I tried to sort out what divs were what; with bad naming convention, I felt like I was looking at it cross-eyed.

Either way, I do this craft because I love it, and nothing more.  My passion has always been for designing and programming; I began design without any profits, doing a few sites for friends that I never asked to be paid for.  So why do I charge a fee?  Because I am still a person.  I still have bills to pay, and I have to survive somehow.