Quick question ***Webmasters***

Hi,

I am in the same boat with you. I built and maintain and pay for my churches website. I enjoy this and I feel this is what the Lord wanted me to do to give back.

Since building ours twice other churches have asked me to build theirs. I prayed about this (If I should charge or not) and I still feel as though God is leading me to this ministry. It is now my ministry. I will build websites for missionaries, evangelists and churches that are Independent and fundamental.

I tell them up front that they are responsible for the set up cost and monthly fee of the service provider I use. I tell them that I do not charge but work on a donation basis. This is what I feel is right for me.

Currently I built and maintain for free (have not recieved any donation) of a church in Oklahoma, and I am currently in the process of building 2 more for 2 evangelists.

Webmasters make alot. These people who I am doing the site for said they have all talked to webmasters and they couldn't afford their fee.

Some charge between $200 and $500 (and up depending on what needs to be done) just for setting it all up. Then if they have to maintain it they will charge an hourly fee from $20 to $50 per hour. If you decide to go this way you better make sure you have good record keeping to prove the hours worked.

This could be a calling for you to give back to the Lord. Pray about it first and God will tell you what to charge and what not to charge.

God Bless

P.S. Should you draw a contract? If you plan to charge a set up fee and an hourly fee, absolutly yes. A contract would be in your best interest. Make sure you lay it all out in writing. Everything that you will do, what you will not do, your fee schedules, cancellation policy, what the buyer will be responsible for.
I would advise you to spell it all out so that a child could read it.

Good Luck

 

I charge an hourly rate for development and programming and monthly for hosting. I have done some free work for many different churches and ministries however.

 

All that I have done has been free but then I am not a professional. Also that allows me to be a legit user of the Academic Edition (more or less, just non profit use) which saves a lot of Dreamweaver and Flash.

I would like to do some commercially but I am really not that good

 

I maintain one ministry website, while the organization itself pays for the hosting. I also maintain a site at work hosted in one of our customer's intranets for our team and the customer. I am not interested in any more really, since the one ministry is "in the family" so to speak, and I don't have any trouble filling up my time at this point. The site I am doing is not a burden, but to add more to it could become more trouble than would be prudent for me. Our church has a website that is maintained by another guy, but the church pays for the hosting, as it is bundled with their ISP and mail services. The Admin of the whole Network and systems is a volunteer as well.

I used a trial version of dreamweaver for a while, but couldn't justify the expense, it was a very good web editing tool, and very powerful. How much is the academic version of the suite? The cheapest I could find was still about 350 for MX2004. So I use Mozilla, cause its free, and it works pretty well.

To the original question. I would not feel guilty about charging for services, especially for churches that were not my own, although I would certainly make the rates very reasonable. That really is a personal decision based on your own circumstances and those of the particular ministry. It requires a fairly significant time commitment. Perhaps a more effective ministry would be teaching those who contact you how to develop websites and point them to the many resources available to help with web development. It really is something that can be learned without too much trouble.

 

What is it to be considered a webmaster/webmistress? I don't have a clue how you would "host".

I have a created some personal pages for myself using fpExpress (trial/freeware), ppt, and msPaint. Unfortunately I do not have my own ISP acct do dl/ul things to. I think I've created about 7-9 personal pages for me. Do you have to know how to read java and all that or can you just copy & paste your way? Sorry for all the qt's. *sheepish grin* =o)

I've dl some fonts but decided to use one of the std fonts that most puters come with so that the pgs load faster. I also haven't designed too much of my own graphics except for taking a few dl grafx and fusing them together to make something new.

Okie well I'm sure I've rambled enough lol.

azwyld
<*}}}><

 

Hello JGrubbs.

Is that as a professional JG?
I'm in the same position as the others in not knowing the going rate. How much, if you don't mind answering, are we looking at? No problem if you don't want to.

I was allowed to do our Church site and it lay fallow until I realised I can use it to show prospective customers. This has motivated me because I know a person who has just set up a business and she has only a splash screen. I sniff a customer. I've spent all week in getting my personal site and the Churches site up to scratch. Now all I have to do is fill in the blanks. What do you think?


I want to seriously undercut the competition. If I can get the quality far exceeding price then I'm sure word of mouth does the rest. PR 16:3 Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed. Col 3:17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
And one more; Matt 10:10 ...for the worker is worth his keep.
So it is up to us to decide whether we charge or don't charge.

I used to use notepad, a trick I leaned from a book called htmlgoodies, and I now use a progarm call swishmax, a flash creater.
I highy recommend www.htmlgoodies.com , you don't need to buy the book or be clever Lori, I'm not! I cheat. Cut and paste rules.
Swishmax, http://www.swishzone.com/ , is $100 and is exceptional. And you don't need to be clever with that either. They even sell fullly functioning websites for $25.

It requires a fairly significant time commitment.

Yes, but it is better than working ain't it?

johnp.

 

Cut and paste is great. There is tons of good code out there that you can use. Java code too, for menus and stuff.

HERE
is a page with some easy tutorials to help you learn to code in html, and use CSS files to automate your design and create templates.

 

aaarrrgghh! All you knowledgeable folks have confirmed my worse fears. The leader of our ladies group (not computer savvy) has asked me (not much better)to "set up a chat room where the members of our group can go to discuss happenings in our group and also stay on top of bible studies, etc". I asked her if she really meant "chat room" or was she talking about a message board or other type of website. She said she didn't know. I would very much like to do this and even help maintain the board but alas, I now realize, I'm not knowledgable enough to set it up or even explain the cost of maintaining such an internet place. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? I need help. Our church is very small but growing and I would like to do my part to help it grow more and come into the new decade. Any suggestions? BibleMaMa, if you don't mind sharing the info, how much did it cost you to setup and to maintain your church's site?

 

Hello Pine_Island_Mrs.

Change Church and keep your head down.

I said at the housegroup a few months ago that we should have a discussion forum where we could get to know each other better. I really meant continue the argument over a prolonged period instead of a few words each week.

I had been blessed by the fact that no one has mentioned it since, especially me!
But it is a good idea.

We may regret the meeting!
Get reading. http://www.techsoup.org/community/qod_answer.cfm?qotdid=279&cg=searchterms&sg=message%20board

The above article says that chat rooms are not very good for small groups. It also says that it is not a good idea to try to run both but better to get one working properly.

We do now. The first step in knowledge. Do you want to go for it?

johnp.

 

Thanks for the response, JohnP. lots of info at the techsoup website! Also written in terms I could understand! Yea. (plain english works for me Yes, I want to go for it. I'm very much interested in doing this if at all possible. If the the Lord is willing, so am I. What a boost for my church this would be! The link you sent is awesome! I'm still reading. Hubby says it's time for bed now but will certainly return here tomorrow after church. thanks again.

 

Hello Pine_Island_Mrs.
Your brave!

I always try to do things in the easiest way. I perfer not to have to become an expert.

I think this board is a sort of safe spot. http://www.message-boards.net/
I am tempted to go for something like this. $100 a year is easily in reach for me and it saves thinking.
They say they do not advertise on the board which the free ones do.
Anyway, you can now tell the leader of your ladies group yes.

Our Church is very small. About 25 members and, it seems, 25 kids. At our congregational meetings we keep not voting for a paid minister. Our last one left at the end of summer for personal family reasons. We are not growing but we have drawn the wagons round in a circle and become very close knit. A good springboard I think.

I shall spend some time looking for cheaper and nicer. Is this sort of thing within your range?

johnp.