far far away Posted September 15, 2011 Share Posted September 15, 2011 Recently I saw skins with 30$ price in marktplace ! , http://community.invisionpower.com/files/file/4807-genesis-32/ http://community.invisionpower.com/files/file/4792-whispers32-skin/ http://community.invisionpower.com/files/file/4437-uniform-32x/ I really do not understand how skiners put the price , I know designers can do complete custom skin with 50$ . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Christian Posted September 15, 2011 Share Posted September 15, 2011 Well, taking into consideration the quality of those skins and the amount of work it takes to complete such a skin, $30 is infact pretty cheap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyF Posted September 15, 2011 Share Posted September 15, 2011 Moved to IPS Extra's , OP should still be able to see it here as its not ideal in Community Chat. I'd have to agree with Tom, if you take into consideration the time a skin can take to make, test on half a dozen browsers to ensure it looks the same (not as easy as it sounds) then keep it up to date etc its relatively cheap all in all. I've heard of custom skins costing a lot lot more... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
• Jay • Posted September 15, 2011 Share Posted September 15, 2011 Moved to IPS Extra's , OP should still be able to see it here as its not ideal in Community Chat. I'd have to agree with Tom, if you take into consideration the time a skin can take to make, test on half a dozen browsers to ensure it looks the same (not as easy as it sounds) then keep it up to date etc its relatively cheap all in all. I've heard of custom skins costing a lot lot more... Completely agreed with Andy. I've seen custom designs cost over $300. Whispers is completely worth every penny of that $30, imho. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
connorhawke Posted September 15, 2011 Share Posted September 15, 2011 eww Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ᴡᴅツ Posted September 15, 2011 Share Posted September 15, 2011 Completely agreed with Andy. I've seen custom designs cost over $300. Whispers is completely worth every penny of that $30, imho. I've seen custom designs cost over $2,000 (that's still nothing) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
• Jay • Posted September 15, 2011 Share Posted September 15, 2011 I've seen custom designs cost over $2,000 (that's still nothing) I'm sure that 2 grand wasn't for your regular forum skin, either. That had to be some major customization. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlexJ Posted September 15, 2011 Share Posted September 15, 2011 I would pay 30$ if skin gets upgrade on time (within 2-3 weeks not asking instantly) on each IPB release. Browse around and you will see Skinbox sells for 20$ but they are always late (many of there skins are still not updated to support IPB 3.2.2) on skin upgrades and there skins are buggy as hell for first 2-3 release like vB is.... It's the quality, support and look that matters for price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ᴡᴅツ Posted September 15, 2011 Share Posted September 15, 2011 I'm sure that 2 grand wasn't for your regular forum skin, either. That had to be some major customization. It was a very simple site+forum redesign. Honestly, it's not rare for quotes to surpass $10,000; $15,000+ if it's a complex e-commerce site (adjust to your client's needs). So many of you are selling yourself short if your clients aren't businesses who can afford this type of small investment. There's no reason to charge so little as $50 for a custom skin unless you as a designer are living in a third world country and only deal with clients who are teenagers. Time = Money If you want a quality designer to spend the time for you on a premium complete skin, expect to pay market standard pricing. If you want a huge discount, expect a hashed up design, probably ripped, or just a previous template tinkered a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NenaDice Posted September 15, 2011 Share Posted September 15, 2011 Time = Money If you want a quality designer to spend the time for you on a premium complete skin, expect to pay market standard pricing. If you want a huge discount, expect a hashed up design, probably ripped, or just a previous template tinkered a bit. Could not agree more with this. Most people forget that you get what you pay for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
connorhawke Posted September 15, 2011 Share Posted September 15, 2011 It was a very simple site+forum redesign. Honestly, it's not rare for quotes to surpass $10,000; $15,000+ if it's a complex e-commerce site (adjust to your client's needs). So many of you are selling yourself short if your clients aren't businesses who can afford this type of small investment. There's no reason to charge so little as $50 for a custom skin unless you as a designer are living in a third world country and only deal with clients who are teenagers. I'm pretty sure you're exaggerating on either the rarity or the prices there, assuming it's just a skin and not a huge advanced system with all sorts of gadgets (which would still be massively overpriced at $15k IMO). You're not being cheap by selling a skin for $30. You're being reasonable, unlike greedy bastards out there whom are quite unfathomable with regards to getting anyone to purchase something like this for over a few hundred $, regardless of the purchaser. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmh Posted September 15, 2011 Share Posted September 15, 2011 I'm pretty sure you're exaggerating on either the rarity or the prices there, assuming it's just a skin and not a huge advanced system with all sorts of gadgets (which would still be massively overpriced at $15k IMO). You're not being cheap by selling a skin for $30. You're being reasonable, unlike greedy bastards out there whom are quite unfathomable with regards to getting anyone to purchase something like this for over a few hundred $, regardless of the purchaser. I agree. Anyone who spends $15000 on a skin, if it isn't to prevent a hydrogen bomb from going off right next to them, is probably misconfigured. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ᴡᴅツ Posted September 15, 2011 Share Posted September 15, 2011 No, I've worked on $10,000+ projects that were non-forum related. Again, that's not atypical if you're dealing with successful businesses because they consider the cost-benefit ratio and gladly take on the investment if it profits them more in the long run, especially company image. The average I charge for a premium forum skin with extras (CMS look-alike attached, etc.) is $5000. For a stand-alone high quality forum design I would charge as low as $2000. (figures above do not include maintenance, which I charge on a monthly basis or per request (the latter is more expensive)) Calculate the amount of time and effort it takes to make a novel creation such as a custom web-site. Then consider your level of expertise. Then factor in your own business/personal expenses you need to cover. Some projects are quick (1 week or less) with high yield. Other projects take as long as 3 months. A $10,000 contract running 3 months is an average pay of $3.3K a month. Now if you were to severely under-price your services, say $2500 for that project, that's $833 a month and that's not even your net income. The only reason skinners charge so low here is because the market does not, for the majority, consist of business-people and moderately wealthy entrepreneurs. Rest assured, if you are able to obtain a high quality pre-built skin for $30, consider yourself very fortunate. As for the OP claiming to purchase custom skins for $50, that's possible if you're dealing with a high school student with no experience or perhaps hiring from overseas. I also understand not wanting to spend a dime on your site if you're not intending to profit, especially if you have it sitting on a shared server with little activity. But you should understand few professional designers will want to work with you if that's the case; hence, many designers like to work with small to large scale businesses depending on their preference and other factors. Tangent: Quality hosting for highly active sites goes upward $500+ a month (some type of dedicated server), and $5000 a month for a juiced up dedicated server isn't "crazy" pricing in today's industry either. P.S Did you know marketing costs alone vary from as little as $1000 to $2,000,000+? (go check how much it costs to be on Yahoo or the NY times frontpage) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
connorhawke Posted September 15, 2011 Share Posted September 15, 2011 No, I've worked on $10,000+ projects that were non-forum related. Again, that's not atypical if you're dealing with successful businesses because they consider the cost-benefit ratio and gladly take on the investment if it profits them more in the long run, especially company image. The average I charge for a premium forum skin with extras (CMS look-alike attached, etc.) is $5000. For a stand-alone high quality forum design I would charge as low as $2000. This is honestly new news to me. I don't care if you are the Leonardo da Vinci of web developers and if you're selling to Bill Gates; $10k+ for a superficial dress is an insane rip-off, and the people who spend that much, regardless of how rich they are, obviously aren't using their brains unless you are a rare god among skinners. Come on, show us some of your godly work then, you Leonardo da Vinci of web developers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhett Posted September 15, 2011 Share Posted September 15, 2011 I think what you are missing here is the business aspect of it maybe.... when you run a business and your site generates your income... spending 5k is nothing if you have the income to cover it... I have a few friends that spend 5k a month with advertising on google, so for them to shell out 5k on a nice design is not an issue. It's all about perspective and what it does for your business. For hobby sites, it's a different story though. My opinion on the 30.00 skins is you get what you pay for, I have seen many skins that have changed three colors and are charging 10 bucks for them... and people are buying them. Outside of this marketplace the norm for a decent skin seems to be in the 20-30 range, this is true for other forums as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
connorhawke Posted September 15, 2011 Share Posted September 15, 2011 I think what you are missing here is the business aspect of it maybe.... when you run a business and your site generates your income... spending 5k is nothing if you have the income to cover it... I have a few friends that spend 5k a month with advertising on google, so for them to shell out 5k on a nice design is not an issue. True, I understand that spending 5k for said business is not an issue. But are these designs and services really worth so much more than something you can find for, say, less than $100? If not, what motivates these people to spend 100 times more on a skin besides the fact that they have cash to waste? Is it perhaps the bragging rights to say "I spent $10k on a skin that looks worse than a lot of <$100 skins?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
connorhawke Posted September 16, 2011 Share Posted September 16, 2011 True, I understand that spending 5k for said business is not an issue. But are these designs and services really worth so much more than something you can find for, say, less than $100? If not, what motivates these people to spend 100 times more on a skin besides the fact that they have cash to waste? Is it perhaps the bragging rights to say "I spent $10k on a skin that looks worse than a lot of <$100 skins?" Just to clarify, I'm not saying these designs do look worse than a lot of <$100 designs (I haven't seen any I can confirm to have cost over $10k), but personally, I doubt the designs and corresponding services would be so much better to warrant the exponentially higher price. I know that such designs, assuming they're customized to a company's image and branding, etc., would usually have higher prices than otherwise. But I didn't realize that such prices regularly exceeded $10k, since the pro web development companies I've checked out never list any prices for their designs upfront. It would really help to see examples of said designs and services to better analyze what makes the prices so astronomically higher. There are lots of strange examples of pricing on the web. I also find it unfathomable how a five letter .com domain name that has been lying on Sedo for the past 3 years would be offered for a few thousand dollars, when I was able to grab a better-sounding five letter .com domain name, private registration and hosting all at $20 for a two year run (there are many other examples). From what I've seen, the web in general is a house of extremely varied pricing when compared to pricing in general of non-web products or services. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.Ian Posted September 16, 2011 Share Posted September 16, 2011 Some skins are worth $30 - others are not. What you need to look at is the site of the skinner - are people happy, or are you seeing moans? If you are seeing moans or excuses then the chances are the skin is not updated quickly (or even at all) - for a swkin that is quickly updated it is worth every penny. The other end of the scale means you have wasted your $30 and your members will need to get used to another skin if you wish to upgrade to the latest version of IPB (or even run some of the apps) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NenaDice Posted September 16, 2011 Share Posted September 16, 2011 Some skins are worth $30 - others are not. What you need to look at is the site of the skinner - are people happy, or are you seeing moans? If you are seeing moans or excuses then the chances are the skin is not updated quickly (or even at all) - for a swkin that is quickly updated it is worth every penny. The other end of the scale means you have wasted your $30 and your members will need to get used to another skin if you wish to upgrade to the latest version of IPB (or even run some of the apps) That is not always necessary true. Some people like to moan/complain too quick for almost nothing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ᴡᴅツ Posted September 16, 2011 Share Posted September 16, 2011 Moaning is an indication of pleasure.....so your skins most definitely rock their world. :laugh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zhana Posted September 16, 2011 Share Posted September 16, 2011 For a stand-alone high quality forum design I would charge as low as $2000. I would guess that your design would standout from other forum designs. If that's the case I might be interested in a custom theme from you. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcher Technologies Posted September 16, 2011 Share Posted September 16, 2011 It was a very simple site+forum redesign. Honestly, it's not rare for quotes to surpass $10,000; $15,000+ if it's a complex e-commerce site (adjust to your client's needs). So many of you are selling yourself short if your clients aren't businesses who can afford this type of small investment. There's no reason to charge so little as $50 for a custom skin unless you as a designer are living in a third world country and only deal with clients who are teenagers. Time = Money If you want a quality designer to spend the time for you on a premium complete skin, expect to pay market standard pricing. [u]If you want a huge discount, expect a hashed up design, probably ripped, or just a previous template tinkered a bit.[/u] I have seen this FAR too often... even gotten paid to FIX such a thing... You get what you pay for... and I personally would not touch a custom skinning for 50$-100$... in fact as ive stated elsewhere, that is a firm slap in the face to the time involved.(and yes... i have only 1 premade skin here, under 30$, but that is as i spend most of my time ON customs... very little of my income comes through the MP) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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