Flat Rate or Rent it?

I am stuck with a real dilemma that do i give my client a flat rate price on their website or offer as monthly renting service! As in, if i develop a website for my client, if he cant afford to have a flat rate price for the website, i can give him an option to give him the website for a monthly/yearly renting price. When they choose renting option, i give them all technical support like hosting space, upgrades, site backups, Online marketing and lot more....
Do you guys think that offer is good enough and exciting?

Where's the dilemma here?

As I understand it, you offer potential clients two pricing models.
1. Straight fee for service.
2. Payment on a monthly basis.

My questions are:
1. Do you offer to the straight-fee clients the opportunity to purchase the same tech support they could receive for monthly payment?
2. Do you include in the monthly payment quote a sum to cover the extra administrative costs?
3. At what point do you calculate that the design/creation costs are paid off and what happens then?

In straight fee i design & develop the website for them and script is theirs and they will be responsible for hosting and other technical stuff...

" Do you include in the monthly payment quote a sum to cover the extra administrative costs?" in dint get you exactly sory!

Well, before preparing the contract i'll discuss my payment options.

If they go for a flat rate, then they'll have to pay 50% of the total work load on approval of contract as advance and the other 50% on project delivery. This includes no hosting, backups or any technical stuff of that sort. If they require a hosting and other technical stuff they'll have to pay it on a monthly or yearly basis.

If they go for a monthly payment plan, they'll have to pay the amount for 3 months on approval of contract as advance and after developing the entire website i'll provide them hosting and all other technical support required which includes online marketing & SEO and they pay the monthly/yearly payment for the service i provide.

So if I were your client I could have you build me a site for free, rent it for three months and walk away if it isn't making me money? I have a feeling that would leave you in a very loss-heavy spot. Custom projects rarely have any value to anyone but the client so you wouldn't just be able to sell the script and make up your losses.

If you're a consultant be a consultant. Build software or whatever for the agreed price and be done with it. Hosting is a tough business and its best left to established companies. If they cant afford the product that is not your problem. You are a business, not a charity.

OH yeah.....thats a worst case...thanks a lot man.....i dint think of such a worse condition. i guess i'll go with the hourly rate strategy....right? how about clubbing those two ideas as in, 50% as advance and 50% on project delivery and if they require hosting they'll pay for it on a monthly/yearly basis.....howzzatt??

I don't see much of an issue on charging hosting fees as long as you are making a profit. Just don't get yourself in too deep, clients can give (and soon enough will) give you hell and expect to pay nothing for it. You'll likely want to subcontract out and resell someone else's stuff so their techs can deal with the person. Plan it out and if you can make a profit from it do it.

Sounds to me like you're confusing payment plans with service provision.

The fact that someone wants or needs to spread out payments for your services over time does not mean you have to provide new services during the pay-off period. And you certainly don't have to provide them for free.

If you offer two things: web development and "web hosting and other developmental stuff" you probably should start by pricing them separately.

My point above was: If you think some clients will want to pay for web development in installments then don't forget to add something to the installment amount to cover such things as

• it's statistically more likely that a client will skip out on you before completing payments.
• the extra bookkeeping and the need to continue to track down clients until they complete payments, which takes you away from earning money doing something else.
• you are not a bank.

You also want to encourage clients to pay you as quickly as possible. So if the bill is $1000 and the client wants to pay in 4 installments, you might establish that each is $255, instead of $250.

I don't know man. Depends on the value of the project. Flat rate + rent if large. Just rent it if very small

The renting part does'nt feel right. There are many loop holes and the buyer seems to be in an advantage instead of you. Flat rate is a much conducive option. Getting your money up front is always better.

On your part, what do you feel?DO you feel shortchanged or not properly compensated. I believe it will all boil down to the idea you are most comfortable with.

Monthly fixed rate I think would be the best.