The KES 100,000 Website

I’m glad to see that web design companies and clients in Kenya are starting to understand the value of work as developers start charging a base price of KES 100,000 for basic websites like our president would say irregardless of the the work.

For the longest time the conversation between developers and clients has been that a website costs KES 10,000. When I decided that our base price as a company would be KES 150,000 beginning this year everyone was up in arms telling me that you are Mad Ndiang’ui, that is too high, I can’t pay that, my cousin or nephew can make it for me at KES 10,000 but I had decided that, that was the direction the company was going to take if we were to remain in this business.

When I tried to find out why clients pegged web design cost at KES 10,000 the general consensus was that it’s an easy job and anyone can do it, a fact I strongly agreed with. However to design a work of art and class; that requires skills and experience that not just anyone has.

The 10K budget scenario has led to many small and medium companies being swindled by unprofessional web designers who promised the world and delivered hell on a silver platter to clients. This has given our industry a bad name and pegged us all as mediocre and quacks.

The question of how much a website costs should be underlined by you the client asking, what is the cost of production of a website? Take a company like ours ARI Limited, we have an office that we pay rent, employees that we pay salaries, other overhead costs and not to mention the cost of buying the domain and setting up security on the doman. Additionally It takes about 2 to 4 weeks to deliver a site depending on back and forth.

Surely and sincerely will a 10K budget give you a stunning website? How will tech companies survive at those prices? Even a computer science graduate living in Githurai needs at least 3 to 4 10k jobs per month to survive, pay rent and get to meetings on time.

The bottom line is that we should stop underpaying technology practitioners as a country and be willing to pay fair wages for fair work done.

To all the companies who have pegged their base price at $ 1,000 and above congratulations. I can assure you from my not so many years of experience, there are clients willing to pay you that and so much more because they see the value of your work and understand the principle of fair wages for fair work done. Just be a little bit patient, target a higher clientele and your efforts shall be rewarded.