In our business, we occasionally get asked by prospective clients about our pricing. Sometimes we put a quote together and the client wonders why the price is more than they were expecting.
After running this business for 12 years, we can confidently explain why we charge what we do.
The operation of a service-based business like ours is very complex, involving the use of cutting-edge technology and high running costs:
• Staff and contractors that are highly skilled and multi-talented, who demand high fees, need to be paid weekly, and are difficult to find and retain
• Software is expensive and needs to be updated regularly
• Hardware that requires constant upgrades, replacement and maintenance
• Security measures including costly specialized technical support contractors and back-up systems that ensure our clients work is safe
• Administration procedures and systems
• Insurance to cover our equipment and professional indemnity
We are a specialised service-based business. We are responsible for providing the best possible value to our clients within the constraints of a rapidly developing industry. There are many considerations to make when embarking on any job:
• We need to study and assess each job thoroughly – the technical aspects and the business and marketing aspects. This requires a range of specialists. Every job is given full consideration in order to establish the price and achieve the best outcome for our clients and for us. Even a simple job has many facets that need consideration.
• We can only do what we do if we stay on top of extremely fast moving trends. We all have to spend a significant proportion of our time researching and studying, in order to deliver the end result to our clients.
• From the moment we receive a request for work, to the time we deliver the service, it involves a lot more time than most people might think. There are many steps that are often not taken into account. Emails, phone calls, meetings, file management, image editing and optimizing, testing, uploads, downloads – every job involves all these steps and more.
We are a very established business with a large client base. Each client benefits from the fact that we have evolved our skills to a high degree in the course of developing other projects. We can handle emergency work, we have back-up if any of our staff are sick and we guarantee our work 100%. We solve any issues that might arise during the course of a job amicably and generate a lot of good will by the way we conduct our business. We have never come close to having a client ask for a refund or take us to court or the Department of Fair Trading.
We know that you can find cheaper service providers – sole traders who build Websites from their bedroom with illegal software, no insurance, no back-up, limited skill sets and no reliability. They might get a full time job half way through a project. We have seen this happen many times. We inherit many clients who come to us having been burnt by their choice of a cheap developer.
Of course, there are some sole traders who are very professional and will provide excellent service, but even then they do not have the systems, support staff and other resources that an established company has. We know a number of very smart and excellent developers that have had to stop working for themselves and start work for large companies to make ends meet.
For some years, we charged more like people expected from us, without considering the true costs of running the business, or the value we were providing. As a result, we learned a very expensive, but very valuable lesson. We must charge a rate that matches the level of service we provide, the cost of running the company and the value we bring to our clients.
Given all of this, we hope that you understand a little more about what is behind a business like ours, and why we charge what we do. Above all, our work is directly responsible for making a lot of money for our clients.
Our philosophy is that if we all support each other we will all benefit. We facilitate a vital aspect of modern business - and we trust that our clients reap the rewards of having Cyrius work with them.
Thank you for reading this.
Kind regards,
Stefan Sojka
Director
Cyrius Media Group Pty Ltd
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