Same what I'll charge, maybe a little higher. :)

I think the discussion whether or not designers charge too much is complex and to the ordinary user quite fathomless.

Fact is, price depends on demand, and obviously there is a great demand for custom skin designs nowadays. In general, you would not be a capable entrepreneur if you actually charge below what the market dictates (unless you want to kill the market through price dumping :)).

That said, I'd like to share my experience with a designer who offered custom designs for only USD 99,00. After I had sent him my inquiry via web (I told him that I needed a new header, new footer, some new graphics, and I named him two forum designs for inspiration), he returned to me on the same day with a skin "preview" (as he called it). It was a screen dump only showing the top part (header and nav bits) of the skin. It didn't resemble any of the designs I mentioned to him. So I gave him a more extensive feedback, hoping, in return, to hear from him back. Instead, he fixed a few colors of his "preview", and changed one or two css tags. The result looked still as unfinished as before. Then we met on AIM to discuss the design (I suggested the meeting). Before it came to any real discussion, however, he disappeared from chat again. And then, only a couple of hours later, I received another email in which he told me to send the money to his paypal address. Slightly more annoyed at this stage (you can imagine), I pointed out my irration about his idiosyncratic customer practices. He apologized explaining to me that he had college work to do and was also very busy with up to 3 other skin requests a day. My response was short: I didn't want to do any more business with him. Well, now he still wants USD 60 for his "sleepless" night he spent on the preview.

As someone else mentioned before: you get what you pay for. This seems to be particularly true for the web design/forum design community. If you want to save yourself some headache, think twice (I didn't) before you go for the cheapest offer.

I created the thread not to discuss price politics. I was very well aware that "lite" skins cost about USD 200-400, whereas "heavy" skins cost about USD 400-800. I created this thread to discuss that we are actually lacking good vB designers! It turns out that there are still some promising talents among us, unfortunately, most of them still lack a more extensive portfolio. I hope this will change with the currently high demand of new skins.

Alexander

I think what would be best now if there was a list of people who actually design vB skins, rather than just talking about the lack of them? :)

http://www.vbdesk.com/
http://www.vbmechanic.com/
http://www.vbstyles.com/
http://www.extremepixel.com/
http://www.insidethepixel.com/

There's a lot more, but I'm in college and don't have my list ;).

For the love of God, STOP promoting/insinuating Insidethepixel as a good designer :mad:

~Regs.

I agree with Regs. Chris did you actually read this thread? DameonW disappeared, left his clients in the cold - just as Ravio did!, with the following message:
So I don't care if he is actually still working in the shadow, perhaps under a different name or with a different company.

For the other names you mentioned: you fail to see the point I was trying to raise.
- http://www.extremepixel.com/ - who is that? no portfolio of custom designs
- http://www.vbulletinstyles.com/ - no portfolio of custom designs
- http://www.vbdesk.com/ - only a single forum style (http://www.alfaowner.com/Forum/) available for review.

Hi all. Just wanted to state my opinion on pricing etc from a software developers point of view.

I agree with the overall pricing of VB Mechanics post. Custom work regardless if your a developer / designer is generally paid by the hour.

I actually think custom work for VB should be higher then the norm of a regular web site designer (depending on compexity of course), since its a niche area. Costs more to to fix your Ferrari then your Ford doesnt it? Not comparing product quality, but the fact is there's less Farrari mechanics/garage's in the world then Ford mechanics.

And as far as the amount of people customizing, the fact is you need to have a creative background and/or talent, but you also need software development background for the more custom development. Its extremely rare for a software developer to have any creative talent and vs versa, thats why you will see so many teams (not an individual). If you have min of two people customizing at approx $35/hr, it adds up.

$5000 for a website is peanuts. Most large enterprise web sites cost over $100,000. Ive seen posts of people requesting a site that "is just like lavalife", and expect to pay $2000.

$5000 for a customization of the look and feel of vbulletin is crazy, building a whole website around it is not.

Initial investments in the software, servers is very minimal. The high costs are because of the customization, and development.

VBmechanic, if you are starting to turn down requests, i suggest upping your price - supply and demand my friend /wink, and get someone to help you :)

I find it funny as a developer that people think we get paid to much (im at about $40 - $50 an hour Canadian), yet dont blink an eye when the pay their plumber $70 an hour.

Well the difference is that if you fail to pay your web designer, only your web page 'stinks', whereas if you fail to pay the plumber, you entire house will 'stink' :nervous:

All I can say is i still sell styles from ArtOrg.co.uk (am ex-admin of vBPanel)

www.RealityArtStudios.net

Another unsatisfied person looking for a custom vB design.

unsatisfied yes. Anybody's fault but his own? No. He was expecting more than he paid for.

Not sure if it was mentioned before, but I just read this very interesting post on another person's nightmare finding the right custom designer. The poster ended up with vBmechanic.com and seemed to be happy with its services.

LOL...that is my post. I already posted something to the effect on this thread already. But I hope others can learn from my experience.

I think vBulletin works very well with flash. I am getting Macromedia Studio with Flash MX Professional 2004 for..... wait for it..... ?150! Because I'm a student! :D

Hi,
Just notice this post,
I'm one of the admin of www.vbstyles.com (vbulletinstyles)
We do offer custom design service and much more.
portfolio can be showed on request also all of our skins reflect our work.
We specialize in flash work our latest project: www.area101.com.au

Back to the topic vbDesinger are still around just choose carefully and make sure to view a legal contract before you send any money.

Take care

Mone'

If you have not read the first post of this thread, I suggest doing so.

I remember reading this thread when it was first posted last year. I was astounded, but nonetheless amazed how few vBulletin designers there were. I decided to check up on how the vBulletin designers that he posted were doing now. I highlighted the dead ones to make it visually easier, and made updated comments.

www.vbdesigns.de - Still lacking a professional touch.
www.directpixel.com - What do you know? They are closed down until "january 2005". The message is still up. Doesn't look to hopeful for them.
www.vbpanel.com - No server even exists that hosts that website.
www.vbskinners.com - no server exists that even hosts that website
www.vbevolution.com - they seem to be selling one skin, but when I try to view the live demo or go to their forum it says "CLOSED". Pretty much a ghost town.
www.vbulletinstyles.com - again, he is one of the more active designers, but hasn't done any custom jobs.
www.extremepixels.com (formerly www.vbskinz.com) - Pank has really spent time to make quality, professional styles that are very attractive to most users. But, he doesn't seem to really custom tailer to custom vBulletin designs...
www.vbmechanic.com - Alex has really been on hiatus for quite a while which has caused a major backlog with his clients. Nonetheless, he doesn't have a portfolio showing his custom designed skins.
www.vbdesk.com - Dead.

Looks like the bug strikes again. But this time, even harder. Out of the 9 existing designers, 5 are nonexistant, 1 is really tailored for vB germany (the site is in german!), and 1 has been on hiatus for a long time.

That leaves you with 2 out of the 9 original designers avalible! My gosh.

Looks like Alexander T. is right. Folks, we have a surefire bug on our hands.

Perhaps more people do their own work, or hire a one-time-thing for designs instead of "setting up shop"?

Not so much of a bug I think. People are just getting tired of seeing the same old stock designs on every new vB out there. Also the markest now is competitive, back a while ago it was a new market, a new niche. Now anyone and their grandmother are starting up these companies :)

I've seen plenty of vB designers that seem like they're good at what they do - the problem seems to be finding someone to code the design. I've been hired countless times by people saying someone else started the work and didn't finish / did a bad job. The way I do vB skin coding is - the client hands me the design, I code it onto my forum and let him view the skin, once he's satisfied he pays in full then I send the skin over. No risk on either side that way, the client doesn't lose anything if he isn't satisfied.

Good idea/plan~ :)

Props, people remember vBDesk. We closed that down simply because we didn't have enough time to run it.

However I think you'll find that these days people don't have to set up a vB dedicated website to offer vB skins and such. You're most likely to find it in their personal website or a business website. Look outside the box.

i like this one, he designed this forum and www.thenailgeek.com .
he had much more as i remember...

I offer custom vbulletin skins, i get tons of customers and am really active, www.vbcore.com :)

My company offers skins, although we're not up we're reachable through www.ArtOrg.co.uk

But a lot of the designers are invidividual yes.

pie makes kick ass designs :)

not that I've ever had any work from him, but he is an exelent designer.

www.vbulletinstyles.com < He actually has done quite a few custom styles....

Damn, now I feel real gyped. I did 19 skins for a client for less than that - course I didn't have any prior paid experience so I didn't have much negotiation room.

Still, I don't know what the price is for anything, so I've no idea what to charge. I have been doing $20 / hour of work and quoting expected hours ahead of time. Usually I can get the first draft in by that, but six or seven later :(

In the last 17 months I've become very good at this sort of thing (skinning), but I can't seem to find any work doing it. It's monumentally depressing.

You do know that if you use the academic version of flash for professional purpose you void your license as surely as if you had hacked a trial version, right?

I'm looking to reskin my site. :) Anyone interested please PM me. I'll pay. ;)

Please post in the Service Requests forum for paid job offers.



:p

@Michael

no worries, you probably did yourself a favor billing by the hour. Until you really know how much time goes into a design, you will never know what to charge as a flat rate.

However, you should not feel bad that you spent a lot of time on your first draft. ANY trained graphic designer will tell you that about 70% of your development time should be spent on conceptualization and comps for the client. (how would you come up with something original yet visually appropriate and appealing if you didn't work through a mountain of thumbnails? ;) ). As long as you put in an honest effort, you should never feel bad for billing for more. However, you should clear it with your client before you continue with the designs.

Through the last 2.5 years, I have had exactly one client. Their vision is not at all akin to what I believe is best for them, but they are a large client, and I do my best to listen to, and satisfy, their needs.

I still bill by the hour for webmastering their site, btw. :)

LOL!!!

Caught out! XD

A few custom designers hover around vBT.com if you're looking for once.