Most churches don’t have a lot of money, and they rely heavily on volunteers to keep the show on the road. I know, because I am one of those volunteers for my church.
However, for other things, churches have to choice but to employ professional contractors and tradespeople – say if the chancel roof needs fixing, or the dodgy wiring in the hall kitchen looks like it might burn the place down.
Similarly, for some churches, they might have a volunteer who can put together a website for them, and that’s great. But for other churches they might not have those skills in their congregations – and in those case, they need to pay someone to do it.
I have a fixed price listed for building a website. It’s not a bargain price, and it’s not an extortionate price. I feel it’s a fair price, which gives me some compensation for the time I will spend building and refining the site.
If I was doing this for a living (I’m not), I’d have to charge considerably more so that I could provide for my family, or resort to offering everyone the same pre-built template to cut costs. I don’t want to do that. I want to build the each church’s website individually to reflect the character and tradition of the parish.
€800 for the website design
Each site takes around 25 hours of effort to build and test, depending on the complexity required – and then another couple of hours to put it live on the internet – and then another couple of hours to hand over control to folks in the parish.
If we divide the €800 by 30 hours, then that equates to just under €27 an hour. And while that’s significantly more than minimum wage, it’s also significantly less than a professional wage.
I guess each parish needs to decide if that’s a price they are happy and able to pay. And hopefully by having a fixed price, it makes those budgeting conversations easier.
€200 for the website maintenance
Included in the annual charge for website maintenance are three things:
- the domain name
- the hosting
- the maintenance and security updates
The domain name is your address on the internet. This site has the domain name sacred.ie – and you can pick your own, or keep one you already have. Domain names are not owned outright but are instead rented on an annual basis to people. An ‘IE’ domain for Irish sites typically costs between €20 to €50 per year to renew.
The hosting is the computer that runs the software for the website. It is a server in a data centre running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so that people can visit the website at any time of day or night. Hosting prices can vary, but I use a good quality company based in Ireland that ensure that websites are fast and reliable – and that costs around €70 a year.
The maintenance and security update is my time to fix anything that breaks, to update any software to the latest versions, and ensure that the site is secure as it can be against hackers. It does not include adding content or updating information on the website – that’s the customer’s responsibility – and it doesn’t include providing tech support for non-website.
I will share my email, and my phone number with my customers, and I will try to respond to any questions promptly – but please remember, I do have a full time job, so I will only be able to engage on evenings and weekends.