I have been designing websites for nearly a decade although much better in the past five. However every time someone contacts me about deigning them a page they all seem to never come back after I tell them my very reasonable prices are firm. I charge 1/4 what many local businesses do and give the same service and have live relevant examples. Granted I don't live solely off the money but I'd like to live off it more. Have people decided they can buy a program such as Dreamweaver and base their prices off such things? Am I just living in the wrong area?

With all the web 2.0 stuff coming out, and all the site builders out there, people who haven't tried it for themselves may not know just how complex a task it is to design and develop a truly good, maintainable, scalable web site. They may think that people can go to a template site, download a free template, slap it in place, et voila. While that is one avenue, it isn't one I personally would recommend for business sites...even then, you have to know what makes a good design, where the good template sites are, and how to integrate them with whatever back-end tool (or even site building tool like DW) that's being used.

Plus there are issues of usability, information flow, mapping...all kinds of things.

There will always be people who want information, want to do as much as they can by themselves, and don't realize what they're actually paying for by not paying money to a knowledgeable professional. (Then again, some of them might have paid $250 for a four-line listing in some online business directory back in 1998, and thought that it would bring them instant riches or at least get their business "online". Now they're gunshy.)

These potential clients are ignorant of all the little things that go into quality web design, and may be cconcerned with paying far too much for things they could just as easily do themself (or have done by some outfit in a third-world country). It's all a communications issue.

Analogy: if a house is poorly built, it can come crashing down. Even a nonprofessional can see those results, and quickly get a good idea why they want to hire professionals (or at the very least, buy a damn good kit). If a website is poorly built, it's not as easy to notice the problems unless one is a trained professional (or knows what to look for).

Yes, unfortunately it is an art that is rapidly becoming defunct - for those who are looking to make money online beyond anything else. I think the infamous "squeeze page" took the bang out of many of our designs. There are still folk out there who are interested in a good design, though.

What are you charging?

Most people dont understand the work and effort that goes into making a website, time is money. In the near future I believe web design will become more and more respected as society grows more and more internet orientated

Last I updated my rates to be competitive with other geographically local designers I charged $100 for a non-sales website with $20 per additional page. Business sites cost more, but I generall don't charge much more since I work with mostly small businesses and they also purchase my logo/letterhead/business card services as well (total is around $500 for 3-5 page website). Its a bit cheaper than the other local designers I know but I have a less spectacular client base to use for my portfolio.

I think it is an underappreciated artform for sure. People don't seem to understand that designers spend hours of their time to make the design look great, and if they are asking for coding then it takes even longer.

Keep your head up, not all potential clients are clueless

Underappreciated artform for sure? People don't seem to understand that designers spend hours of their time to make the design look great plus coding but educating them on the value is very improtant.

Personally, I wouldn't cater to potential clients if I felt them ignorant. A great designer does it for the art and not the money so it shouldn't bother much.