I was approached by someone requesting help with their charity’s website. She was the chair of the organisation. As with most of my connections with people it was largely word of mouth and recommendations. They connected through my website.
This was also significant in that I was using the Tawk.to app on my website and cell phone, and while sitting watching TV they popped up and started to ask questions. (Check out Tawk.to on your site).
Anyway it transpired that this organisation had their website rebuilt by a commercial organisation. The fees were high, and it was very difficult to edit the site, and they were seeking more control.
I offered to look at the site to get a feel for what might be involved before making any commitment.
It turns out that the developer had charged them £750 for a FOUR page website. Plus there was nothing notable about the design, it was based on a template that cost around $28. There was more…. The developer had a minimum charge of £105 whether it was a 5 minute job or a 3hr one. (They charged £35 per hour). In correspondence it was clear that the developer was offering to update the website as it was running on old plugins and an older version of WordPress. They would not click on the update button for free, they would charge the client for that service.
I requested access to the website to find that all of the editors had “AUTHOR” rights and were very limited on what they could do. This would mean they had to go through the developer to get anything done. And of course pay a fee.
This is one of the reasons I work with Charities. I thought it was absolutely appalling that a developer could charge £750 (for an at best £100 website) and the website could be locked down in this way, with the client having practically no control and having to do everything through a developer whose charges started at £105. This is the worse example I have come across in the past 9 years of doing this.
Solution
This charity is my most recent addition to my client list. As I did not have full access to their website I rebuilt it externally, using a new template in my hosting. I increased the pages to incorporate GDPR, Terms and Conditions, Accessibility and a few other things. The site is now around 12 pages and has a more robust structure and is more mobile friendly than the former site.
All of the editors now have Administrator level access and can see all of the site and change it all. They also have multiple 10GB mail accounts available, training built into the webiste, and I will run a Zoom session with them shortly to show them how to develop the site further. The cost? £0 for the development work and £60 per annum for the hosting. I cannot do that for everyone that approaches me, but this was an awful case of a small charity being ripped off by a commercial and allegedly professional developer. I have spent a lot of my time in the commercial world, some of it in very high margin businesses, but even based on my experience, this was an excessive case of profiteering.
You should always be in control
My philosophy is very simple. I give you the same level of access rights as I have. Which also means you can break the site if you do not know what you are doing. All of my clients are free to take their websites somewhere else and have access to the hosting control panel and domain name. I provide free training to ensure that you can edit your site and not incur any editing expenses if you wish to do that. Which ultimately means you can spend more of your budget on the services you provide to your clients.