It’s a tough question to answer and many people are wondering if they are underpaying their webmaster or overpaying their webmaster. I think the pay should really come down to experience and quality, how much the person knows and how they can apply that knowledge to your website. There are webmasters that should take a full-time job working as a webmaster for a single company or person before they try to raise their own salary.
I have seen webmasters come out of college demanding upwards of $100,000 in the Long Island area only to find out that it’s a very unrealistic amount. People can get angry when you tell them that not a lot of people are going to pay them $100,000 a year without any corporate or individual experience outside of school. There are people who have been webmasters for over a decade and they might not even make $100,000 per year.
I have worked for companies where I was paid $13.50 to start as a webmaster but it helped me get clients and gain experience working with a corporation or individual. That amount doubled in the next year because of my experience working for a company and moving forward with them. I was able to secure $25 an hour on the next corporate job, then I was able to make $35 an hour, then it raised to $50 until now it’s $75 an hour! I feel like the rate is going to go higher in the next few years as it has in the past as business keeps on moving forward. The experience of getting hired by companies and working for them helped launch my own brand which you are reading about today; Long Island Webmaster.
I see companies like GoDaddy charging upwards of $175 per task/hour which can be a lot of money depending on the ease of the task. But with companies like GoDaddy, it’s almost a guarantee that you will get whatever service they are offering or fix to your website, as long as it’s reasonable. Then I see many people going on Upwork and Fiverr to hire people, that’s great for startups and people who have a dream but you should be making more money and working with businesses that have a flow of income and are willing to invest in a webmaster to scale the website higher, to give it that extra push.
At the end of the day, you get what you pay for, and sometimes you’ll strike gold with a webmaster who is just starting out who has amazing skills but lacks their own marketing. Eventually, they might build their name up as a great webmaster and you might be able to capitalize on their skill while it’s going for the low price. Hopefully, the webmaster will grandfather in your sale and allow you to keep paying the low rate you started with. I know customers from 10 years ago who want the same deal I gave them a decade ago, and it’s hard!
Ask your webmaster for their experiences, ask what schooling they have done, see where they have worked in the past for companies, and ask if those companies did well. You want to have a webmaster you are paying to bring you results, you want to gradually improve the website each month with your webmaster. I know the people who charge more money are usually more confident in their abilities and they usually have an easier time getting clients. You can find great talent on Upwork and Fiverr but you have to make sure you are not getting a copy or some ripped content (intellectual property fraud).
Some webmasters don’t work under contract so you can call them any time and get them to work at an hourly rate for you. Just make sure your webmaster is flexible to your ideas and what you want, you want to have a long-term relationship with your webmaster when operating a long-term business online.
My name is Greg and I have 20 years of experience in creating and managing websites. I have 6+ million views collectively on social media platforms like Quora, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Contact me to get your website optimized for search engines.
