Why Working For Free Doesn't Pay

I know the title sounds a little stupid... and obvious but some No Cash people really don't get it. People still think in the web design business that doing a website for free, or for a charity is going to "pay off" in the long run. Well I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, but this is just totally not true.

Why you ask? I will get to that. But first I am going to start with why they think its going to "pay out big"! Most everyone who sits down and starts thinking about doing a website for free really is not thinking of the charity and helping them out. They are thinking how its going to better them and their company.

"Publicity FTW"(....or not!)

Well the first thing to come to mind is most-likely "it's going to be kick butt publicity"

Really though is it? What the best case scenario here, a link on the "credits" page? Or perhaps one in the footer? Was doing all that work designing and developing the website really worth that? And really how many people are going to be impressed by it....you tell me!

I would like to just add as a side note. Doing a free website is always a headache. I find that it is always harder to please the customer, and it turns into a lot more work than you originally had planned.

It will look great on my portfolio!

Sure, it will. I'm not going to lie and say it wouldn't. But with all that time you put into the "free" website, you could have put work into your own website, blog, app, etc.

Money exchange in my opinion helps the relationship. It lets people know their roles.

Am I crazy? (I don't think so....)

Have you had a different experience then me? Had a good outcome? Let me know by posting a comment. I have done way more than one free website in my time and I have never had any good outcome. (obviously)

About the Author

Adrian Balkwill is a web designer and a user interface designer for a software/web design company located in Canada, he is also the founder of Blogfullbliss. It is his goal to make Blogfullbliss the best source on the web for design/technology related articles and tutorials.

Subscribe to our RSS Feed! Follow Adrian on Twitter!

Set as favorite

Bookmark

Email this

Trackback(0)

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (7) add comment

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Show/hide comments

Sean said:

	Yep! here here
	report abuse vote down vote up

February 20, 2009 | url
Votes: +0

Adrian said:

	Lol Haha Sean, knew you would agree! And you know what I'm talking about! Arg!
	report abuse vote down vote up

February 20, 2009 | url
Votes: +0

Matthew Heidenreich said:

Most of the time but...
I have done a couple free website designs (just to be nice) and had a link in the footer required. I did actually receive some paid business from referals from the link in the footer. So i just think depending on who your doing the site for. if its a charity, I doubt you'll get business from viewers of their website. But if your doing a site for something for tech related, you'll probably have people visiting that also need websites designed. In most cases though, i'd have to agree that getting the money for the design is the ideal way to go.

February 20, 2009 | url
Votes: +1

Adrian said:

	Lucky Well consider yourself lucky Matt!
	report abuse vote down vote up

February 20, 2009 | url
Votes: +0

Rich McNabb said:

...simalar experience as Matthew
I did a free website for my cousin and one of his friends saw my name at the bottom of his site and got in contact with me to do a paid website for him so that was pretty cool.

I almost got stuck doing a website for one of my wife's friend but decided to pull out as the person didn't want to collaborate (help generate ideas, suggestions for images to be used, etc) and I pretty quickly realized I didn't want to be associated with that project.

I think most people don't realize the amount of work that goes into building a site and think you can whip up something half decent in an afternoon.

February 21, 2009 | url
Votes: +0

joey3fingers said:

	I think hot girls get the most free sites Us nerds are easy targets for hotties and they are the main beneficiary of free sites, admit it you have made a site for some girl some time in the past if not 2 or 3...
	report abuse vote down vote up

February 23, 2009 | url
Votes: +0

Adrian said:

	:) @joey3fingers Actually I never have. I did make a few wallpapers for a girls website once before though...and I did get paid for it!
	report abuse vote down vote up