Website Design - Package Deal or Value Meal!

I don't know about you, but when I hear "package deal" I hear variety. When I hear about different levels of package deals, with incrementing costs, my default assumption is that each package offers its own selection of ever-improving options. Naturally, I also expect that the package includes a greater amount of benefits obtained from previous packages.

But you know, I could be wrong. Maybe what most people call a package deal I would call a value meal; the same selection of items at a higher price, with certain side benefits increased in quantity while the main part of the deal remains much the same. I can't help but think there's a tendency towards these sort of packages after looking at a few sites that offered website design packages where the main improvement seemed to be the number of pages available.

Am I missing something here?

Myself, I've never understood the theory behind charging by the page number. Okay, sure, I understood it from a "hey, let's grab the maximum amount of money for the minimum amount of work" standpoint, but it always struck me as a really rather arbitrary method of pricing. Website designers have a tremendous variety of tools that they can use to create a layout that functions across multiple pages. CSS stylesheets, php file functions, dynamic database page creation, external javascript files...

Maybe I am missing something. Maybe these web designers are using template systems. That would make sense. The way those things lag, charging by the page begins to sound downright reasonable. I just can't wrap my mind around the idea of a web designer actually using a template system as their primary method of designing websites. Or maybe they are expected to write all the content? The cost per page for written content would make sense. Myself, though, I'd rather write the content for my business and let the web designer format, optimize, and upload it.

It just seems to me that number of pages isn't a viable pricing method, and it is even less viable as a primary scaling benefit of a web design package. Complexity of coding, content creation, data entry, e-commerce, SEO...all very valid things to base a pricing structure on. Even hourly would make more sense if it wasn't for the fact that there is no way to keep track of hours spent.

Getting back to my earlier analogy, taking your basic offer, adding more web pages, and calling it a package deal seems to me like asking the visitor to buy for the burger but pay by the french fry. You stick them all in the same vat of oil, toss on the same salt, put them all in the same carton, and it's done. At least with food you get a more filling meal. Huh, now there's an analogy for you. Additional Web Pages: The #1 Filler Of Website Design Packages.