The cost of a webmaster
If you have a website and are considering hiring someone to manage it, you should consider the cost of hiring a webmaster. Compared to the cost of hiring a full or part-time employee, outsourcing your website administration needs to a professional webmaster can make a lot more sense.
How much does a webmaster cost?
This is a bit of a loaded question. The answer is as simple as it is complicated… it depends! Every website has different management needs, therefore the cost of managing it will be different from website to website.
Webmasters also charge different fees. Some base it on a standard hourly rate, while others offer monthly or yearly packages. You can see prices online ranging from $10 per hour for an international webmaster to a few thousand per month for a professional webmaster who focuses only on a couple of clients.
The thing to remember is that in this market, you really do get what you pay for in webmasters. At $10 an hour, you’re most likely looking at someone abroad who works in a different time zone, offers only a few select options in management, and manages a hundred or more clients at a time. For several thousand dollars a month, you should expect a dedicated webmaster with few other clients and a wide range of services.
Subcontracting vs. direct contracting
One of the considerations is whether to outsource or hire in-house. Here the cost difference can be even greater. Let’s see an example…
According to Salary.com, the average salary for a webmaster can range from $45,000 to over $105,000 a year, depending on location and experience. Add to that the costs of employee benefits like insurance and retirement, and the additional taxes required for social security and unemployment, and you can see how the costs can really add up!
If outsourcing to a professional webmaster can range from $10 an hour to a few thousand a month, you could see annual costs from less than $1,000 to more than $30-40,000 a year, depending on your needs, the services offered by the webmaster, and the number of clients the webmaster works with. The more the webmaster charges, he should offer more options and work with fewer clients, giving you more exclusive attention.
John, with Widgets Galore, is looking for someone to manage his company’s website. They need a website manager to update content weekly, optimize their content, and keep their software up to date. Adding social content and email marketing would be secondary needs, if your budget can handle it. By doing some research, John found a professional webmaster who works with just a handful of clients with a monthly cost of around $600 to meet all their needs. Doing some simple math, the annual cost of this webmaster would get John’s company running at just $7,200 a year, far less than hiring a full-time or even part-time employee. Given the vast difference in costs, he should seriously consider a webmaster service instead of hiring an employee to manage his organization’s website.