For example you have a client who has $1000 for the whole website. Meaning, no budget for creating sliders, banners, correcting images by graphic designer. And it has to be decent. And responsive and work for 3 languages.
How do you develop it for client? Do you present it firstly in Photoshop page by page? Or you draw? Or you write on paper? How to make it mostly timely and costly effective?
Your opinion is highly appreciated!
Tough question!
First, I would need to know what kind of site the client wants. Most sites only need a few templates: home page, blog, product page, search result page…
With that low budget, you’re going to use a CMS and maybe a theme from themeforest.com or similar, and adapt it a bit for your customer (you will not kill yourself for it, the money is not really that much and if you have experienced you can do a hell of a job without sweating too much. Unless you’re in the processing of learning which, of course)
Hi, firstly a good way to design is to present the website design as PDF format and once they have agreed the design starting coding the website fully.
This will save you alot of time!
I have a set of 10-15 templates that I show as an initial design brief. Save a lot of money in customizing for every client. And I build it on wordpress: eases out making as well as managing the website.
In which case the extra time ought to be written off to education as what you learn will be reused for every subsequent similar job.
So you are showing a real dummy-website to the client and then you use the template to elaborate the site for the client, right? How many designs you propose as initial design brief: 2-3 or 10?
If someone wants a new Rolls Royce but only has $1000 to spend, what do you say to them? Get an old, second hand car, work hard, earn money. 
Don’t bend over backwards for people on a low budget. My first comment to someone in this situation is that I will decide the design and there will be no arguments, as it’s not worth your while to mess around with pleasing them—getting their opinion on layouts etc.— on such a low budget. It doesn’t matter how little people are paying you, they will always be fussy with design if you give them the chance, so you have to cut them off at the knees with a reality check from the beginning.
Only last week I did such a site and enjoyed the freedom of doing a design I liked without it being ruined by the client.
If you take the job, you must do it regardless of the budget. It`s your portfolio afterall. Go for a CMS, chose a theme, customize it a bit, then send a screenshot. If they like, go with that. Simple
We can ask to clinet about what they want.
The problem with asking small budget clients what they want is that what they want will cost many times what they have budgetted for. The starting point needs to be to tell them just how much they can get for their budget. They can then choose between having you do theat amount of work, deciding to pay more to get the extras they need, or looking for someone else prepared to do the work cheaper and running the risk that the person they get to do the work really cheaply will have no idea of what they are doing.
How many alternative designs you can offer a low budget client depends on how many templates you have in your portfolio to use with low budget clients. The simplest solution is to offer them a choice between any of your low budget templates with their branding substituted into it. That gives them a choice as to which of your other existing low budget clients they want their site to look like.
You have to decide for yourself if you want the job or not. Either you respectfully decline or give your price for the work. Client may not know that you are Michael Angelo of web design. He/She can try to find someone else who is happy to do the work or come back to you with increased budget. What you cannot do is to take the job and not do your best.
Make sure you have 100% clear contract explaining responsibilities. Give customer 3 options from templates you can tweak in wordpress. Make sure customer understands their job is to populate with content but yours is the structure and look and feel. Do customer’s chosen option and iterate a few times until customer delighted. Then give customer it all. If customer wants you to do more after this make sure that is covered in the contract you signed as independently billable for $XYZ per hour or part of. Done.
Non refundable Deposit up FRONT and let them know they get what they pay for. Time is money and it takes time to design, tweak and perfect a site. I dont work for free, neither should you.
The going rate for web design from a firm in my area is $60 an hour just for a consultation. With a 3 page basic ugly site costing upwards of 2k.
I start my basic services (Web banners, Ads, Flyers, Data Entry ) at $20 an hour. Once I get into custom writing HTML/CSS/Research/SEO I double my hourly rate to $40 an hour.
I usually used CMS for the customer who have small budget, however I modified the themes based-on their requirement and I think it will save our time
Always try to fix the cost after knowing the requirement of the user. Because based on the expectation budget increases. You can use CMS templates. It will definitely reduce the some design works.
If you are a starter then try to convince your client on some reasonable price and offer him a free template based website with little modifications. Secondly, if you will go for design and development part separately then it will be much costly for you.