How much should I charge to setup a Squarespace page?

I can't tell you how much to charge, but as a freelancer you should think about:

What is the value of the site to the client? How much experience do you have? How long will it take you? What other expenses do you have to cover (e.g. "unchargeable" time such as answering emails & meeting the client, tax, your accountant, office space, equipment, software, subscriptions, other bills)? It's very different from being employed where you receive £x/hour and the business that employs you worries about everything else.

Squarespace might be quicker for you to get the site up and they have support agents who can help you if you get stuck.

Creating a site yourself may be more of a challenge that you would learn from (e.g. not relying on a template and dealing with domains & hosting if you haven't done beforehand). There are several free (e.g. WordPress) and paid for (e.g. Perch) content management systems you could incorporate into a site to allow your client to make changes. If you run into problems you can always ask here on the forums or somewhere like stackoverflow.

What do you plan to be doing in the future? If you want to code websites yourself and have an opportunity to do so then this could be a great start and something to add to a portfolio to show future clients.

Either way:

Use a contract.

Establish exactly what your client is after before coming back with a quote for the work. You may want to make a questionnaire to establish: what their budget is, why they want a site, what sets them apart from their competitors, who will be providing the content (i.e. text/images) for the site, if they have a deadline, examples of sites they like/dislike and why, what they imagine people would be searching for to find them online, how do they plan to spread the word about their site other than search engines etc.

> Should I even use Squarespace

Squarespace looks pretty amazing, I'd say use them for this project.

Does that make me less of a man? Or at least less of a developer? And does that mean I can't use that in my portfolio? It would be so much faster, but it feels like cheating somehow. What's your opinion on that?

I think it depends on the clients budget. If they have a larger budget, something that will have a good profit/work ratio I think you should create a site/brand from scratch that actually solves your clients needs and not the masses.

Themes and sites like squarespace are created for a generic purpose. They will not convey what makes your client special. However, if the client has a smaller budget themes or squarespace is a great way to keep costs low and make some money.

HAHAHA I like that answer. Thanks for all the help guys.