I work a lot before (research, studying the competition, drafting the project) and after (monitoring, further optimization) publishing a site, so my rates are a bit higher than the competition, which means that I often 'miss' a potential client. Well, I am not a good seller either :-).

However I make a living out of webmastering, not very comfortable, but adequate. I also do Project Management for site localization since I was a translator and I know the sector (and good translators) well.

Competition has grown very much, but I am unable to lower my prices, it takes me too much time even for a few pages. I write my code by hand and take days to optimize and check and monitor. But this approach works well for when a client sees business coming in through his site he comes back for changes, overhauls, expansions, translation, localization and maintenance besides referring me to other clients.
I've worked again at least once on all the sites I've done. As a matter of fact, almost 80% of my current work is on sites I've done in the past few years. Some clients even let me decide when it's time to make some changes or upgrade. So I do what needs to be done (I even buy domains I feel they should have) then send my bill and they pay without problem.

Valeria Vernon
Site design and localization
http://www.vernondata.it
http://www.e-passport.it