Is 40$ too much to ask for a simple one landing page website?

No.

Too little.

@penis And those are undervaluing assholes that pull our value down.

Tell this to the client I recently met. He's offering 12$

@penis Sorry, but we'd like to actually afford:
- Rent
- Utility costs
- Food

Depends where you sell your service?
In for example India this would be probably ok but if you would sell it in Germany it would be to little.
It all depends on your hourly rate and skill.

Your hourly rate is calculated like this.
Cost of doing business + contingency + your desired Salary + your desired profit margin = your rate

@penis fuck off mate, i need proper food and rent. so fuck off and get yourself fucked.

@penis really? Let's say you spend 4 hours making this page (would probably take more time for something actually decent), if you charge $5 your hourly rate would be $1.25. If all you did was freelancing and had something to work on everyday for 8 hours, in a month you'd make about $200. That's not nearly enough in most places. Surprisingly this is minimum wage at my country, but it's still nothing. You cant even afford a shitty rent with that.

Depends on how simple it is

If I could finish it in fifteen to twenty minutes, $40 sounds about right.

Low ballers have the smell of nut sacks...

@retard then build them $12 worth of WordPress or Wix. Would literally take you like an hour or so, and then let them bite the annually fee if they don't like the "Wix" banner on their site.