How much to (potentially) charge
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Right I've never done a site for another company before, infact it's simply more of a hobby of mine. My uncle passed my details onto this guy he knows in need of a new site, nothing too taxing, a good CMS so he can update it himself etc once it's all setup. He told me that this guy will go with whoever's cheapest, told me not to give him a daft offer, but not to sell myself short. He's due to ring some point this week, but what does this kind of thing fetch these days? i.e. what should my price be? Cheers as always for any useful info guys
He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man
Make the bid fair for you - if you don't charge enough, that's YOUR fault. After all, you didn't go out looking for the work.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001 -
Right I've never done a site for another company before, infact it's simply more of a hobby of mine. My uncle passed my details onto this guy he knows in need of a new site, nothing too taxing, a good CMS so he can update it himself etc once it's all setup. He told me that this guy will go with whoever's cheapest, told me not to give him a daft offer, but not to sell myself short. He's due to ring some point this week, but what does this kind of thing fetch these days? i.e. what should my price be? Cheers as always for any useful info guys
He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man
First of all - you need to define what the client means by a CMS. A fully featured CMS is a large undertaking, and can end up being highly expensive because it's such a large and complex beast. If he merely wants to be able to edit a few pages, then maybe a more wiki like system will suffice. In any case, you need to work out what the scope actually is. Then, you will probably need to do a first-pass design where you work out roughly what you are going to need to do. This is the first point at which you can actually work out how much the development will cost. Typically we agree with clients to do an initial design, which we charge for, and this then gets rolled into the full solution because we've had a chance to investigate the problems and work out roughly how much things are going to cost.
Deja View - the feeling that you've seen this post before.
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First of all - you need to define what the client means by a CMS. A fully featured CMS is a large undertaking, and can end up being highly expensive because it's such a large and complex beast. If he merely wants to be able to edit a few pages, then maybe a more wiki like system will suffice. In any case, you need to work out what the scope actually is. Then, you will probably need to do a first-pass design where you work out roughly what you are going to need to do. This is the first point at which you can actually work out how much the development will cost. Typically we agree with clients to do an initial design, which we charge for, and this then gets rolled into the full solution because we've had a chance to investigate the problems and work out roughly how much things are going to cost.
Deja View - the feeling that you've seen this post before.
I have the suspicion (call me old and cynical) that the combination of the key-phrases "uncle", "this guy he knows" and "cheapest" are probably an anathema to paid discovery and design.
Bar fomos edo pariyart gedeem, agreo eo dranem abal edyero eyrem kalm kareore
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Right I've never done a site for another company before, infact it's simply more of a hobby of mine. My uncle passed my details onto this guy he knows in need of a new site, nothing too taxing, a good CMS so he can update it himself etc once it's all setup. He told me that this guy will go with whoever's cheapest, told me not to give him a daft offer, but not to sell myself short. He's due to ring some point this week, but what does this kind of thing fetch these days? i.e. what should my price be? Cheers as always for any useful info guys
He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man
You could potentially charge One.Million.Dollars. But I'm sure that's not what you were asking.
Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke
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Right I've never done a site for another company before, infact it's simply more of a hobby of mine. My uncle passed my details onto this guy he knows in need of a new site, nothing too taxing, a good CMS so he can update it himself etc once it's all setup. He told me that this guy will go with whoever's cheapest, told me not to give him a daft offer, but not to sell myself short. He's due to ring some point this week, but what does this kind of thing fetch these days? i.e. what should my price be? Cheers as always for any useful info guys
He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man
A copy of Mambo and some tweak time? No more than £150.
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I have the suspicion (call me old and cynical) that the combination of the key-phrases "uncle", "this guy he knows" and "cheapest" are probably an anathema to paid discovery and design.
Bar fomos edo pariyart gedeem, agreo eo dranem abal edyero eyrem kalm kareore
MidwestLimey wrote:
I have the suspicion (call me old and cynical)
That's the blinding light of experience.
Deja View - the feeling that you've seen this post before.
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A copy of Mambo and some tweak time? No more than £150.
A sincerely hope you're joking. I don't know anyone that can offer a customized site, regardless of the framework, for what amounts to about 5 or 6 hours of time. Anyone who thinks they can put together a proper business site for that amount is working for minimum wage or less. Cheers, Drew.
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You could potentially charge One.Million.Dollars. But I'm sure that's not what you were asking.
Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke
Joe Woodbury wrote:
One.Million.Dollars.
I think I know who you are...
But fortunately we have the nanny-state politicians who can step in to protect us poor stupid consumers, most of whom would not know a JVM from a frozen chicken. Bruce Pierson
Because programming is an art, not a science. Marc Clifton
I gave up when I couldn't spell "egg". Justine Allen -
I have the suspicion (call me old and cynical) that the combination of the key-phrases "uncle", "this guy he knows" and "cheapest" are probably an anathema to paid discovery and design.
Bar fomos edo pariyart gedeem, agreo eo dranem abal edyero eyrem kalm kareore
MidwestLimey wrote:
combination of the key-phrases "uncle", "this guy he knows" and "cheapest"
I saw that, too, and if I were the OP, I really wouldn't sell myself short. Go in as a higher bid, cite high level of professionalism for the cost. Pretty much leave it in the hands of the uncle's guy he knows, warning him he may get what he pays for - cheap bid = cheap site.
"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer "Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon "Not only do you continue to babble nonsense, you can't even correctly remember the nonsense you babbled just minutes ago." - Rob Graham
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Right I've never done a site for another company before, infact it's simply more of a hobby of mine. My uncle passed my details onto this guy he knows in need of a new site, nothing too taxing, a good CMS so he can update it himself etc once it's all setup. He told me that this guy will go with whoever's cheapest, told me not to give him a daft offer, but not to sell myself short. He's due to ring some point this week, but what does this kind of thing fetch these days? i.e. what should my price be? Cheers as always for any useful info guys
He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man
Unless you're inexperienced and want to get some good experience out of the deal, don't even bother trying to be the lowest bidder. There are businesspeople out there who truly do always choose the lowest bidder, but they eventually succumb to the painful results it causes and change their strategy.
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A sincerely hope you're joking. I don't know anyone that can offer a customized site, regardless of the framework, for what amounts to about 5 or 6 hours of time. Anyone who thinks they can put together a proper business site for that amount is working for minimum wage or less. Cheers, Drew.
Kids! No, seriously! The thing is there are a vast number of very small businesses (and maybe the OP's uncle's mate is one of these), clubs, local charities and etc. who have practically no budget and neither the skills or tools to make it happen on their own, but who want an online presence of some sort. Usually the requirements don't include anything too sophisticated, maybe product listings, meeting dates or that kind of thing, but certainly nothing like secure online ordering. Even so a professional outfit would charge too much. This is where products like Mambo, Drupal et al and the kids come in. The products are what they are, but for what they are they're pretty good - and the kids, they love it! They've got some dodgy copy of Photoshop they downloaded, some PHP/Perl/JavaScript skills and some HTML and CSS ability and they're good to go: with the potential to earn £150 for doing what they enjoy doing, building up a portfolio, gaining experience and having something to stick on their CV's. Certainly beats working in a fast food joint... and some of them are pretty good! You just have to look at some of the websites they knock up for their own use!
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Right I've never done a site for another company before, infact it's simply more of a hobby of mine. My uncle passed my details onto this guy he knows in need of a new site, nothing too taxing, a good CMS so he can update it himself etc once it's all setup. He told me that this guy will go with whoever's cheapest, told me not to give him a daft offer, but not to sell myself short. He's due to ring some point this week, but what does this kind of thing fetch these days? i.e. what should my price be? Cheers as always for any useful info guys
He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man
Pick a competitive price that's fair for you. Let the guy know up front he's going to get what he pays for. Spend the extra money, gets hopefully a nicer site than what the cheapest bid would do for him.
"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer "Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon "Not only do you continue to babble nonsense, you can't even correctly remember the nonsense you babbled just minutes ago." - Rob Graham
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Right I've never done a site for another company before, infact it's simply more of a hobby of mine. My uncle passed my details onto this guy he knows in need of a new site, nothing too taxing, a good CMS so he can update it himself etc once it's all setup. He told me that this guy will go with whoever's cheapest, told me not to give him a daft offer, but not to sell myself short. He's due to ring some point this week, but what does this kind of thing fetch these days? i.e. what should my price be? Cheers as always for any useful info guys
He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man
What language/db will you be using? Will you be doing any web design and layout as well as the programming? How much do you think your skill is worth? Decide on that figure first. Then double it. This is your minimum rate. Add 20%. This is your bidding rate. Work down from here but no lower than your minimum rate. Your mileage may vary.
Imagine that you are hired to build a bridge over a river which gets slightly wider every day; sometimes it shrinks but nobody can predict when. Your client provides no concrete or steel, only timber and cut stone (but they won't tell you what kind). The coefficient of gravity changes randomly from hour to hour, as does the viscosity of air. Your only tools are a hacksaw, a chainsaw, a rubber mallet, and a length of rope. Welcome to my world. -Me explaining my job to an engineer
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Kids! No, seriously! The thing is there are a vast number of very small businesses (and maybe the OP's uncle's mate is one of these), clubs, local charities and etc. who have practically no budget and neither the skills or tools to make it happen on their own, but who want an online presence of some sort. Usually the requirements don't include anything too sophisticated, maybe product listings, meeting dates or that kind of thing, but certainly nothing like secure online ordering. Even so a professional outfit would charge too much. This is where products like Mambo, Drupal et al and the kids come in. The products are what they are, but for what they are they're pretty good - and the kids, they love it! They've got some dodgy copy of Photoshop they downloaded, some PHP/Perl/JavaScript skills and some HTML and CSS ability and they're good to go: with the potential to earn £150 for doing what they enjoy doing, building up a portfolio, gaining experience and having something to stick on their CV's. Certainly beats working in a fast food joint... and some of them are pretty good! You just have to look at some of the websites they knock up for their own use!
martin_hughes wrote:
The thing is there are a vast number of very small businesses (and maybe the OP's uncle's mate is one of these), clubs, local charities and etc. who have practically no budget and neither the skills or tools to make it happen on their own, but who want an online presence of some sort.
Uh sure. He hasn't said that his uncle's friend is any of those things, so I'm going with he's a legit company that wants a good website. Cheers, Drew.
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martin_hughes wrote:
The thing is there are a vast number of very small businesses (and maybe the OP's uncle's mate is one of these), clubs, local charities and etc. who have practically no budget and neither the skills or tools to make it happen on their own, but who want an online presence of some sort.
Uh sure. He hasn't said that his uncle's friend is any of those things, so I'm going with he's a legit company that wants a good website. Cheers, Drew.
"Legit" companies can be very small, of course, "Joe and Bob's Tractor Supplies", the two man outfit supplying tractor parts to the nation. Much bigger than that (say 5+ employees) and I expect they'd be able to afford something a bit better and have a budget to do so... but I doubt they'd be asking the nephew of a mate to put in a tender, unless said nephew was some renowned web design specialist... and I doubt said web design specialist would be asking us for advice on how much to charge :)
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Make the bid fair for you - if you don't charge enough, that's YOUR fault. After all, you didn't go out looking for the work.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001 -
I have the suspicion (call me old and cynical) that the combination of the key-phrases "uncle", "this guy he knows" and "cheapest" are probably an anathema to paid discovery and design.
Bar fomos edo pariyart gedeem, agreo eo dranem abal edyero eyrem kalm kareore
Tend to agree - this will not end well. I envisage a haggle over money as the project grows, a long support tail off that gets more and more acrimonious and eventually a parting of the ways - Oh hang on we're talking about Phannon's issues.... Word of mouth via "Uncle" = disaster work of mouth via satsified customer - best advertising in the world.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
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"Legit" companies can be very small, of course, "Joe and Bob's Tractor Supplies", the two man outfit supplying tractor parts to the nation. Much bigger than that (say 5+ employees) and I expect they'd be able to afford something a bit better and have a budget to do so... but I doubt they'd be asking the nephew of a mate to put in a tender, unless said nephew was some renowned web design specialist... and I doubt said web design specialist would be asking us for advice on how much to charge :)
martin_hughes wrote:
"Legit" companies can be very small, of course,
Oh, I know - I am one (well me and my 3 cohorts). The point is, the size doesn't determine the budget. If he has a business and wants a legit, professional website it simply costs money to get that done. My approach is tell 'em what it's really going to cost. If you want to be nice and give them a discount etc., you can work your way down from there. Cheers, Drew.
