Hello All,

I must say I have been visting this site for some time and I have found it to be extremely helpful to an amateur web designer such as myself. Here is my question:

I have been asked to design a web site for my dad's associate's company and I need help in determing what to charge. I am currently in school and I figured I might as well use my skills to make a little textbook money :). Essentially they want me to put their 80 page product catalog online. Here are their requirements:

User Interface Requirements:

1. 800 Products to display with 1-2 lines of text and a picture each.
2. Products are organized and browsed by a Category and Sub-Category
3. New Products Section: (each product is assigned a release date) in this section the user can control the range of dates shown. (e.g. show products released within the last ___ days)
4. General public can view all products, but users must register to see pricing info.
5. After a user registers, system will generate a password and send it to them by email.
6. The users’ info will be stored in a database and an email will be sent to sales managers.
7. Users can request a catalog.

Administration Requirements:

1. Category and Sub-Category Update Page (Admin is able to add, update, delete, change, categories)
2. Product Administration (Add new products, assign categories, upload pics, etc.)
3. Catalog Request History (Pull up chronological list of catalog requests)
4. Member Information (Be able to setup, change, delete member info)
5. Home Page Admin ( Be able to change products featured on the home page)

How much would some of you charge for a job like this? How much time would it take you? Do you charge by page or by time? I have done other sites of similar complexity for my dad, but I've never had to track total time development and figure out what to charge (since he's already paying for my education, not to mention supporting me for the entirity of my life). Please let me know what you guys think, or if you can point me to any resources that could help, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

~Eric

I usually guesstimate how long the project would take, and charge around $50/hr + extra expenses [such as software licenses, domains, et cetera].

Now, can you code PHP/MySQL fluently? From my experience, if you're even intermediate, doing this well will take a ton of work. I would consider outsourcing.

Any chance something like OSCommerce can be used for the task?

I'm a fairly fluent at PHP/MySQL and I'm confident I can produce professional results, but I know it's going to take me longer than someone who does webdesign professionally. How long would you guesstimate it would take you or any other professional to complete a task like this? I would rather charge them for the ammount of time it would take a highly proficent designer, in order of fairness.

I was looking at something like OScommerce so I wouldn't have to script everything, but the only part I really need is an inventory management system. There is not going to be any ecommerce transactions taking place, just an informational catalog and customer registration to control who has access to price lists. Can OScommerce be used purely as an inventory management system without implementing the shopping cart and all the other ecommerce functions?

~Eric

if you're going to hand code that from scratch, that's a really really intense project (in my opinion).

I've just started designing websites professionally recently... I'd probably charge $1500-$2000 for that, but don't take my word by any means.

i'd also love to know how much someone who's had quite a bit of experience in the field would charge. =P

eono, DanX put it best. The best means of calculating cost on a project such as this is to estimate how long the project will take, then multiply by your hourly rate. Ackoo calculates all projects this way. However, we then give what we call a project discount. This is because we are working solidly on one project, rather than spending an hour here, hour there, etc.

For a project such as this it depends on whether you are going to code the whole thing from scratch, or, if you are going to use an existing script. The only problem I see with using an existing script is the pricing showing or not showing. However, you could use a cms and apply a few hacks to get the desired results.

To further complicate things, its hard to determine how long it will take without knowing if there will be alot of custom design work with images or if everything is going to be fairly basic. Personally I would expect a project like this to take around 30 hours or so. This is just an estimate however. Also note that all of Ackoo's designs are very meticulous.

eono, DanX put it best. The best means of calculating cost on a project such as this is to estimate how long the project will take, then multiply by your hourly rate. Ackoo calculates all projects this way. However, we then give what we call a project discount. This is because we are working solidly on one project, rather than spending an hour here, hour there, etc.NO!. You do this, then double it. This isn't greed -- it's compensation for optimism and those unpredictable roadblocks that always seem to show up when least wanted.

It's worked for me when I was programming, it works for me now when diong consulting work. Nothing ever goes as planned...

project work is is little big, so charge something around $1000 or charge $50/hr.

dzeanah is right, the benefit of charging upfront is that you can adjust the price accordingly.

Paying hourly would be cheaper but then the client has to understand that they can run up a hefty bill regardless.

Hello Eono, and welcome to WHT. I'd like to propose you try something, to help put the scope of this project into perspective for anyone who believes a professional development engagement like this one can be done inexpensively.

I propose you shop this project around to a few established development companies. Look locally - companies with whom you can sit down and talk about the full range of the project. From my perspective, you're talking about going through the entire development process for creating a Web site, which is extensive enough as is, and then you're adding some pretty complex, custom built functionality to go along with it.

When these companies ask you for your budget, tell them you'll pay however much needs to be paid to have quality work done, since the better the quality of the work, the quicker it should pay back for itself. If they keep pressing you, tell them you have $100k liquid, but you'll only spend as much as can be justified. In other words, make them come to you with a price that's not based on your wallet.

I'm going to make a prediction. I predict if you have three of these companies give you a proposal for the work (and if you've laid out the scope thoroughly with them), you will not get a single proposal for less than $10,000. I'll stand by that prediction, and I'll make a wild guess that the average bid will be in the $15-20k range.

The reason I ask you to do this is because asking WHT how much a Web site is worth is like asking a flea market vendor how much you should pay for Rembrandt. Get a balanced perspective and then make your decision for yourself. Even if you do this dirt cheap because it's your dad's company, etc., it's good to have a keen sense of what your work is worth, and this little exercise will help tremendously.

Good luck figuring it out! One of the hardest things when you're first starting out as a developer is putting a pricetag on your skills. :)

dzeanah, you can double it if you like, or you can calculate it correctly the first time. We always throw in misc hours for such tweaking and troubleshooting.

If you've got your timing down that well then great.

My experience is that taking your expectations for what it should take and doubling that is really close to the actual time requirement. I've worked with a few people who used the same methodology for estimates, and it worked for them too.

:)

for such large projects it would be better if you charge on an hourly basis. You never know when the scope of the work increases

You're really missing one point thats very crucial to the bid

you mentioned 800 images


are those images digitized?

are those images ready for the web - ie size and weight already done or


do you have to slave and hand manipulate 800 images?


for our experience the lack of image readiness is the key for the site design cost when building ecom sites

image manipulation can run up to 20$/image or more.


some designers charge 30/sku


see youre not talking about 2k for this site thats way too low

if you need to input all those skus you are looking at much work.

it may be worth 10k, maybe less, but NOT much less

OK, let me give a little perspective here from a buyers end.
Everyone is giving you information from a sellers side (which I have no clue about) but I can speak as a buyer.

If you are a college kid, the only reason they contacted you is because they believe they can save a little money.
I am in the process of contracting for a website to be built myself, and the "college kid" route has been discussed many, many times.

You have to understand that your prices must be reasonable.
You are not a professional, you do not have any corporate safeguards in place should there be a problem, you do not offer the buyer anything in the way of guaranteed service or product-outcome that would be there with a professional outfit.
Look at it like this.
I can pay an auto mechanic $250 to fix my car, or I can pay my neighbor who has a killer set of tools and is pretty good with cars $100 and a 12 pack for the same job.
Now, if I pay him and he fixes it without issue, great. I saved some money. But if I pay him, he fixes it, and then all of a sudden the whole car falls apart, he can pretty much say "Well, Sorry...." and start in with the excuses- whereas with the incorporated outfit, I have reasonable assurance of service after the sale.
This is why it's a risk, from the buyers end.
The reward is a good website for a reasonable price, the risk they run is that you could screw them royally and they would have no recourse.

Now, you very well may be fully intentioned to provide them with glowing service, but if you aren't professionally structured to do so, you can't expect to get top dollar for your services.

And with that said, don't sell yourself short either.
Your talents are indeed worth money, so don't be bashful when the time comes to quote.
I collect knives.
I knew a guy in Ohio who used to hand make knives in his shop. He wasn't a particularly bright guy and didn't do much well, but one thing he did do was make an absolute museum grade knife.
He would sell them to me for $20 and $30 each (pretty much his cost of materials), when I could be selling them for $500 and $600 each based on his artistry and quality.

So, sorry i've rambled.
You have to think this through and approach it right.
You can't quote them in consort with the 'local pros', as you aren't them- but you don't want to sell yourself short either.

Good luck.

You can't quote them in consort with the 'local pros', as you aren't them- but you don't want to sell yourself short either.

Just to make one of my previous points clear, since portions of your statement seem to address my post. I'm not at all positing that someone can determine his value based on the status of another company, only that it balances the perversely skewed perspective one is in danger of getting by asking this question on WHT.

OP mentioned doing a lot of research on here, and I think it's just as important to do a lot of research not on here, or else there's a very real danger of OP developing an unsustainable business model to carry him/her into his/her professional career. However much you believe you're worth, be prepared to prove that value. That's all there is to it.

Oh, welcome to WHT N0oB :) It's always nice to see someone jumping in with a thoughtful post.

Originally posted by the_pm
However much you believe you're worth, be prepared to prove that value. That's all there is to it.


That's exactly what it all boils down to.
You are 100% spot-on.

When I am faced with cutting a check to pay someone for services for my company, they will indeed have to meet a certain standard and be able to clearly demonstrate why I should be giving them my money instead of giving it to someone else.

I've seen a number of service providers fail because they just think too highly of themselves and price their operation right out of business- then they wonder why they never made any money (when there were 20 people who could severely underbid them and provide the exact same service at any given moment)

I've also seen very talented people starve becasuse they didn't price their work accordingly, and wound up working as a slave for someone who gobbled up all their time, as the buyer recognized what a deal they were getting with this person, and the individual selling the service didn't realize how much they were really worth.

We are getting into Biz 101 stuff, and since this is a computer board and I don't know nearly as much about computers as I do biz, i'll just shut up now :emlaugh:

I'm not sure If I can tell you exactly how to do it but from past experience I can tell you how NOT to do it. DONT charge per page. Although that sounds reasonable in the beginning and gives them an exact price you will end up doing more work for less money. Price per page also causes them to think they get whatever and everything they want for that price.

I have also found that its better to overestimate your time in every case because more often than not you will take longer than you thought. In my experience, the clients have gone ahead and made promises to other people or set deadlines based on my deadlines which run over.

Plus, everyone loves it when you finish early so give you self ample time to work.

Also, get the project AS DETAILED AS POSSIBLE in the beginning. If you can, have every single element laid out so you know exactly what your doing otherwise it can cost you a lot of time in the end.

Just my 2 cents