how much should i charge for a PHP backend for a real estate company?
they will need the ability to make new users with 3 levels, admins to add houses, customers to check status of their house, and the super admin to add admins and everything else..
it will have full details about the house, including a slideshow.. a multi-image upload that converts the image to a thumbnail and a 400x300 for the slide show..

it will be done with PHP and MySQL. how much should I charge?

it's based on how experienced are you with PHP and database. how much do you have in mind?

i dont know how much im thinking.. he is a realtor, and he has a lot of money. do you think 500 would be asking to much?

I'd say that for an established company, $500 isn't enough for that kind of project, again, depending on your skills as a scripter.

It could depend on most of things actually. Depending on the size of the database and graphical contents the related company are requiring. You have to make an estimate on how much time you'll have to spend on your work. One thing's for sure, in Canada, a certified beginner programmer, (when assigned for his first work for doing a PHP / mySQL project), is usually between $45.00 and $60.00 - an hour (also depending on the planifications that has been put on for this project).

Assuming you already have all the necessary presentative content, in order to begin this project, (sent by your employer), then - the above - should help you out on how the estimate should work by requesting an honnest quotation mark. ;)

it would be at least 20 hours of work just for the php alone.
thinking total for php: $850
total for design: 850
total price: $1700?
would that be reasonable?

Based on your own judgment, you'd also have to mention which kind of project is it more specifically. Is it like ... about a forum, rating site, huge professional news site, professional gallery script handled by many different aspects ? If this is one of these four, you can easily charge more than that honnestly. ;)

Based on your own judgment, you'd also have to mention which kind of project is it more specifically. Is it like ... about a forum, rating site, huge professional news site, professional gallery script handled by many different aspects ? If this is one of these four, you can easily charge more than that honnestly. ;)

its gonna be a professional site that includes an advanced gallery..

If it's the kind of professional gallery that can handle numerous features like:

- Users sessions handling.
- Categories + products handling.
- Lightboxes.
- Admin Control Panel.
- Top 5 from each user account.
- Cats and products rating.
- Users rating.
- Cats cache.
- Users cache.
- GD Library 2.x - Auto-resizing handling.
- Buddylist.
- Public messaging.
- Private messaging.
- Boards posting (referring other galleries).
- Sitemap.

ect . . .


I don't know about you, but I'm already counting 15 features that is quite on demand these days. ;)

I think you should re-consider the quotation mark. However, you might want to know there's already a similar PHP gallery script system located at: http://www.4homepages.de for FREE !!!

It's called: 4images. This software can let you install numerous features, also for free, with almost unlimited requests and publishings.

We did a commercial real estate location system several years ago. In addition to straight browsing of listings by location and type you could enter your ZIP code (it was for a US-based agency), number of miles in which direction (for example, within 15 miles west and north), and specs (X square feet, number of loading docks, minimum ceiling height, etc.) and it would locate all the properties that matched. That puppy was quite intelligent (and written in C). The cost to the customer was $12K.

Horizon's right: think about your numbers and the site's capabilities carefully. And don't be afraid to charge a 'fair price' for your time. If the site's a clever gallery it won't be $12K, but, again, don't short-change yourself.

a certified beginner programmer, (when assigned for his first work for doing a PHP / mySQL project), is usually between $45.00 and $60.00 - an hour

I dont think beginners get $45 an hour (even in your funny canadian money).

There is no way that a beginning programmer should be paid that amount of money.. why? They are slow, inefficient, and write sloppy, insecure code. That is definitely not standard pay, especially on a freelance project. These are almost always quoted as the total price for the job, not an hourly amount.

I wouldnt say that sites like eLance are the norm either. I would expect that a web developer with moderate experience could probably earn $40k-60k per year which translates back to about $20-30 an hour. Thats what I've seen in job postings around here anyway.

The other problem with beginners is that they dont have a framework or class/function library (yet), so they have to code everything by hand. The expert making $60+ an hour is probably well worth it in the end.

it would be at least 20 hours of work just for the php alone.
thinking total for php: $850
total for design: 850
total price: $1700?
would that be reasonable?

Up that to $2000 then give them a $300 discount at the end :) Very reasonable rate.

Up that to $2000 then give them a $300 discount at the end :) Very reasonable rate.
ok, so act like im giving him a break when i show him the invoice?

i like the idea of the discount to make it look like im giving him a deal too :)

I think we are working at $5 per hour and this will cost only $700 in our budget.

Joseph
DesignersForHire

wow $5 per hour? ... lol... I would be a poor man :( I normaly quote per project, based on a time frame. If I am asked my hourly rate as a free lance, I tell them $60 and hour.

Quote per project is better for small projects I think.But per hour rates are good for dedicated programmers and designers as we are offering.