I have a customer that wants a CMS site that meets most of the following criteria:


Blog Style Topics & User Replies
Online Registration and Subscription Based User Accounts
Merchant Account or PayPal Integration
Monthly / Weekly Mailing List
Daily Updated Topics from Users & Other Sources
Online Rotating Advertising
Ability to post information immediately from anywhere
And other features found in a "Joomla-Style" system


I met with the customer this morning and he was using my standard HTML site pricing to go by. When I told him the price of over $1000 he said that was too high for a website but I tried to explain the difference between a standard HTML site and a content management site that will be used by 100's of people every day.

What justification can be used to get the customer to understand that CMS sites are not cheap and require on-going maintenance? Any help greatly appreciated.

It's obviously not a "standard HTML site". So you need to clearly explain the work involved developing the database etc. If at that point they still think the price is too high than I'd tell him to get bids from other developers.

The whole point of a CMS for many users is so they can maintain a site without having to know html/css or pragramming languages. Also many CMS's will auto size uploaded images which helps prevent less savvy users uploading 2.0mb thumbnails!

You should explain that a CMS probably has s price for a licence, cost of installation, setup, intergration of your templates, testing and tuition for the end user. Add to that time for you to support them during the early days and it all starts to add up.

Of course a CMS will mean the client isn't going to you for updates so in effect the CMS will save him the cost later on.

if you can't find a built one in the market, you need lots of development work. We do that sort of thing in a high price. but I also heard some developer has their private CMS system. I don't know the quality of them

First and foremost, if his budget is that far below a grand he's not even in the market for a real website.

Almost any CMS would do what he wants, but none of them are going to do them all out of the box. What does that mean? You're going to find yourself using a combination of pre-written modules and require a bit of custom module/plug in development.

You might find one with all those features built in, but I highly doubt it.

Keep in mind, that thousand bucks wouldn't even cover development and that means we aren't even talking about design.

I also heard some developer has their private CMS system. I don't know the quality of them

I developed a CMS and have used it for 4 client's sites. It uses smarty templates and a good amount of ajax so it loads extremely fast and requires very little resources. It's still far from public release, but I'll be looking for beta testers soon.

As far as quality goes it can't get much better, only gain more features. I'm also looking for template designers, so..

Most CMS software packages that have all the features listed above will cost well over $1000. And that's just for the software. Like someone else said, that doesn't cover the cost of design or configuring/coding the site. Even if they went with one of those free CMS systems you find, they're extremely difficult to use for end users, and hard to customize for developers.

We have a database driven CMS that costs anywhere from $1,000 for the simplest of setups to $20,000 for more complicated sites. My philosophy has always been you get what you pay for. When we talk to potential clients and they hear the cost, we tell them to try and go somewhere else and get a custom design with a CMS built in for a cheaper price. 9 times out of 10 they come back. The ones that don't end up using a site builder and have a website that looks just like everyone else's site. If someone hisses when they hear $1,000 for a site like this, let them go. They're just going to make your life difficult.

Most CMS software packages that have all the features listed above will cost well over $1000. And that's just for the software. Like someone else said, that doesn't cover the cost of design or configuring/coding the site. Even if they went with one of those free CMS systems you find, they're extremely difficult to use for end users, and hard to customize for developers.

We have a database driven CMS that costs anywhere from $1,000 for the simplest of setups to $20,000 for more complicated sites. My philosophy has always been you get what you pay for. When we talk to potential clients and they hear the cost, we tell them to try and go somewhere else and get a custom design with a CMS built in for a cheaper price. 9 times out of 10 they come back. The ones that don't end up using a site builder and have a website that looks just like everyone else's site. If someone hisses when they hear $1,000 for a site like this, let them go. They're just going to make your life difficult.

Well said.