Posted by Leif Gregory on 10/21/73 11:12

Hello -{,

Sunday, April 3, 2005, 4:51:29 PM, you wrote:
RB> What do y'all charge when you do sites for people ??? ... In the
RB> past I've only done pro-bono work (because they usually don't
RB> require much work, so it's not a problem getting it done while
RB> working on other projects), but I've never actually done paid work
RB> before... It's more that I just recently moved to Canada (from
RB> Denmark) so I have no feeling with what the prices and rates are
RB> overhere ...

You really need to have him lay out a scope of work for you. If you
don't know what he want, there's no way you can give him an estimate.
If he wants ten static pages, then quote him that. If he wants a
dynamic site with a forum and shopping cart, then that's a huge
difference in what I would charge.

I don't know what they normally charge there, but here's what I've
seen here in the US for the following under contract for State gov't.

- Roughly 20 pages (customer provides content)
- Dynamic pulling from a MySQL backend (news, current items etc).
- Admin / Editor pages to add / edit / delete the dynamic content
- Supporting Section 508 and WCAG 1.0
- Considered work for hire (customer owns source afterwards)

Cost: $18,000 (Actual figure I saw on a quote).

They weren't even going to provide the hosting space for the site nor
the MySQL backend. They were going to develop basically the framework
for the group to add their own content and the DB tables.

I was pretty stunned when I saw that. According to the people who
showed me the quote that wasn't even the highest one.

I do a lot of work as a project manager for various application / web
development. One thing I will tell you that you need to really drive
home to your customer is sticking to the scope of work. When you both
sign the dotted line as to what is expected from the project make sure
they fully understand that deviations from that will cost more. It
took me about three or four projects where scope creep *positively*
killed me before I learned my lesson. It always starts small, a change
to a color here, moving an image just a bit this way or that, then
they throw a real wrench in the works by deciding they want to do
something like add a whole new layer of people with certain rights in
the application which blows away your existing authentication /
security model.

This person might be a friend (or father-in-laws friend), but I can't
stress the importance of having a contract in place for both of your
protection.

Also make sure both parties understand what's to be paid for and what
isn't. A deliverables model will help with that. i.e. I get this much
money for adding this functionality to the site. This way if something
goes sour you can be paid for the work already completed.

Also, make sure you keep the customer in the loop. After certain
milestones, show them where you're at to make sure you're still on the
same page. This opens you up a bit more to scope creep, but making a
relatively small change in the beginning is a whole lot better than
nearly starting over at the end.


Cheers,
Leif Gregory

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