Posted by Miles Thompson on 10/21/54 11:12

Leif,

Amen, amen and amen.

Miles


At 08:52 PM 4/3/2005, Leif Gregory wrote:
>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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