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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