Price range / rates

BmCon wrote: »

I've been working on site design and development for years (my own sites) and have had loads of people ask me to build sites for them but have put most of them off, due to the price they think they should pay and because I just did not want to work for nothing.

I've been largely out of the Irish market for a few years, but I've been told that hourly rates have dropped for development; I believe that someone skilled - either an expert in a specific CMS or an actual developer (someone who can code as opposed to hack some code and just use CMS's) can charge up to about €50 p.h., while some of the bottom feeders at the bottom of the food chain will charge a de facto rate as low as €5 - I say de facto because they don't have one; they give fixed prices and underestimate the work involved.

How this translates in terms of a site depends on the developer and their process. Some use a CMS and do everything in four hours then charge for two days. Others don't really keep time. Some are faster than others.

A basic brochureware site will realistically cost anything between €200 and about €1,000, from what I've been told. If you're going for the cheap option though, you're playing supplier roulette; you might have a real bargain or a disaster.

Of course, having been out of Ireland for a while, I could be wrong about the above rates.

BmCon wrote: »

I build the sites, why not be proud of that?

I know exactly what you mean about building it yourself - I also feel that is something to be proud of.

Unfortunately, that's not how the market works and there's little point reinventing the wheel and then charging your client to reinvent the wheel, especially when it prices you out of the market. I do very little brochureware work any more and if I do, I generally steer (using scary quotes) the client against bespoke CMS's. Those days are gone, or more correctly, not commercially viable.

Of your site, outsource your design and information architecture. Like me, you're a coder, not a pixel-pusher and it shows. The market stopped supporting Jacks-of-all-trades a long time ago.

Better still, get out of the brochureware market; there's no money in it. Doing Web applications, mobile work or other IT solutions pay far better.

BmCon wrote: »

I had one girl wanted me to put her shop online with all products for 350 euro because I guy said that is what she should pay.

Then wish her the best of luck and make sure that you let her know, politely, that for that budget she's likely to end up back at square one in a few months when she realizes her bargain site is not the bargain she'd hoped for. Then wave good-bye.

Clients like that are either acting out of lack of knowledge or because they're horse-traders. If the former, you'll likely hear from her again in six months as she'll remember your polite warning after the bottom feeder she eventually engages leaves her with a pig's ear.

If the latter, hope you never hear from them again. They will squeeze as much value out of you as they can and then almost always fail to pay the final invoice.

PeakOutput wrote: »

Can you give one advantage to hand coding the cms from scratch and can you give one (different) disadvantage of using an os cms for a relatively simple brochure, ecommerce or blog site?

Repeat business

Lots of WordPress, Joomla and Drupal experts out there. Only one expert in the CMS you wrote yourself.

Of course, that's one advantage for the developer, not really the client...