costing a major project

kida

I have been asked to help out on a website and provide an estimation of what someone could expect to pay for the following. I am an IT professional and have done a lot of web site development(all itranet/application type stuff) and my friend has asked me to basically co-ordinate the project(he hasn't a clue) - so wants to ensure he is not ripped off.

The website will have the following
Shopping Cart with Online Payment facility
Calendar of events and entry form
Results system
Newsletter sign up and mailing.
Discussion Board

I have told him it will not be cheap - but have no idea of the actual cost. I realise a company will probably be more expensive.

What would he expect to pay
1) a company
2) a freelancer doing it as a nixer

thanks for your help.

Sposs

Hi everything that you have listed there is available here http://www.hosting365.ie/hosting_basic.php drop me a line should you wish to discuss it furthur.

damnyanks

Erm it seems to me sposs is just selling hosting365...

Kida if you had all those features made up just for you it would cost a fair bit. There are free scripts out there that can be customized as well as third party companies that will brand their system to your website.

The cost ? You could get it all for free or pay alot depending on your exact needs.

Check www.hotscripts.com for some freebies... also pay scripts there as well.

kida

What I was thinking of is get the different components(free or buy) and integrate them into the web site so it would involve a bit of programming and a bit of setup/integration.

Sposs thanks for the offer but we are not quite at that stage yet - we assume we are going to be able to get a hoster.

Sposs

Apologies read your question wrong i though you were looking for a hosting service to provide such services , anyway just ignore me

dahamsta

Hi kida,

As damnyanks says, everything there is available for free, the problem comes with tying them together. For example, you could use phpBB for forums and osCommerce for shopping, but the user will need one account for osCommerce and one for phpBB. If this isn't a problem for you, it makes things a lot easier, but it has to be said that it looks a lot more professional to tie everything together.

Price? I wrote a piece about this a long time ago and dragged it up from the cellars just for you. I reckon 95% of it still applies today.

http://beecher.net/is_it_35_or_35000000.htm

adam

Ph3n0m

Quite honestly, everything that you are looking for can be accomplished for nearly next to nothing.

Other posters have quite rightly pointed out that most of what you are looking for is available as free downloads and installs.

Some hosts also have some of what you require aswell, as part of their packages.

It just a case if you or the people who are technically minded, then the cost, roughly would be the cost of your hosting and domain name - thats it

Otherwise you are talking about getting someone who is tech minded to make it all for you - which can cost a pretty cent (whether its a company, freelancer).

At the end of the day - you get what you pay for.

Hell I could start shilling myself as a candidate to do it for you, but that is not what the question was.

Simply put - free if you do it yourself (except for Credit Card processing), or pay someone to do it for you - there are no real rough quotes that can be given, as the project does seems medium to large

The Corinthian

As has been pointed out, all of the requirements are available as freeware scripts. Of course, wheither they are free or not they still have to be integrated, which takes time and skill - which costs money. Additionally, using freeware can sometimes cost more than building it from scratch, as it can be a nightmare to integrate or not open to being customizable or simply just crap.

Anyhow, a few thoughts:

Shopping Cart with Online Payment facility Does he have his own CC merchant account or does he want to go via an online merchant? There are various options with this, each with their own pros and cons - and costs.

Calendar of events and entry form Can't even begin to answer that. What do you mean? Booking form tied into something with limited places, such as air flights? Or for weekly events with no limits on participants? Or an online appointments book? All those satisfy your description and you'll appreciate that all those also are quite different.

Results system Straight forward basic CMS (if you even want to call it that). In this case you'd proabably be better off getting a bespoke solution than integrating a free system. Take less time, tbh.

Newsletter sign up and mailing. There's a number of ways to skin a cat on this one. Simplest is either via a host that supports/supplies a mailing list application on a server or some system that is desktop based. Either is not complex, time consuming or expensive (generally even free).

Discussion Board On this you're probably much better off using a free application such as phpBB and integrating it into the main site.

Also your 'friend' has to consider scoping of the project along with the necessary requirements workshops and specification documentation as well as technical documentation at the end - al this takes time, which is generally billable. Also you negelcted to mention concept design, which is also billable.

As for rates, a very rough guestimate would be:

Company or Professional Consultant (i.e. freelancer with a clue): €300 - €1,500 per day. Caveat Emptor.

Bottom feeder (i.e. freelancer with no clue) or someone doing it as a nixer: €75 - €300 per day. Caveat Emptor.

Given you've an IT professional and have done a lot of Web site development, you should be able to guestimate the time needed to do the above and then put a price on it based upon those rates.

dahamsta

Calendar of events and entry form Can't even begin to answer that. What do you mean? Booking form tied into something with limited places, such as air flights? Or for weekly events with no limits on participants? Or an online appointments book? All those satisfy your description and you'll appreciate that all those also are quite different.

It's it's just plain-jane events, vBulletin has this built-in and many other BB's prolly do too.

adam

The Corinthian

Originally posted by dahamsta
It's it's just plain-jane events, vBulletin has this built-in and many other BB's prolly do too.

And an entry form? Which would be doing what exactly? What info would be required? Would this need be tied in to something? Or perhaps the client doesn't need any of that. Maybe you're right, but you're making quite a few assumptions for one sentence of second hand information.

dahamsta

I wasn't assuming anything, I was simply suggesting that if kida is just looking for a plain-jane events system, one is tied into vBulletin:

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/calendar.php

Do you have to be so aggressive?

adam

The Corinthian

Originally posted by dahamsta
I wasn't assuming anything, I was simply suggesting

If the first word in "It's it's just plain-jane events" was actually meant to be if, then I'm sorry. Otherwise that wasn't a suggestion but an assumption.

Do you have to be so aggressive?

It's an alpha-male thing.

kida

Thanks to all for your comments.

Having done a little more research. I think a portal like phpnuke might be what he is looking for. HAs a built-in in BB,etc.

RE: Calendar of events and entry form
This is basically a calnedar of events with a limited number of places on.

The results system is tied into this also as it is displaying the results of each event. I thing this will have to be developed.

The newsletter and mailing is just a weekly email sent to members that subscribe.

Giving what I have found out so far I am tempted to have a go myself, I was surprised how much phpnuke could give you for free. What is php like to learn? I am an experienced VB/ASP/Javascript developer.

Has anyone got any good links for modules that can be incorporated into phpnuke?

Regarding the CC processing - no account anywhere yet. I have looked through previous posts here on the subject and it looks like there are pros and cons to different providers. I think I will have to use a provider as doing it all yoursellf is too big a job.

Again - thanks to all for feedback.

mneylon

Originally posted by The Corinthian

It's an alpha-male thing.

All that testosterone!