How much for an ASP dynamic brochure site?

ollielaroo

Hi all,

I hope I am posting this thread in the most relevant area.

Over the past year I've been hard at work building an ASP website for a business. I am not a coder/programmer I'm just using what I learned in college i.e. Dreamweaver (ASP/VB) connecting to a MS Access database. What I need is a complete quote for the site. I have emailed a few web design companies and have recieved some quotes however the client I am dealing with wants more justification on the amount I'm quoting them.

As I said I am not a professional web designer myself but I have put a lot of work into this site. I am prepared to continue making any minor changes to the site (as required) for the client over the next year and guide them as much as possible. Here is a detailed list of what I have done for them:


Required:

- Hosting (one year)
- Domain registration (€0 ..they are doing this themselves)

A brochure site (ASP) that will show what products are available under what categories.
An admin site (Content Management System) to manage the categories and products.
The site should connect to a database (MS Access) that stores all category and product details.


Brochure site pages:

Home
About us
Products - (select a product category)
Product Categories – (display all products in the selected category briefly)
Products Details – (ability to view more details of selected product)
Contact us – (contact form, queries will go to a specific email address)
Contact Received – (confirmation of query sent from Contact page)
Privacy Policy – (terms and conditions, data confidentiality)


Admin site pages: (CMS)

Login – (login requires specific predetermined username and password)
Manage Categories - (DISPLAY page, ADD page, EDIT page, DELETE page)
Manage Products - (DISPLAY page, ADD page, EDIT page, DELETE page)
(products must be completely customizable)
View ALL uploads – (view all uploaded media to server)
Logout – (logout of admin site with link back to website)


Additional:

Design logo / header for website.
Source and manipulate all additional images on website.
Enable web-stats.
Add other email addresses of the company and set one as the ‘catch all’.
Enable auto-responder for email received by visitors.
Backup / Restore complete website and database at clients request.



As it is I have a very good relationship with this client and I would not like it to turn sour. (this is my second ASP site I have built for someone).
I would appreciate if anyone could give me an estimate (complete cost) for this type of site.

Many thanks.

pauldiv

You will likely get quotes varing from buttons to mega thousands for this job.

I would just quote them a price that I felt was worth all the effort expended so far. Web Development is difficult after all and you should be properly paid for all the hard work you have put in.

It sounds like they don't value your contribution so far because they are haggling about the price but there is a huge difference between price and long term value.

As you have a good relationship with the business and already have a foot in the door it follows that you are of much value to them. They ought to realise this and if they dont then then you could just finish the job and hand over the files to them. They will need help in the future and if they are not going to pay well you will have the last call.

You sound like you just lack the confidence to ask for what you really want.
How much do you want to be paid? Does 5K sound ok?.

As for not being a "pro" it does not really matter because if you can build a great looking site that does it's best to promote someones business online them thats what counts.

Plenty of people are self taught and they have plenty of web savvy.

Next time try to get something up front before you do any work on the site.
There are bills needing paying after all and you could maybe work out what you are worth per hour as you will then be able to quote clients for smaller jobs.

Good luck and all the best with it.

ollielaroo

Hi pauldiv,

Thank you for that very informative reply.
No contract was created/signed as the client is 'family'. A year ago he asked if I could do it and I said I would give it my best shot. Back then I knew it would take a lot of time and effort as I hadn't build a site before with a proper content management system. (I suppose now that I have the site and CMS working very well at least I can apply the same to another site in the future).

The qoutes I already have from web design companies are between €1,500 and €2,500. I suppose these companies already have templates etc. ready to go for these kind of sites. I actually quoted him (client) €2,000, including all the help he needs for the for the next year, including: improving the header/logo, adding or changing static text and even uploading product details and photos. I'm beginning to think the amount of hours I have already spent on this project easily justifies my quote.

An estimation of cost should have been agreed from day one. Anyway I'll fight it out and see what happens.

Thank you.

Bluefrog

Well, I'd say a few things about this. First you have to consider how much value the learning process of building the site brought to you.

I woud think about 2,500 would be about right for what you are describing by a professional development company but it is very unlikely that they would have used Access as it only supports 10 concurrent users so if the site gets any kind of traffic at all it's going to fall over.

Also relating to traffic, what SEO have you done on the site? Obviously the site has a lot less value if no SEO went into it - at least basics such as using tableless layouts, CSS, titling pages accurately, using heading tags etc. Nowadays I would consider those things as standard. Not to mention at this point ASP is an old technology - don't know when MS will stop supplying fixes for it or if they already have.

Finally, it should have been costed from the start - ballpark at the very least. I know its closing the barn door after the horse has bolted but if your client feels that what you're asking is way beyond what he had expected/budgeted for I would tend to have some sympathy for him.

Anyway, I say try for the 2,000 but don't break the family on it - there will be other sites and you basically got paid to learn, more than many people do.

forbairt

The longer I'm in this game the more I'm learning ...

You charge peanuts ... you get taken for being a monkey .. you charge too much you scare away the small guys.

Really you've got to do some maths and try and realise how many hours you've spent on the project. Then on top of that you've got to say ... well I'm not a professional so its been a learning experience.

How do you feel the site compares to one developed by a professional company ? If its as good as some in a few portfolios .. maybe ask the companies for quotes on a site with this that and the other included and a custom design as opposed to a template monster template or similar ? (while annoying as **** for the companies involved maybe you can get a quote on it all)

Also as you're not a company as such you don't have a lot of the overheads to account for as such so maybe knock a few quid off the price.

Either way .. best of luck .. I personally hate the money aspect of business but its a necessary evil

Bluefrog

forbairt wrote: »

The longer I'm in this game the more I'm learning ...

How do you feel the site compares to one developed by a professional company ?

That assumes you are in a position to fully evaluate it. There are a LOT of gotchas possible on such a site, everything from data input validation to crawler issues. Not my intention to rain on the OP's parade, I haven't seen the site and I'm sure given the timespan it has taken it is at least reasonable but I'd still stand over what I said above.

The other thing I was thinking about when I was walking the hound (and no, that's not a euphemism) is you really don't want to get yourself into an open ended arrangement on support. If you do you're just repeating your mistakes. Take a look around on line for web maintenance contracts and pull one together that suits your particular needs.

Finally, a year is a long time to wait for a site to be developed - I'd be looking at a max of 6 to 8 weeks for such a project starting from scratch - even less if you used a pre-built store. This also has to figure somewhere and I don't think your client is going to like carrying it - perhaps there were lost business opportunities in the delay. Once again I'd say try but don't push - the client may put other people your way -it tends to be a very 'word of mouth' orientated business.

ollielaroo

Thanks guys for all your help on this.

I still haven't got paid anything just yet, but I will.