[Closed] website costs

We would charge that for initial scoping.

Are you talking scoping, design, build, testing, hosting and the lot for £600????????

Sounds very cheap to me..

is £600 reasonable fee for the work

ha ha

x 15 and thats a much more realistic figure

EDIT: I'm sure there are companies that will do it for 600 quid. but you can buy a 600 car, will it be reliable, safe, hassle and maintenance free???

Sounds alright to me.

(I wouldn't necessarily benchmark my quotes using m_f's prices btw. He works in Harrogate don't you know. And you'll just be funding his new Tigra. 😉 )

OK cool, it's a guy I've used a lot in the past with great success, but not for a couple of years. Sweet. I guess office costs in Karachi are a little lower than Harrogate 😉

<retreats and awaits jingoistic and xenophobic assault....>

Cheap as chips, go for it

I'm sure there are companies that will do it for 600 quid. but you can buy a 600 car, will it be reliable, safe, hassle and maintenance free???

And here the sales pitch begins!
Sense customers lack of knowledge and experience.
Introduce the fear factor.
Charge an arm and a leg for 10 mins work.

I think there is a web site for buying bangers which demonstrates that there are plenty of cheap cars which can be reliable, safe, hassle and even maintenance free.

600 quid is what I would consider fair, my page hasn't fallen once in two years. It's about to be redesigned so that I can do the updates myself. If you have the ideas I don't think that translating them onto a web page is worth anywhere near 15X600, but it's worth a try asking, I'm sure there are plenty of gullible people out there.

He works in Harrogate don't you know. And you'll just be funding his new Tigra

If you're looking for an "off the peg" website, with your logo, a bit of a stylesheet with appropriate colours and a standard ecommerce section, then maybe £600 is cheap as chips but not unbelieveably cheap.

If you want something that has actually had some thought put into the way you (want to) do business and understands your customers and provides you information on how to imporve it in the future and is actually capable of being changed to meet your needs into the future and and... then no, £600 is nowhere need what you should be spending.

Your business - how much do you value it??

Rachel

600 quid is what I would consider fair, my page hasn't fallen once in two years. It's about to be redesigned so that I can do the updates myself. If you have the ideas I don't think that translating them onto a web page is worth anywhere near 15X600, but it's worth a try asking, I'm sure there are plenty of gullible people out there.

And the OP isn't asking for a 'webpage' at £600, he is asking for a a new brand identity, a website and ecomms functionality. It is very different.

Of course there are people that do ecommerce sites for that amount of money but 15x that amount is also very fair (and the ballpark we are in). You pays your money, you takes your choice....

Your business - how much do you value it??

Redesigned so you can do updates? How does a redesign allow you to do updates? Don't you mean 'rebuilt'?

No, I mean updating. You are not understaning me? And here is the first problem. 😆

I've used this guy before, his work is good, creative and technically sound. Just hadn't had a job done by him for a while and wanted to check cost wise. By his own admission there are plenty of UK firms charging clients UK prices and subbing the work to him and his mates to massage their margins.

If you want something that has actually had some thought put into the way you (want to) do business and understands your customers

That's the bit that I do by writing the brief accurately.

What scheme you plotting now, Tinternet puppy sales ?

So rebuilt then, not redesigned. You might be in for a shock when you are given a redesigned site 😉

To be honest, I've seen at close quarters how much "work" goes into building a website.

It's like having two kids that are good at lego...one may be slightly better than the other at building stuff, but the real effort went into designing the lego. It's not like website designers/builders actually designed the code themselves...even though they'd like us to think they had.

As for the front end stuff...

...bullet points
...powerpoint

It ain't rocket science.

nice idea scruff. sadly it's just a new site for my new people.

iDave - I will be very interested in seeing what you get for your £600. I know there are some very good people out in the Far East but we made a deliberate business decision some years ago to never use them as if things do go wrong, you are a long way from the developer and they are likely to be outside of UK law should there be any legal disputes. And as far as we are concerned, we need to ensure our clients are properly serviced so we directly employ all our developers.

Put it into perspective.

Yes you can pay a lot more (even at 15 x £600 you wouldn't even get us out of bed to scope it) but you proabably don't need to and if you can get a Brand and a website for £600 then go for it.

Problem is if your looking at £600 then even if you spend 4 x that the quality of work isn't going to change much. So at £600 go for it and ignore the 'nay sayers'

don simon, i don't work in web design, so no sales pitch from me. In my experience, from friends who have had websites built, and a friend who is founder and MD of an award winning web design company, you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

To be fair to the OP, outsourcing to the east is a lot cheaper,and the work is generally of a very high standard, but will the deign, both of the logo and website be up to the quality of a good UK based design company? If so then fair play.

For a small site with low volume and happy to use out of the box components and trust that they'll all hang together and be secure then £600 for someone to do it off-shore is in the right ball-park. It's not something I'd want if it were my business though...

It's not like website designers/builders actually designed the code themselves.

Well that isn't strictly true - many specific functions and integrations require huge amounts of reworking of code.

Yeah, yeah...

...you sound like a guy I know who lays wooden floors and talks about how much work goes into them 😛

To be fair to the OP, outsourcing to the east is a lot cheaper,and the work is generally of a very high standard, but will the deign, both of the logo and website be up to the quality of a good UK based design company?

Why might it not?

you sound like a guy I know who lays wooden floors and talks about how much work goes into them

geoff, I would imagine that someone in Karachi wouldn't be quite as up to speed in latest trends and design ideas in the UK. These things seem to change weekly, if not daily. I could be wrong though

iDave, is he a website programmer?

I'm obviously not saying that eastern people have no design capabilities, I'm saying that they may not understand what's hot in the UK

The thing is, there's websites and there's websites. I am not sure people really understand the difference between a few pages with information and a full featured online shop with an admin interface and stock control etc etc.

Depends what you want in your 'ecommerce' section I guess. Btw I am availabe for work if that all goes belly up 🙂

So rebuilt then, not redesigned. You might be in for a shock when you are given a redesigned site

🙄 No, I mean updating, that will allow me to go behind the scenes and change any of the info on any of the pages adding new info on a weekly basis, much like you would and can do on a blog.

Web designer in not listening to customer shocker... 😆
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😆

Is the UK the world leader? My mate in Karachi was educated in New York.

iDave

I think Warton is only trying to help. What's his website URL? I'll bet you (if you post it) it looks a bit dog turd.

"This is based upon getting multiple emails everyday about how I can outsource my work, looking at the website and I've yet to see a nice one"

Is the UK the world leader?

Sort of (It's certainly up there)

following previous situations from some twisted people here i'm not posting his url. remember the personal trainer website/font incident???

I think Warton is only trying to help.

I agree - we just need to be careful how we phrase things.

TBH, it is possible that a web designer in [s]Karachi[/s] Sunderland may be motivated by and have very different values to a hip and swinging design agency in Harrogate. If the OP is an intelligent customer, then it may not matter too much (Pareto principle and all that), but if he required a significant amount of help in forming the spec, then it might.

What's his website URL?

Fair point

I don't need his work critiqued, I've used him before, I like it, clients liked it, including this one. I just needed some idea about pricing after a gap in using him. I'll be sure to let you all see the finished site. Then you can tell me how your $15k one would have been so much better 😉

I would like to see it actually, just to see what £600 buys you 🙂

Plus I'd like a call from you iDave 🙂

Web designer in not listening to customer shocker

I am a designer that can design for web (as well as print). I cannot code at all.

Plus I'd like a call from you iDave

Get your coat iDave 🙂

Last personal client I took on back in 2002 paid me 7k up front for the initial coding and design concept. After that he decided he wasn't going ahead with his project and I kept the cash. So yeah, £600 is a bargain imo if you get everything you need and it does what you want (although in 2002 there weren't as many tools to speed things up).

Here's what I don't understand though - if you have used the guy before, you are happy with him, your clients are happy with his work and you are adept at writing a full, precise and clear brief, why are you asking us whether £600 is a fair price?

Here's what I don't understand though - if you have used the guy before, you are happy with him, your clients are happy with his work and you are adept at writing a full, precise and clear brief, why are you asking us whether £600 is a fair price?

iDave is the new Brant Richards and I claim my £5 😆

there weren't as many tools

See?
😉

iDave is this just a troll? Seems you posted a question and then just got overly defensive and full of answers to your own question.

If he is "schooled in NYC" you have used him before and clients liked it then 600 quid is a no brainer, but as others have posted on here you get what you pay for.

There is no doubt that there are very skilled one man bands who can undercut agencies prices just as agencies outside London can undercut those inside the M25.

I am sure you could almost compare it to your mate down the road who "fixes motors" , Kwik Fitt and a Dealer service.. ish.

😆

These types of post make me laugh because at the end of the day, people have different experiences/standards/expectations/levels of understanding etc.

Hence I'm generally with MF on this. Sure, if someone wants to pay a few hundred quid for a "proper" ecommerce site then go for it. If they're happy with it then even better. Job done. But if it looks shit, doesn't encourage the viewer to stick around, has unstable cataloguing/banking, requires additional fees for edits and CMS, etc, then is there really anything to be gained? Hopefully iDave's mate won't deliver anything like this.

It also depends on your market.

IMO, if you want proper functionality + design + support + longevity etc, then investing in a proper build tends to be the way forward.

Of course, mainly it depends on the actual business. If the OP is only expecting to make a few quid from the ecommerce then there's little point in spending thousands.

Still, I quite fancy a new Subaru Legacy so if anyone wants a "full" site building, let me know... 🙂

Rachel

To be honest, I've seen at close quarters how much "work" goes into building a website.
...
It ain't rocket science.

If it's so easy, why aren't you doing it? Hey, I've seen how much work goes into surgery; bit of a cut there, dig about a bit, watch some TV, spot of sewing, money for old rope.

Sure, a good portion of webdev is modular; a better analogy might be a mechanic, he doesn't CNC his own parts, but that doesn't devalue his worth as a mechanic.

This adage crops up a lot in IT, and it really *swearwords* me off. We put a monumental amount of effort, time, work and research into making this stuff look easy. It's not.

There's an old joke that goes along the lines of; an old engineer is pulled out of retirement to fix a huge old machine that's died, and no-one knows anything about it any more. He goes out, looks at it, turns a screw half a turn and everything flares into life. He presents them with a bill for ten grand. The CEO kicks it back and demands an itemised bill. The engineer replies, "labour charge for turning a screw, £20. Knowing which screw to turn, £9,980."

If the OP is only expecting to make a few quid from the ecommerce then there's little point in spending thousands.

We advised that the cost to develop the functionality would outstrip any money they might make on the sales. Instead we suggested they give them to a charity shop or try selling on Ebay.

At £600, if its crap, well you've only lost £600.

As others have said, you know the guy and you are only talking about £600 - which would struggle to buy two contractor/programmer man days in the UK.

A few of the comments on here have me chuckling...

Sort of (It's certainly up there)

Who's to say that people in foreign places have not been educated here? And since site design/trends are, by definition, global, there's no reason why anyone would not be as up to speed on it as anyone else.

The question about how much he values his business - well he might value it more than his entire bank holdings, and more than any loan he might be able to get because his future depends on it. Doesn't mean he should re-mortgage the house for the website. Only an idiot wouldn't look at the cheapest AND the most expensive options.

As said from the start by someone I missed, it depends on what the customer wants surely? If you sit down with them and they require very little in the way of back end mods from a known structure, and very few graphics (I hate overly graphical/clever sites), there's no reason why a startup company or small-size (or foreign) company couldn't do a reasonable job for that cash. It won't be the bees knees, but he's clearly not looking for an amazon beater.

Web designer in not listening to customer shocker...

Customer not telling the web designer what they actually wanted shocker... 🙄

It's fairly easy to knock up a decent looking website. The trick is to get it to look okay in all the browsers, and pixel perfect to how the faffy designer wanted it in the first place (despite just knocking it up in photoshop without thought for actually how it would work). Then add in the last minute customer requests to move things around that we never designed to be moved.

Not that I'm bitter or twisted....

If it's so easy, why aren't you doing it?

Oooh, get you girlfriend...getting all bitey on me 😉

Then add in the last minute customer requests to move things around that we never designed to be moved.

Err no, because you never asked for it and the proposal clearly states what browsers/platforms/versions it will work on.

Of course if you DO want it to work on one....

Of course if you DO want it to work on one....

Will you be doing it in Word for them? 😛

heh 🙂

Oooh, get you girlfriend...getting all bitey on me

Ah, I'm very rarely bitey. Please don't start taking me seriously. (-:

Err no, because you never asked for it and the proposal clearly states what browsers/platforms/versions it will work on.

Just because a proposal states what browsers a website is designed for, doesn't mean it registers in the consciousness of the customer. Maybe better business analysis up-front would avoid this type of thing?

I have a process of creating "characters" (personas for the enlightened) that represent the likely users of the site and detail their IT knowledge, education level and professional knowledge (what they know about the subject of the website). Then, we create stories based around each character that describe the likely things they will do with the website, how they will access it, where from etc. I then take the stories away and turn them into a set of website features that we again sit down with the customer and prioritise (MoSCoW) and provide estimates for.

That way, everyone understands what's required/expected and we know how much extra time/cost is required to bolt on features if more time/money is available...

(giving my game away here - mmm)

Rachel

You mean 'User Scenarios'.

Yes we did those and they showed that people were not particularly likely to buy/search for a car based on mobile searches.

Ohh, and our competitor research showed that his two main competitors don't have mobile versions of their sites either.

And last month just 3% of visits to his site were from mobile devices.

But thanks anyway 😉

Cougar - Member

Ah, I'm very rarely bitey.

I have the scars, and catheter to prove otherwise.

Worst £5 ever.

I have a process of creating "characters"

That sounds like a really good tip. Thanks...

I have the scars, and catheter to prove otherwise.

Worst £5 ever.

Just off to change my keyboard, this one has tea in it.

lol you always seem up your own arse when you start going on about your company mastiles_fanylion...

A year ago one of our clients had less than 1% of his visits via smartphones, now it is >3%, nothing wrong with an element of future proofing and it isnt hard to target mobile devices specifically.

It does mean you can charge them a load more to "upgrade" it later on I guess. 🙄

errmm have I just used the wrong URL
- I could've sworn this was an MTB forum and not Alistapart / Smashing magazine etc....

Someone mentioned about £600 cars. The best car I ever bought was £700 (so obviously a good few notches above). It's amazing and has actually never broken down between 157,000 and 230,000 mile life with me. Probably not the point but I thought it should be mentioned.

geoff, I would imagine that someone in Karachi wouldn't be quite as up to speed in latest trends and design ideas in the UK. These things seem to change weekly, if not daily. I could be wrong though

Other than narrow-minded jingoistic Western ignorance of what happenz in the Rest Of The World, what makes you think this??

lol you always seem up your own arse when you start going on about your company mastiles_fanylion...

Because I take pride in what we do I guess...

Of course there is nothing wrong in future-proofing and all our current sites do work on smart phones but we don't specifically design for them unless there is a clear requirement for it.

lol you always seem up your own arse when you start going on about your company mastiles_fanylion..

noooo - just all-knowing... 😉

If there's one thing I have learned, it's just how much there is still left to learn. That's why I love working on sites - every one is an experience...

Rachel

Probably not the point but I thought it should be mentioned.

Depends what you get for your £600.... might sound glaringly obvious.

If the 'designer' uses an off-the-shelf eCommerce package (OSCommerce springs to mind), which gets re-styled in CSS in a few hours (only code they touch), then perhaps £600 for their time and knowledge would seem about right.... only if they were a part-time-cash-in-hand 'designer'

If they're building it from scratch, then I'd take it with a pinch of salt...

Depends if you want any old car that might be reliable, might not be, and probably won't rain in if you're lucky; or whether you want a car that meets your needs exactly and comes with ABS, PAS, satnav and mp3 player. Also depends whether you want to be embarrassed or proud when you show it to your mates.

(I'm not saying the former is inherently wrong, I've had some cracking £300 runabouts, but you get more if you pay more, which is the point.)

So for much cheapness you get an off the peg product that meets your needs - or you can pay a "designer" thousands to produce something unique that will have no better functionality but will look fancy.

Anything that uses a "designer" who talks about "branding" one should run a mile.

that will have no better functionality

For example:
A client recently paid £30k for a bespoke booking/CRM system for a ski site. It does exactly what their business requires and has no spurious functionality.

We are now making a generic version of that same system to sell as an off-the-shelf product, for which we will charge considerably less, but it will be packed with features although few customers will ever need ALL of them - it simply won't be as streamlined as a bespoke system and therefore take more training in its use, will always take people longer to navigate, will never be as tailored to individual business models.

Anything that uses a "designer" who talks about "branding" one should run a mile.

Other than narrow-minded jingoistic Western ignorance of what happenz in the Rest Of The World, what makes you think this??

ffs. my point was, if you read the rest of my posts, UK designers will know the UK market better than designers in other parts of the world. I used Karachi as the specific place as that is where the OP's guy is based. not jingoistic, or narrow minded. I would imagine that a web designer based in the UK wouldn't know the US market as well as a US based designer, does that make me a redneck? 🙄

and before anyone goes on about web designs being global by nature again. That is nonsense, what %age of web pages are truly global? and in that tiny percentage, how many are e-commerce site?

"Anything that uses a "designer" who talks about "branding" one should run a mile."

Well that depends on what the customer wants really. Branding can be very important for many businesses, moreso if a web only brand - how else do they get across their brand message?

"Brand message" Hahahahahahahahahahaha - a statement without meaning and proves my point.

MF delete your last post while you can, remember the font saga

it isnt hard to target mobile devices specifically.

yes it is, and yes mobile is hard. Many more browsers, much different capabilities and therefore if you want it to actually work then its often more work than a desktop site

Unless you are being iphonecentric

a statement without meaning and proves my point.