Costs for developing websites

[AlShack]

Evening all

I work with a graphic designer and between us we deliver online business applications and e-commerce sites to clients.

I have a question about the costings I put together for some clients that I'd really appreciate feedback on.

My clients for business applications seem happy - or rather accept - my costs.

However, I think some of the costs I put together are being preceived as too high by other clients.

For example, I recently quoted a client for the following:
Two websites, one with full e-commerce (baskets, payment processing, fully content managed catalogue etc), both with content managed web pages, product searches, both with admin areas for my client to manage uploads & site content, both with an import process into the catalogue from Excel, postage calculators, interface into a postcode search web service for finding the nearest dealer. Not straghtforward sites by any means. Anyway, my quote (including the graphic design charges for coming up with 2-3 visuals for each site and hosting) was just over £10k.

Does this seem unreasonable?

That particlar client didn't go for it, and I've had another one baulk at cost recently as well. However, I've also had clients who say our costs are very similar to other quotes they've had and have paid that sort of money for a single site.

Is it just dependent on the client and their expectations?

Appreciate any thoughts.

Cheers
Alan

[accelerator]

I don't think your quote was unreasonable for a custom built website, but it depends on what business model you want to pursue. Custom application design is always going to be a complicated affair and you will have to cover your time costs. If you want to stay in business it is usually better to offer quotes that are a bit too high than a bit too low!!

I think it helps if you improve your business knowledge in general. Read investment magazines like Investors Chronicle, read the business magazines, join the online forums etc etc. Once you have knowledge of how much a particular business sector can make online (and it varies widely) you can judge your quotes a bit better. Often I think a business can have unrealistic expectations of their website and I think it's better if you can give them more realistic expectations before undertaking a load of work for them that will ultimately prove unprofitable for them. Ideally, the relationship needs to be beneficial for both sides.

An alternative is to offer a better priced product, e.g. OSCommerce, but make it clear to the customer that they then have to be realistic in terms of their expectations and how much customization they can ask for. It all depends what kind of a business you want to run, but ultimately scale normally helps you stay in business.

[WhiskyFudge]

For that sort of money I'd expect to get a highly polished site where every detail has had a great amount of thought put into it. However if you're achieving that then no it's probably not unreasonable.

The biggest problem I find with the market is because complicated features are becoming more and more common across the larger sites, people start to come of the mindset that it must be easy and cheap to do. Frequently some of these features are not actually needed.

I always sit down with the client and try to gauge what the site is worth to the customer and try and make sure they're aware of it. After all if a site is only going to bring in £50k /year they're not about to spend £10k on it.

In order to make myself more affordable I've created a very generic CMS and Product Catalogue. The front end is coded from scratch each time but the database, admin site, business logic all remains the same. This cuts down development time hugely. I currently have 18 sites running off mine and I don't really do this part of the market!

[paulredpath]

Originally Posted by WhiskyFudge

I always sit down with the client and try to gauge what the site is worth to the customer and try and make sure they're aware of it. After all if a site is only going to bring in £50k /year they're not about to spend £10k on it.

See I would think the opposite would be true, 10K one off spend on a good site for a business bringing in 50K isn't unreasonable in my book, obviously depending on the margins involved. It helps grow the business and cut down on admin work if done properly, obviously everyone is different though.

The same is true when it comes to hosting, some companies *only* trade through their website, yet are unwilling to spend a proportionate amount of their turnover/profit on it. You wouldn't wedge 4 people into a 2 person office/shop if it was a 'traditional' business/shop, yet its ok to do 20k worth of business on a entry level hosting plan, doesn't make much sense to me

Just my 2 cents...

[WhiskyFudge]

Perhaps throwing specifics into this general conversation wasn't the best of ideas but your right it does totally depend on the margins involved.