Web Development - Pricing

It's difficult to provide a price for a web site. Every site I've worked on has at least doubled in complexity once the site got started. How, once you've finally decided to create your own dream site, can you possibly omit this or that feature once the project has begun and it becomes more obvious what else just has to be added?

That said, this is the model I've adopted.

• Show me a site, mine or someone else's, that you would be thrilled to have. I will tell you how much that site will cost.  
  
• If this fits within your budget, then we're all set.  
  
• If this doesn't fit within your budget, tell me what your budget is and we'll figure out which elements of the site are most important and we'll whittle things down until you're satisfied.  
  

One size fits all - $400

Another way we can do this is that I will charge you $400 for the minimum web site. What you will get for this price is:

• Roughly 10 pages - I will give you a minimum number of pages. You can have some basic pages where you will provide me the text and I will put it into web format. This could be an "About" page with the primary information about you or your company, maybe a "Contact" page with your contact information, and some extra pages that describe you, your service, or the products that you want to provide.  
  
• 1 - 3 pictures per page - I will clean up, border, and shadow a number of pictures for each page to go along with your text.  
  
• A simple page layout - I will provide you with a simple web page layout, probably a header, a table of contents, and the main content pages for your site.  
  
• Publishing - You pay all web fees to reserve your web name and purchase hosting for the site (roughly $120 for 2 years depending on the service we choose). I will do all the leg work and publish your site as part of this service.  
  

Taking over an existing site

This can be a difficult proposition. There is always some overhead to retrieving your site information and getting a feel for it (maybe 2 - 4 hours, sometimes more). If there's nothing extra fancy about your site I will eventually be as productive with it as I am with my own.

• Nothing too complicated - If your site isn't too complicated, I would charge you for the time it takes to understand your site, and give you a price for the changes you are after.
   
• It's complicated - If your existing site consists of database work (shopping carts, blogs, newsletters, ...), custom programming (special Email handling, ...), special graphics or animations, then I can usually work with it, but it's going to take about twice as long to make changes to the complex parts of your site as it would if I was the original developer.
   
• Mend fences maybe? - Having someone take over your site is generally not a satisfying proposition. You have to pay more for your site at a price that is almost always above what your original developer would have charged (since they know their work far better than I do). If working with the original developer is not an option, then I will work with you. But if it is an option, you may want to consider mending fences if your site is anything but simple.