Cost of a simple website
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Discussion

Sparks

Original Poster:

1,217 posts

297 months

Friday 20th February 2004
quotequote all
I know someone who is looking to have their website re-designed.
The current site is not very good (www.denoth.info) but he does not want anything much more complicated.
He needs just the content that is already there, plus a few other things, including links to the distributors of his CD's.

I am not sure what this quote includes (may be hosting too) but 1500GBP seems a little steep, even for Switzerland.

Anyone care to comment?

TIA

Sparks

docevi1

10,430 posts

266 months

Friday 20th February 2004
quotequote all
£1500, wow. I used to make websites for people for <£100 dependent on what was required. £1500 sounds as if there is a hosting deal & someone is taking him for a ride!

gopher

5,160 posts

277 months

Friday 20th February 2004
quotequote all
For a static html based site of a few pages the £1500 is excessive even if it includes hosting. A few guys in work have however worked for large advertising companies and specialist IT firms that won't even look at you for less than 5k so I suppose it depends on who he has gone to.

I'm sure there is plenty of talent on ph he could turn to and there are a number of people here who could host it for him, either way I would certainly suggest he looks elsewhere.

Cheers

Paul

dontlift

9,396 posts

276 months

Friday 20th February 2004
quotequote all
Sparks,

YHM!

Sparks

Original Poster:

1,217 posts

297 months

Friday 20th February 2004
quotequote all
Thanks people!

I think it may include hosting, but the price did seem to be silly even so. Maybe they are also exploiting the technophobe that he is.

I have passed on details of the much more reasonable prices mention in private mails.

Thanks

Sparks

tim_s

299 posts

272 months

Friday 20th February 2004
quotequote all
£1500 is about right for a professional design. £50 per hour X 3.5 days.

speedeight

893 posts

293 months

Friday 20th February 2004
quotequote all

If its just the lack of artistic flare and competence with flash, etc, then a buying a template might be a cheap option.

Somewhere like template monster might be worth a look [url]www.templatemonster.com[/url]

robertuk

591 posts

280 months

Friday 20th February 2004
quotequote all
This question crops up quite regularly so...

1.)Generally you can tell the difference between a professional website and a DIY one.

2.) Some sites lack whistles and bells but have great copy/photos/articles

3.) Most people can use Word, but would you trust your press release to *anyone

A website consists of a frontend and backend
(Much like a pantomine horse )

An artistic/creative person does the frontend and a technical person does the back end.

There are a few techies with creative streaks and vice-versa.

*** Who are your visitors ? ***

How valuable is the website ?
The target audience ?
How important are first impressions ?

*** Marketing ***

I live in SW London. There is a monthly free mag which is distributed to most households in the area. A quarter page ad costs £500 for one month.
(Discounts are given above a certain number of months)

If your spending £££ to advertise your company+website, it would not make sense to produce a low cost website.

*** Your Brand ***

How valuable is your brand ?
If you sell high end Hi-Fi, your website links would lead to professional, elegant, rich websites. Would be a shame if the links page looked poor in comparison. (My amplifier gave up the ghost a few hours ago, hence the example) .

*** Hardware / Software ***
This is a common setup:

PC System £750
Macromedia StudioMX £780
Adobe Photoshop £ 535
Books/ £250
Annual subscription magazines £120
Digital Camera £400
Annual broadband account £300
(Prices are approx.)

Total so far: £3135 !

So if you were producing websites for £100 you would need to produce 31 before you got most of your cash back ! Professional training courses cost from about £150 per day plus the time invested in self-tuition !

Hope this was useful/interesting/ entertaining !


Ramesh


*Neighbour/nephew/niece ...





>> Edited by robertuk on Friday 20th February 22:56

arcturus

1,494 posts

281 months

Sunday 22nd February 2004
quotequote all
I have to concur with the comment above that £1500 for a simple static 6 page html site is rather steep, even if it does include hosting.

If I charged that in my local area, I would be out of work since no-one would pay it. If the customer can provide all the copy (which is implied in the original post) then I would reckon that £600 (maybe less) plus the cost of hosting (less than £50 per yr for a shared server on the backbone in London) would be more like it. Ready to be shot down in flames.....

arcturus

1,494 posts

281 months

Sunday 22nd February 2004
quotequote all
robertuk said:


PC System £750
Macromedia StudioMX £780
Adobe Photoshop £ 535
Books/ £250
Annual subscription magazines £120
Digital Camera £400
Annual broadband account £300
(Prices are approx.)

Total so far: £3135 !




Whilst I understand what you are saying, and yes I use Photoshop, Dreamweaver (and ocasionally I still use Hot Metal)etc, here is another perspective:

Notepad - free with windows
Paint Shop Pro - £75
Books - One really good one £40
Magazines - 2 at most, you really have time to read more? -£50
Digital Camera - Why? My clients provide the pics.
Broadband - I wish!! £150 for dial-up.

My point is whilst you can spend a lot of money, you don't need to just because someone says you should.

>> Edited by arcturus on Sunday 22 February 01:40

Jnr

483 posts

269 months

Sunday 22nd February 2004
quotequote all
At the other end of the Spectrum....

What would a website the likes of Argos or another big retailer cost for building start to finish excluding hosting ????


Jnr

robertuk

591 posts

280 months

Sunday 22nd February 2004
quotequote all
Step aboard !

Example of Sun Microsystem

1996 Webpage :
http://web.archive.org/web/19961220061613/www.sun.com/index.html

1999
http://web.archive.org/web/19990225154515/www.sun.com/

2001
http://web.archive.org/web/20010224173820/www.sun.com/

2003
http://web.archive.org/web/20030206193155/www.sun.com/

Notice how the design /layout has changed with time.
As we get tools which are eaier to use *and* more advanced , our community benefits.

I could design+develop and launch a fully functional Ecommerce site with a budget of £4500 and annual costs of £150. A few years ago a similar system would have needed a team of developers/designers and cost over 10,000.

...and I'm not talking about one of those pretty e-commerce packages with five design templates or more (or less ) :-)

Notepad is still useful , but I prefer Dreamweaver's color coded editor.

My favourite Opensource apps are:

www.gimp.org -- Opens .PSD (photoshop ) files with layers intact and has a range of filters.

www.openoffice.org

Office suite which can:
Open/save MS Office formats
Export to PDF

FileZilla -- FTP Client

A variety of high performance but complicated 3d tools.

Bodo

12,425 posts

284 months

Sunday 22nd February 2004
quotequote all
robertuk said:
My favourite Opensource apps are:

www.gimp.org -- Opens .PSD (photoshop ) files with layers intact and has a range of filters.
TheGimp 1.3 even saves *.psd files. Haven't tested if all features will be exported, but the *.psd files are a lot bigger than the *.xcf files

stevieb

5,252 posts

285 months

Sunday 22nd February 2004
quotequote all
RObertuk

just done a search for PH a few years back, god dont the layout look a bit dated

By the standards now on PH

Steve

Bodo

12,425 posts

284 months

Sunday 22nd February 2004
quotequote all

dontlift

9,396 posts

276 months

Sunday 22nd February 2004
quotequote all
Jnr said:
At the other end of the Spectrum....

What would a website the likes of Argos or another big retailer cost for building start to finish excluding hosting ????


Jnr




For the likes of Argos, you would also have to include all the integration work to their backend systems, management apps etc, multiserver environment to handle the traffic etc etc etc probably £500,000

But as robert says, e-commerce can be got for reasonable monet 3-5k is typically with costs around 150-250 p/a

>> Edited by dontlift on Sunday 22 February 16:37

Sparks

Original Poster:

1,217 posts

297 months

Monday 23rd February 2004
quotequote all
Hi all,

Thanks for your input all (and personal emails).

I realise the difference between a basic and professional site, but this guy is a classical musician, and therefore permanently broke (just had his laptop stolen too )

Sparks

arcturus

1,494 posts

281 months

Tuesday 24th February 2004
quotequote all
Have to say that 'basic' and 'professional' are not mutually exclusive!!

I have done a few professional, but basic sites for small companies on a limited budget.

davidd

6,609 posts

302 months

Tuesday 24th February 2004
quotequote all
We can do you a basic site using our building site system. This starts at £400 for a 5 page site including a feedback form, mailing list support etc.

Extra pages are £75 each if we do them or free if the customer does them (to a limit of 20 pages).

This assumes the customer provides the graphics and content.

Igentics Buildingsite gives the user a pretty good degree of control over their website content, they can add/edit/remove pages, upload graphics maintina menues etc, etc.

If you want to know more please email me.

Cheers

D.