graeme_p - 9:10 am on Mar 11, 2010 (gmt 0)

That is an interesting comment rocknbill, given that my potential client needs a new site, rather than minor additional functionality, because of previous bad work by someone who, to put it mildly, did not real have the coding skills needed (a db table per page!).

I live in a cheap outsourcing country, and I can tell you that the people doing a $500 project for $50 are not just cheap because they are here - they are cheap because they are no good. It being a global market cuts both ways and, if you are any good, you can charge a lot more than in the past (even though you may have to invest some of that money in pretending that you are not here - at least one sizeable IT consultancy does just that, and my former employer, a software vendor, did their marketing out of the Boston office).

I plan to justify cost on reliability, being local (in the same town), and having a track record (he likes my own sites)