Forum Moderators: LifeinAsia
I know there is GPL software out there that could be modified to meet my needs, and I know this quote is for custom programming, but I almost died when I saw that number.
My question: How much would you spend on a site that has growing traffic (about 10,000 unique per month), media attention, advertising revenue, and really does have a lot of potential. What does the average person spend on a professional site's coding?
I guess I'd start by projecting your earnings for a few years then asking myslef how much the coding would cost and how much would you excecpt it to enhance your revenues.
As an aside, buy an open source script if possible that does most of what you want and modify it. 30k will suddenly become more like 5k. You can get good programmers for $10 an hour now very easily. It's not the good old days (for them) anymore... for you, maybe.
By the way, welcome to WebmasterWorld.
What does the average person spend on a professional site's coding?
Well, I've worked on sites where the spend has ranged from 2.5 million pounds down to 0 pounds (charity work done for free).
It depends entirely on what the work is - i.e. what the site actually does. More work = higher cost.
For an 'average' e-commerce site with all the features you'd expect these days, with everything written from scratch, us dollars 30,000 doesn't seem unrealistic to me.
But why write it from scratch when, as you say, there's software out there you can use? - either open source or commercial, it'll be cheaper than having it custom written.
best, a.
To set a baseline, in my previous life as a professional programmer (not web site related) $30,000 was three months wages. In the present, I've spent a good portion of the last two years upgrading a website. This was not an upgrade that had specs, but an upgrade that occurred naturally, or organically. The point is that it was a two year job. Even at minimum wage this would have cost more than the 30K quote you now have.
Was it worth it? Our revenue has doubled each year in the last two years. I'd say it was worth every penny.
Having said all that, check those references. 30K can be a huge sinkhole going into incompetent hands if you are not careful.
I believe the current industry answer according to those that measure such stuff is about $580K per year per site.
I charge more, but, the industry answer includes cheaper labor from Asia.
I suggest looking at freelance websites which are heavily populated with programmers from India; like rentacoder and scriptlance.
Keep in mind when the average hourly wage in a country is $1/hour....you can hire top notch guys for $10-20/hour.
My guy has countless years of IT experience and is doing a great job. India is a great resource to tap for cheap and very qualified programmers, designers, customer support etc.
