How Can Someone Get Realistic Estimates?

An NPO is Getting Crazy Low Bids

[cmarshall]

Here's the scoop:

I do Web sites pro bono for an NPO.

They want to find out how much it would cost them to replace me, should I fall dead/flip out/run away and join the circus.

Fair enough.

It's a LAMP site. Heavy on the MP. Basically, a small-scale custom CMS I designed myself.

There is some AJAX, but not a whole lot. The site is actually about 5 years old, with mostly tweaking. I'm about to switch in some pretty nice Google Maps stuff.

They went to an outfit called guru.com, and asked for bids.

They got crazy responses. The Highest was $65/hr, but the lowest was...get this...$15/hr. Local to the NY area (which is where they searched).

Now, I have never known anyone who does this level of coding to charge less than $100/hr, but I don't hang a Web design shingle, and times have been tough.

I do know that there are people who act as "job brokers" for people in Russia and India. I also know that they can do very good work; which is where I'll bet the $15/hr came from.

My question is this: How can I get realistic local price quotes? I think that guru.com may be just about totally worthless, judging from this response.

I don't want to make things tough for them. I have zero financial interest in this, so I am, honestly, looking for people who could do the work at the level at which it was created. I don't want someone to trash the old one and replace it with a FrontPage monstrosity that requires the original Web designer to come in and make any and all changes; especially since there are other sites that depend on XML streams from this site.

I don't want a clueless n00b coming in and blowing it up. There's a lot of legacy PHP code here that needs to be maintained. However, I'm not after hiring Happy Cog to take care of it either. This is an NPO that runs on poverty.

Any ideas where I can get them realistic bids?

[vincevincevince]

If you believe that it needs someone local, then you must advertise locally. Put an ad in the local paper. Better yet, read the local paper, and see what similar employers are offering. You don't generally get freelancers in your local area unless you are very lucky, you get part-time or contract based staff.

[prfb]

Craigslist is pretty good for finding local talent, at least here in SF. Post on the local board, and say in your ad that you need someone local (and define what that means to you). You may still get responses from India, but not so much as on other sites. Plus if you're looking for a contractor rather than an employee you can post in the "gigs" section for free.

In terms of figuring out whether an estimate is realistic, if the NPO doesn't have any tech-savvy people after you hypothetically drop dead, they could...
- Get several estimates and compare
- Ask for references from other clients, to see if the guy really does what he says

-Patricia

[cmarshall]

Thanks Patricia!

Not bad for a first post. Starting off contributing!

Welcome to WebmasterWorld!

[ethnicomm]

You can also ask them to provide their phone number so you can call them. This will eliminate a fair bit of the offshore bidders.

To get realistic estimates, you need to ensure that your brief is thorough. That way everyone knows what they're getting into.

[cmarshall]

To get realistic estimates, you need to ensure that your brief is thorough.

That's an issue. They only have a basic technology listing from the original spec.

Guru.com has a very restrictive and, in my opinion, archaic and pathetic set of capabilities for IT/Web design. It doesn't even have PHP as an option. It seems far more concerned about using Photoshop and Illustrator, or HTML/CSS than anything else. They throw JavaScript in almost as an afterthought.

Also, their maximum hourly rate is $100. That tells me they aren't really a serious shop.

I'd like to be able to screen responses, but they are just likely to say I'm being too restrictive when I start nixing 75% of the candidates.